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Iraqis must resort to resistance if US forces refuse to pull out: Senior Nujaba official

Press TV – January 14, 2020

The deputy secretary general of Iraq’s al-Nujaba Movement says the Iraqi nation must choose the path of resistance in case the parliamentary bill demanding the withdrawal of all US-led foreign military forces from the country is not implemented.

“The Iraqi people must opt for the path of resistance unless the parliament’s decision on the pullout of foreign forces is carried out,” Nasr al-Shammari said in an exclusive interview with Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network on Tuesday.

He added that the decision to expel foreign forces from Iraq does not need a parliamentary mandate, stating that the US-led military coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh terrorist group entered Iraq at the request of Baghdad government and can be removed by a letter from the government as well.

“The decision concerning the removal of foreign forces from Iraq is the only decision taken away from sectarian fault lines. A person of sound mind cannot accept the presence of a foreign state that imposes its own authority on a sovereign country. If getting foreign forces out of Iraq is a charge, then we consider it as an honor for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren,” Shammari pointed out.

He then noted that all Iraqi resistance factions are united to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, saying, “The United States must respect the sovereignty of states and decisions of peoples, and adhere to them.”

“Iraq will not accept being ruled by any country. Any failure to implement the parliament decision on the withdrawal of foreign forces will give the green light for the start of resistance operations,” Shammari highlighted.

The Nujaba official went on to say that Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), better known by the Arabic word Hashd al-Sha’abi, have become more coherent and solid in the wake of the recent US assassination of the second-in-command of PMU, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

“The death of Muhandis does not mean the end of Hashd al-Sha’abi and its role in the region,” Shammari said.

He added that Iraqi resistance groups are indebted to Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

“The resistance against US forces will soon attain its goal of removing foreign troops from the Iraqi soil. The blood of martyrs will finally bring about the demise of the Zionist entity, and the end of its occupation of Arab lands,” Shammari concluded.

Baghdad moving to internationally prosecute US for crimes in Iraq

Meanwhile, a member of the Iraqi Parliamentary Human Rights Committee said the Baghdad government was preparing to prosecute the United States at international courts of law for its crimes in Iraq, noting that the offenses amount to genocide.

“The United States has been committing the most heinous war crimes since 2003 up until now. The invasion of Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, the Nisour Square massacre and the emergence of Daesh (Takfiri terrorist group) besides the attack on the leaders of Hashd al-Sha’abi are all crimes classified as genocide,” Ahmed al-Kanani said in a statement on Tuesday.

Kanani added, “All the crimes that America has perpetrated against the Iraqi nation are documented, and that there are bids to prosecute Washington for its crimes against Iraqis before international courts.”

On January 5, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country.

Late on January 9, Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.

According to a statement released by the Iraqi premier’s office, Abdul-Mahdi “requested that delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement the parliament’s decision for the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq” in a phone call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The prime minister said Iraq rejects violation of its sovereignty, particularly the US military’s violation of Iraqi airspace in the airstrike that assassinated Lt. Gen. Soleimani, Muhandis and their companions.

Abdul-Mahdi asked Pompeo to “send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism to carry out the parliament’s resolution regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” the statement said.

“The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities and this was a violation of the bilateral agreements,” the statement added.

The US State Department bluntly rejected the request the following day.

January 14, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Sealed Off and Forgotten: What You Should Know about Israel’s ‘Firing Zones’ in the West Bank

A concrete marker placed by Israeli forces demarcating the beginning of the military zone near Tubas in the Jordan Valley, northern West Bank [DCIP/Cody O'Rourke]

A concrete marker placed by Israeli forces demarcating the beginning of the military zone near Tubas in the Jordan Valley, northern West Bank [DCIP/Cody O’Rourke]
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 13, 2020

A seemingly ordinary news story, published in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on January 7, shed light on a long-forgotten, yet crucial, subject: Israel’s so-called “firing zones” in the West Bank.

“Israel has impounded the only vehicle available to a medical team that provides assistance to 1,500 Palestinians living inside an Israeli military firing zone in the West Bank,” according to Haaretz.

The Palestinian community that was denied its only access to medical services is Masafer Yatta, a tiny Palestinian village located in the South Hebron hills.

Masafer Yatta, which exists in complete and utter isolation from the rest of the occupied West Bank, is located in ‘Area C’, which constitutes the larger territorial chunk, about 60%, of the West Bank. This means that the village, along with many Palestinian towns, villages and small, isolated communities, is under total Israeli military control.

Do not let the confusing logic of the Oslo Accords fool you; all Palestinians, in all parts of the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip, are under Israeli military control as well.

Unfortunately for Masafer Yatta, and those living in ‘Area C’, however, the degree of control is so suffocating that every aspect of Palestinian life – freedom of movement, education, access to clean water, and so on – is controlled by a complex system of Israeli military ordinances that have no regard whatsoever for the well-being of the beleaguered communities.

It is no surprise, then, that Masafer Yatta’s only vehicle, a desperate attempt at fashioning a mobile clinic, was confiscated in the past as well, and was only retrieved after the impoverished residents were forced to pay a fine to Israeli soldiers.

There is no military logic in the world that could rationally justify the barring of medical access to an isolated community, especially when an Occupying Power like Israel is legally obligated under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure medical access to civilians living in an Occupied Territory.

It is only natural that Masafer Yatta, like all Palestinians in ‘Area C’ and the larger West Bank, feel neglected – and outright betrayed – by the international community as well as their own quisling leadership.

But there is more that makes Masafer Yatta even more unique, qualifying it for the unfortunate designation of being a Bantustan within a Bantustan, as it subsists in a far more complex system of control, compared to the one imposed on black South Africa during the Apartheid regime era.

Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, it devised a long-term stratagem aimed at the permanent control of the newly occupied territories. While it designated some areas for the future relocation of its own citizens – who now make up the extremist illegal Jewish settler population in the West Bank – it also set aside large swathes of the Occupied Territories as security and buffer zones.

What is far less known is that, throughout the 1970s, the Israeli military declared roughly 18% of the West Bank as “firing zones”.

These “firing zones” were supposedly meant as training grounds for the Israeli occupation army soldiers – although Palestinians trapped in these regions often report that little or no military training takes place within “firing zones”.

According to the Office for the UN Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine, there are around 5,000 Palestinians, divided among 38 communities that still live, under most dire circumstances, within the so-called “firing zones”.

The 1967 occupation led to a massive wave of ethnic cleansing that saw the forced removal of approximately 300,000 Palestinians from the newly-conquered territory. Many of the vulnerable communities that were ethnically cleansed included Palestinian Bedouins, who continue to pay the price for Israel’s colonial designs in the Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills and other parts of occupied Palestine.

This vulnerability is compounded by the fact that the Palestinian Authority (PA) acts with little regards to Palestinians living in ‘Area C’, who are left to withstand and resist Israeli pressures alone, often resorting to Israel’s own unfair judicial system, to win back some of their basic rights.

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli government, divided the West Bank into three regions: ‘Area A’, theoretically under autonomous Palestinian control and consisting of 17.7% of the overall size of the West Bank; ‘Area B’, 21%, and under shared Israeli-PA control and ‘Area C’, the remainder of the West Bank, and under total Israeli control.

This arrangement was meant to be temporary, set to conclude in 1999 once the “final status negotiations” were concluded and a comprehensive peace accord was signed. Instead, it became the status quo ante.

As unfortunate as the Palestinians living in ‘Area C’ are, those living in the “firing zone” within ‘Area C’ are enduring the most hardship. According to the United Nations, their hardship includes “the confiscation of property, settler violence, harassment by soldiers, access and movement restrictions and/or water scarcity.”

Expectedly, many illegal Jewish settlements sprang up in these “firing zones” over the years, a clear indication that these areas have no military purpose whatsoever, but were meant to provide an Israeli legal justification to confiscate nearly a fifth of the West Bank for future colonial expansion.

Throughout the years, Israel ethnically cleansed all remaining Palestinians in these “firing zones”, leaving behind merely 5,000, who are likely to suffer the same fate should the Israeli occupation continue on the same violent trajectory.

OPINION: The easing of Gaza fishing restrictions meets Israel’s security needs, not fishermen’s interests

This makes the story of Masafer Yatta a microcosm of the tragic and larger story of all Palestinians. It is also a reflection of the sinister nature of Israeli colonialism and military occupation, where occupied Palestinians lose their land, their water, their freedom of movement and eventually, even the most basic medical care.

These harsh “conditions contribute to a coercive environment that creates pressure on Palestinian communities to leave these areas,” according to the United Nations. In other words, ethnic cleansing, which has been Israel’s strategic goal all along.

January 13, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Trump cited GOP hawks’ support as reason to assassinate Soleimani: Reports

Press TV – January 12, 2020

US President Donald Trump has told his associates his decision to assassinate Iran’s top commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani came amid pressure from Senate war hawks he views as crucial allies in his upcoming impeachment trial, according to two separate reports.

As Trump discussed the assassination drone strike at his private mansion in Mar-a-Lago, he told some associates that he wanted to safeguard the backing of Senate Republicans in time for the impeachment trial in the upper chamber, The New York Times said in a report this week.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that after the assassination operation, Trump told associates he was under pressure from a number of Senate Republicans, whose support he needs in the impeachment trial, to take action on the Iranian general.

“Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said,” according to the Journal.

The reports did not mention any Republican senators by name, however, many of the president’s allies in the Senate, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have openly praised his decision to assassinate Gen. Soleimani.

Sen. Graham was reportedly the only senator who was briefed by the administration about the assassination operation.

“I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida. I appreciate being brought into the orbit,” the senator told FOX News.

Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, was assassinated in a US drone strike outside Baghdad’s International Airport last Friday.

The new information comes as the Trump administration is under mounting pressure from Congress concerning the justification for assassinating the senior military official of another country.

The reports further call into questions the narrative by Trump and his top aides that General Soleimani had been planning “imminent” attacks against US personnel and interests. Even some US officials have admitted that there is no evidence to support that claim.

In the wake of the assassination, a number of Republican senators have joined Democrats in pushing back against Trump’s war powers.

January 12, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

After Missiles Fly, Iraq Becomes the Battleground

By Tom Luongo | Gold Goats ‘n Guns | January 10, 2020

The future of the U.S.’s involvement in the Middle East is in Iraq. The exchange of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran occurred wholly on Iraqi soil and it has become the site on which that war will continue.

Israel continues to up the ante on Iran, following President Trump’s lead by bombing Shia militias stationed near the Al Bukumai border crossing between Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. and Israel are determined this border crossing remains closed and have demonstrated just how far they are willing to go to prevent the free flow of goods and people across this border.

The regional allies of Iran are to be kept weak, divided and constantly under harassment.

Iraq is the battleground because the U.S. lost in Syria. Despite the presence of U.S. troops squatting on Syrian oil fields in Deir Ezzor province or the troops sitting in the desert protecting the Syrian border with Jordan, the Russians, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces continue to reclaim territory previously lost to the Syrian government.

Now with Turkey redeploying its pet Salafist head-choppers from Idlib to Libya to fight General Haftar’s forces there to legitimize its claim to eastern Mediterannean gas deposits, the restoration of Syria’s territorial integrity west of the Euphrates River is nearly complete.

The defenders of Syria can soon transition into the rebuilders thereof, if allowed. And they didn’t do this alone, they had a silent partner in China the entire time.

And, if I look at this situation honestly, it was China stepping out from behind the shadows into the light that is your inciting incident for this chapter in Iraq’s story.

China moving in to sign a $10.1 billion deal with the Iraqi government to begin the reconstruction of its ruined oil and gas industry in exchange for oil is of vital importance.

It doubles China’s investment in Iraq while denying the U.S. that money and influence.

This happened after a massive $53 billion deal between Exxon-Mobil and Petrochina was put on hold after the incident involving Iran shooting down a U.S. Global Hawk drone in June.

With the U.S balking over the Exxon/Petrochina big deal, Iraqi Prime Minster Adel Abdul Mahdi signed the new one with China in October. Mahdi brought up the circumstances surrounding that in the Iraqi parliament during the session in which it passed the resolution recommending removal of all foreign forces from Iraq.

Did Trump openly threaten Mahdi over this deal as I covered in my podcast on this? Did the U.S. gin up protests in Baghdad, amplifying unrest over growing Iranian influence in the country?

And, if not, were these threats simply implied or carried by a minion (Pompeo, Esper, a diplomat)? Because the U.S.’s history of regime change operations is well documented. Well understood color revolution tactics used successfully in places like Ukraine, where snipers were deployed to shoot protesters and police alike to foment violence between them at the opportune time were on display in Baghdad.

Mahdi openly accused Trump of threatening him, but that sounds more like Mahdi using the current impeachment script to invoke the sinister side of Trump and sell his case.

It’s not that I don’t think Trump capable of that kind of threat, I just don’t think he’s stupid enough to voice it on an open call. Donald Trump is capable of many impulsive things, openly threatening to remove an elected Prime Minister on a recorded line is not one of them.

Mahdi has been under the U.S.’s fire since he came to power in late 2018. He was the man who refused Trump during Trump’s impromptu Christmas visit to Iraq in 2018, refusing to be summoned to a clandestine meeting at the U.S. embassy rather than Trump visit him as a head of state, an equal.

He was the man who declared the Iraqi air space closed after Israeli air attacks on Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) positions in September.

And he’s the person, at the same time, being asked by Trump to act as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran in peace talks for Yemen.

So, the more we look at this situation the more it is clear that Abdul Madhi, the first Iraqi prime minister since the 2003 U.S. invasion to push for more Iraqi sovereignty, is emerging as the pivotal figure in what led up to the attack on General Soleimani and what comes after Iran’s subsequent retaliation.

It’s clear that Trump doesn’t want to fight a war with Iran in Iran. He wants them to acquiesce to his unreasonable demands and begin negotiating a new nuclear deal which definitively stops the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and as Patrick Henningsen at 21st Century Wire thinks,

Trump now wants a new deal which features a prohibition on Iran’s medium range missiles, and after events this week, it’s obvious why. Wednesday’s missile strike by Iran demonstrates that the US can no longer operate in the region so long as Iran has the ability to extend its own deterrence envelope westwards to Syria, Israel, and southwards to the Arabian Peninsula, and that includes all US military installations located within that radius.

Iraq doesn’t want to be that battlefield. And Iran sent the message with those two missile strikes that the U.S. presence in Iraq is unsustainable and that any thought of retreating to the autonomous Kurdish region around the air base at Erbil is also a non-starter.

The big question, after this attack, is whether U.S. air defenses around the Ain al Assad airbase west of Ramadi were active or not. If they were then Trump’s standing down after the air strikes signals what Patrick suggests, a new Middle East in the making.

If they were not turned on then the next question is why? To allow Iran to save face after Trump screwed up in murdering Soleimani?

I’m not capable of believing such Q-tard drivel at this point. It’s far more likely that the spectre of Russian electronics warfare and radar evasion is lurking in the subtext of this story and the U.S. truly now finds itself after a second example of Iranian missile technology in a nascent 360 degree war in the region.

It means that Iran’s threats against the cities of Haifa and Dubai were real.

In short, it means the future of the U.S. presence in Iraq now measures in months not years.

Because both China and Russia stand to gain ground with a newly-united Shi’ite Iraqi population. Mahdi is now courting Russia to sell him S-300 missile defense systems to allow him to enforce his demands about Iraqi airspace.

Moqtada al-Sadr is mobilizing his Madhi Army to oust the U.S. from Iraq. Iraq is key to the U.S. presence in the region. Without Iraq the U.S. position in Syria is unsustainable.

If the U.S. tries to retreat to Kurdish territory and push again for Masoud Barzani and his Peshmerga forces to declare independence Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will go ballistic.

And you can expect him to make good on his threat to close the Incerlik airbase, another critical logistical juncture for U.S. force projection in the region.

But it all starts with Mahdi’s and Iraq’s moves in the coming weeks. But, with Trump rightly backing down from escalating things further and not following through on his outlandish threats against Iran, it may be we’re nearing the end of this intractable standoff.

Back in June I told you that Iran had the ability to fight asymmetrically against the U.S., not through direct military confrontation but through the after-effects of a brief, yet violent period of war in which all U.S., Israeli and Arab assets in the Middle East come under fire from all directions.

It sent this same message then that by attacking oil tankers it could make the transport of oil untenable and not insurable. We got a taste of it back then and Trump, then, backed down.

And the resultant upheaval in the financial markets creating an abyss of losses, cross-asset defaults, bank failures and government collapses.

Trump has no real option now but to negotiate while Iraq puts domestic pressure on him to leave and Russia/China come in to provide critical economic and military support to assist Mahdi rally his country back towards some semblance of sovereignty.

January 12, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Code-Panic: A Controlled Opposition Spectacle

By Gilad Atzmon | January 12, 2020

Ariel Gold is the national co-director of CODEPINK, an American female  “grassroots peace and social justice movement” that claims to  work “to end U.S.-funded wars and occupations.” Ariel claims to support the Palestinians and oppose Israel. She has published  articles in Jewish progressive outlets such as the Forward, Tikkun Magazine and Mondoweiss.

On January 3rd, just a few hours after the world became aware of the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by an American drone attack,  Ariel, the so called ‘Jewish dissenter’ rushed to post the following tweet:

“Loving reminder to folks rightfully horrified the US attack on Iran: please don’t frame this as being as being done to please Israel. This is Donald Trump and his band of US war hawks, period. To suggest Jews are pulling the strings is nothing short of antisemitism.”

The Jewish progressive activist basically insisted that any such criticism of  Israel was ‘antisemitism.’ She was also naive to prematurely vindicate the Jewish State of involvement in the unlawful assassination: a crime that may lead to unpredictable and lethal consequences in the near future.

Today’s news reports that Israel was deeply involved in the targeted assassination of the Iranian general. The Times of Israel’s headline this morning reads:

“Israeli intel helped US carry out strike that killed Iran’s Soleimani.” The article states that “Information provided by Jewish state confirmed that Quds Force leader was at Baghdad airport before missile strike, NBC News reports.”

Amongst my sins is the argument I have made for almost two decades: for the solidarity and peace movements to be genuine, functional and effective they must be emancipated from the grip of the so called Jewish progressives. As things stand at the moment, solidarity with the oppressed is restricted by the sensitivities of the oppressor.

January 12, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tel Aviv calls for Gulf States to unite with Israel against Iran

MEMO | January 11, 2020

Former Israeli communication minister, Ayoob Kara, has called for the Gulf States to form a security and economic “union” with Israel, to stand against Iran at all levels, Shehab News Agency reported on Friday.

Kara, who is very close to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on Twitter that the goal of this “union” is to be a “strong front in the face of Iranian evil.”

The tweet came after the Iranian declaration that Iran would turn its hostile arms against Haifa and Dubai. In his tweet, Kara announces: “It is time that the States of the Arab Gulf come together with Israel in a security and economic union to stand against Iran’s threats in the Middle East.”

 

January 11, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Empire Games and Ghouls

By Taxi | Plato’s Guns | January 11, 2020

What is Empire but a colossal corporation whose sole mission is the hostile takeover of everything on earth?

What is Empire but a titanic shark charging forth and gobbling up all lifeforms in its path?

What is Empire but a gluttonous, gargantuan gut full of humanity’s tears and shredded corpses?

Addicted to bloodlust and war porn, and hooked to the bone on Vulture Capitalism, a rapacious Empire struts and swaggers across our globe: demanding other nations’ resources and servitude at gunpoint, while holding a plastic olive branch in its brute fist. Always speaking from both sides of its mouth, Empire plays a game of sadistic ownership with humanity.

… And it was always forever thus.

Our human history consists mainly of the rise and fall of some 70 empires of all sizes – and all of them have by now violently perished, all but one, that is. We call it, Pax Americana. Students of the rise and fall of empires observe how the lifespan of empires have tended to get shorter and shorter down the line of time, indicating poorer and poorer management by empire, coupled with an increased resistance to its dominion – resistance that’s due to humanity’s growing awareness of the insatiable brutality and nihilism of imperial power.

Humanity in the 21st century is no longer in awe of imperialism. It rejects it as a sole domineering power. It rejects it as a civilizing force. It sees no refinement or humanism in imperial behavior or ideology. The majority of people nowadays, regardless of their political bent, lean towards equitable independence of nation and equitable free trade. Being beholden to Empire’s caprice does not serve to fulfill these two aspirations that are fundamental to the progress of nations. Empire has bruised the face and body of the world and its punches keep coming. This is the very cause of rebellion against Empire.

Traditionally, Empires have flourished in longevity because they managed to establish and sustain local consent. There was some measure of give-and-take between Emperor and Satellite, even though the Emperor always landed the lion’s share. Today’s ruling Empire behaves in an opposite manner: it rules regardless of local consent and it demands to take-and-take from all its subjects. It demands that humanity gives in to it and just gives and gives. Give everything and get a conditional meager little in return. Since Perestroika, this gluttonous-mobster method has worked to fatten up Empire into obesity while the world went hungry. This wanton gangdom, this imperial Cosa Nostra is now full of cholesterol and drunk on the vinegar of power. Presently, Empire has become as if a foggy-headed, prehistoric beast: a giant carnivore snorting and slobbering over the world. In its wake lay many theaters of war, numerous bankruptcies and global, existential insecurity.

But who is this Pax Americana? Who is the Emperor?

Unlike any other empire before it, Pax Americana is not what it seems. It is not the Emperor himself, as is traditional with Empire’s visage. No bust of the Emperor is etched on contemporary market coins. No bronze busts of the Emperor litter our plazas and squares. Today’s Emperor is but a face from a catalogue, a sock puppet, a mouthpiece. Currently, he is an eccentric parrot with orange feathers, hostile and freakishly squawking down the ear whorl of the world. Today’s Emperor has been reduced to mouthing a sales pitch dictated to him by a shadowy entity practicing gruff ventriloquism through his mean lips.

And this very shifty entity working the puppetry from the shadows to create more shadows: it has a face, and it has a name too. Israel.

By a long and rusty chain of conspiracy and deception, Israel has hijacked both Empire and Emperor. Therefore it now owns the global domain. Shape-shifting, it has usurped the head of god. It has found entry into the halls of power through a sordid backdoor and it has wholesale kidnapped the Emperor and his family. It now possesses all his powers and is in the process of exploiting all and everyone at Empire’s disposal. The Emperor is but a hapless hostage to Israel’s relentless demands. Haughty demands that empower Israel but weaken the very spine and lifespan of Empire. One could say that Pax Americana is currently committing slow suicide with a dagger whose iron was cast in Tel Aviv. The Emperor knows all this only too well, but, pickled in vanity and the salts of narcissism, he is impervious and indifferent to this behemoth and life-threatening corruption. All Emperor cares about is keeping a crown on his elaborate coiffure – for as long as possible. This is all that matters to the current Emperor: the crown and its opulent prestige. Therefore, he is profoundly guilty of enabling the very destruction of his own Empire.

And destruction, as we all know, is the moon-shadow that perpetually stalks all empires.

Today, we see evidence of Empire hemorrhaging power and influence, especially in the Middle East, where, indeed, Israel is located. We see the stalking shadow of destruction grow taller at Empire’s feet right there. And we see Empire frantically trying to cover up its weaknesses with bluster and propaganda. We observe it unsuccessfully manufacturing fake realities it would like the world to believe. Fantasies composed by agents of Tel Aviv – delusions of excessive grandeur uttered by the Emperor before the cameras of the world, indeed upon instruction from Tel Aviv. Hubris galore. Empire’s image engine running on pure mythomania. All to hide the reality of its weakening status – and to hide especially the gnarly hands of its puppet master.

All to hide that Pax Americana no longer exists.

But, Pax Judaica does.

Yes, the Shadow Empire has successfully replaced Empire. In secret. Away from the eyes of most of humanity. The transition is now complete. For all intents and purposes, Pax Americana will now take the blame for Pax Judaica’s crimes. And Pax Judaica will benefit from the cover as well as the cover up: its elite agents being the only ones reaping the benefits of Empire’s grotesque plunder.

These are the games being played by a compromised Empire and Emperor right now. Games of mass deception, mass crime coverups, and the fleecing of the very heart and Mint of Empire and the world at large.

Mass warfare by the Shadow Empire now dominates the daily headlines around the globe. The practice of rabid usury by the predatory banks of the Shadow Empire have knee-capped and punched the empty gut of both friend and foe of Pax Americana. No one is spared. Agony, hunger and war destitution are now the norm under the clandestine and concealed management of Pax Judaica.

The world is under the mercy of Pax Judaica. An inherently criminal entity that scoffs at mercy and any other form of humanism. A Shadow Empire that assassinates or ruins all who expose it and all who challenge it. Resistors to Pax Judaica are singled out as legitimate targets. But, the heavier the hand of Pax Judaica, the more resistors are born and the more proactive resistance is conjured between them. History repeats itself, indeed. Resistance to Pax Judaica is now palpably felt on all the continents of the world. Momentum is growing, albeit in snips and snaps. Resistance is felt most in the Middle East, right at the doorstep of Israel, or Pax Judaica, as it should be more accurately called.

Pax Judaica: thief of Empires and murderer of the prophets of peace.

Pax Judaica: the eyeless leech that will eventually leech its own blood chambers once the veins of Pax Americana are finally drained.

This is the fate of all Empires: self-destruction.

And considering the frighteningly stupendous amount of amassed Weapons of Mass Destruction in our modern age, any death of any empire will also cause the colossal collateral death of perhaps a hundred million human lives – possibly even more. This is indeed a bleak but very plausible estimation.

And this is precisely the moral dilemma of the Axis of Resistance. How to shred Empire with least cost to humanity itself?

Pierce Empire with a thousand cuts and watch it drain of blood over time? Or, do as our cave ancestors did with giant beasts: confuse and drive the herd towards a cliff and over it.

Perhaps a combination of both tactics is what’s required.

Humanity braces itself for darker days to come. And in the meantime, the Shadow Empire, known otherwise as Pax Judaica, will continue in sure strides its covert assaults on Pax Americana and its overt assaults on both the Axis of Resistance and the peaceful world at large.

A maleficent and fiendish ghoul seeking humanity’s jugular.

But it will eventually be stopped by opposing forces that are currently gathering mass and momentum. The Axis of the East: Russia and China (and all their allies from Asia to South America) will eventually publicly and officially partner up with the Axis of Resistance: Iran and its Middle Eastern allies. Their multiple strategies will distill and assimilate into one. Their multitude of forces will find common platforms of cooperation on differing battlefields. The combined size of their power will be Empire’s reckoning. And we are already beginning to see clear signs of this opportune integration between the Axis of the East and the Axis of Resistance. Together, the two sanguine Axises will take on the immense and complex challenge of dislocating the hand and ankle joints of Empire, therefore, also the Shadow Empire’s clinging limbs will be splayed too. A seemingly impossible double-duty that targets a two-headed Empire. Their success is not assured but highly likely: considering the current ongoing self-inflicted hemorrhaging of Empire’s powers.

And the price for liberating the world from the murderous choke-hold of Empire? Here, I can only sigh…

And what of the nature of the force that will take Empire’s place? Is it trustworthy? Will it be more benevolent towards humanity than Empire was? Especially considering all that added and supreme power that will be in their victorious hands? I’ll answer these questions with a George Orwell quote: “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it”.

Therefore, for generational survival, a global paradigm shift in political thought is what’s pressingly needed for humanity. We will continue to witness further instability to our world, regardless of who the victor in the battle of Empires is. We, as one suffering humanity scattered across the world, we will not know peace, prosperity and enduring safety till the very ideology of imperialism is vanquished from the very mindset of modern times. Imperialism and all its supremacist sperm must be rejected and ejected from the womb of the future.

Therefore, it behooves humanity to begin unabashedly addressing the very imperialist ideology behind the woes of the world, present and historic. It is not sufficient rebellion to only criticize the foul words of the Emperor, or the daily mass crimes of the Shadow Empire. Imperialism itself is the very target question here.

The motto for our 21st century should read: In Empire we do not trust.

Regardless of the nationality of Empire.

January 11, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Kerfuffle War – Trump’s Iran De-escalation Succeeds

By Joaquin Flores | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 9, 2020

Just like that, it was over. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called it ‘a kerfuffle’. A letter was sent to their Iraqi peers that the U.S was repositioning troops out of Iraq in accordance with legislation from Iraq ending the U.S military presence in the war-torn country, and suddenly then it was retracted by higher-ups. Running interference, Mark Esper backed Milley and said it was ‘an honest mistake’. It all went down within a day of the irrational assassination of Iran’s Soleimani.

The immediate termination of Chewning and Sweeney, at the same time as the assassination of Soleimani and Iran’s response raises some big questions. In the near future it will be of critical importance to get to the bottom of any possible relationship that Esper and his subordinates Chewning and Sweeney – who both served as Defense Secretary Esper’s Chiefs of Staff – had to the assassination of Soleimani. The assassination and any number of possible Iranian responses, can push the U.S into a broad and open military conflict with Iran. Such a war would also be Trump’s undoing.

We might otherwise be led to believe that Chewning and Sweeney’s sudden departure has something to do with Ukraine and the recent release of unredacted emails relating to L3Harris Technologies and funding in Ukraine. These of course also relate to the case against Trump and any possible impeachment. But the timing and symbolism of these as concurrent with the provocation against Iran and the blowback, as well as Esper’s backing of the ‘Kerfuffle theory’, lends strong credence to an Iran connection.

The connection to impeachment cannot be denied, but the necessity of uncovering its potential relation to Iran is tremendously important because it directly relates to larger constitutional and practical questions of the president’s ability to have a Department of Defense that works either for or against U.S strategy as formulated and executed by its democratically elected leadership, as opposed to its permanent bureaucratic administration. This is what Trump and his supporters quite rightfully refer to as the ‘Deep State’.

Were elements in the defense department working towards a heightened brinksmanship that the president did not really want? It would be far from the first time in history that such was the case.

Because the proverbial excrement rolls down-hill, was Esper involved in ordering Soleimani’s assassination which Trump was not informed of until it was too late, or until after? Chewning and Sweeney’s fate may be understood here. The ‘kerfuffle’ which was the withdrawal statement would then be a simple ruse to distract from the actual reasons that Chewning and Sweeney were terminated – acting without orders, insubordination, and even treason.

Trump’s Balancing Policy on Iran and America’s leadership crisis

One undeniable point is that a war with Iran works entirely against Trump’s middle-east policy and his prospects for re-election.

What the Trump administration seeks most now is a de-escalation with Iran. Given that Trump has fueled a rumor mill including the possible ending of sanctions if Iran doesn’t respond, or that there will be no further attacks if Iran’s response is ‘reasonable’, all exists in the unspoken framework that Trump inherently recognizes the ‘guilt’ of the U.S in its irrational act, while it is nevertheless politically impossible to frame it overtly as such.

Impeachment against Trump has now been used several times to push him to act aggressively in the middle-east, contrary to his policy and self-interest. On all the ‘impeachment threat – then strike’ occasions, Trump ordered strikes on predictable targets – targets so predictable and oddly executed, that Syrian and Iranian forces barely felt them. There appears to be at the very least an ‘unspoken communication’ at play, where strikes are made to assuage political needs but not to inflict serious damage. If Trump really wanted an excuse to strike Iran, he’s had it before.

There was precisely such an opportunity when subversives in government hatched a plan to push Trump into a war with Iran, when two planes were sent to violate Iranian airspace – one manned, the other unmanned – flying in close proximity. This created the chance that Iran’s downing of either plane could be used as a pretext for a major war-creating strike on Iran.

Despite Trump’s acting reasonably, government actors and media attempted to create a sensation where Trump was ridiculed for ‘calling off’ a planned retaliation in the aftermath of the downed drone. The same liberal media and Democratic Party establishment that attacked Trump’s de-escalation then from a hawkish perspective, today manifest as doves who suddenly oppose Trump’s reckless hawkishness.

Here, in the aftermath of the drone incident, a Trump policy was formulated – and it’s a policy that figures prominently in de-escalation in the aftermath of the assassination of Soleimani and Iran’s measured response.

The policy is this – if Iran kills Americans, then the U.S escalates. If the U.S does something provocative, then Iran is actually allowed to respond militarily, so long as American personnel are not killed.

Iran’s striking of the al-Asad airbase was predictable. That Trump has decided to officially declare that there were no U.S casualties has indicated his real stance. In all reality, the predictability of the target was such that American soldiers would have been repositioned out of that base, so that Iran could assuage its own popular-democratic needs in terms of legitimacy, without forcing the U.S. to respond again further.

Between an AIPAC rock and an Anti-War Hard-spot

A war with Iran would push the anti-war sentiments of independent voters away from Trump, and towards a more revitalized and mobilized Democrat Party anti-war base. Trump needs an anti-war base to be re-elected, and war with Iran pushes that base towards nearly any Democrat candidate.

At the same time, Trump also needs the continued support from America’s Christian Zionist evangelical ‘Israel Firsters’, as well as the infamous AIPAC, not only to be re-elected, but to maintain the support in the senate against impeachment.

That conflict between Trump’s two greatest populist strengths – between Trump’s anti-war base and his Christian Zionist base – largely defines his weakest political spot. That’s why it’s the best place to attack him.

Trump for his part, has a frenemy relationship with AIPAC, and has worked hard to build his profile with Christian Zionist voters even to the extent that this might limit AIPAC’s influence on them. He has purchased a lot of AIPAC support along the way by tearing up the JCPOA and recognizing the Golan Heights and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This is capital he will have to spend to maintain support in the Senate.

All together this means that while Trump may or may not have personally sought the assassination of Soleimani, he must take credit for it for any number of reasons. In brief, these relate again to the Zionist base and AIPAC, as well as needing to appear in control of the very country that he is nominally the president of. When Trump refused to go to war over the downing of the un-manned drone, the liberal media monopoly accused him of being soft on Iran and indecisive.

Israel for its part is not tremendously happy with either of the two competing U.S policies. They have been pushing a ‘bomb Iran’ line for years, so that Israel’s conquest of Iraq may come to be. They are also not happy that the U.S presence in the region will come to an end. Trump may or may not have green-lit Soleimani’s assassination, but in either event its result will be the purchase of political capital that he can use towards ending the anti-ISIS campaign in Iraq. The reality is that the U.S is being pushed out either way. Soleimani’s assassination has only strengthened that resolve.

Simultaneously, the anti-war sentiment in the U.S. is one that both led to Trump’s election and can lead to Trump’s undoing. Americans love sabre rattling and posturing. They also hate war.

To wit, in the immediate aftermath of the Soleimani assassination, the well-known American communist group – the PSL – and its anti-war front organization ‘ANSWER’ have already received incredible donations from deep-pocketed Democrat Party sponsors at the local party level, to stage the first significant anti-war demonstration since the Bush presidency. While PSL/ANSWER members and activists have been laudable in their consistent opposition to all American wars for capital and empire, they only seem to magically receive the funds for permits, advertising, organizing, and staging anti-war marches when a Republican is president. The secondary slogan of these mobilizations was ‘Dump Trump’. ‘Dump Obama’ was never a slogan seen at the non-existent mass mobilizations against the Libyan, Ukrainian, and Syrian wars.  Trump’s refusal to take the Democrat-laid war bait, means he can pull off an end-run around the Democrat and deep-state plot.

Democrats also don’t want war with Iran, they only want that Trump loses the anti-war vote. They can force him into these compromised positions by coordinating with the ‘permanent administrative military-intelligence bureaucracy’, by coordinating with AIPAC. The Democrat’s plan is therefore pretty simple: use impeachment to force him to strike at Iran (or get Trump to take credit for a strike that the deep-state pulled off), and then use that entanglement to tank his re-election prospects. Then Democrats ride in on an anti-war ticket, restart JCPOA, and move towards integrating Iranian elites into the EU economy. Israel could ultimately guarantee its piece of Iraq and its Greek pipeline deal in due course, with a reformed and EU friendly Iran, ready to make major compromises with Israel. Maybe this is what Biden means by ‘restorationist’ – restoring the traditional left/right political divide which has empowered the Atlanticist status quo.

A Backroom deal? Iran’s Measured Response and Trump’s face-saving

The successful attack on the US’s al-Asad airbase in Iraq was characterized by Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei has characterized as a ‘slap’.

Interestingly, Khamenei’s language used is strategic, and uses a sleight of hand to take the steam from possible opponents. It is clear that Khamenei has said today that while the attack on the airbase is just a slap, and that Iran’s full response will come in the future, he has in fact set up that the solution will be political and diplomatic. He did so in a creative way which appeals to hardliners, saying that any solution could not simply be political and diplomatic, but rather more than this. This sort of double-speak does not reflect any moral lapsus, but is necessary for Iran’s greater geopolitical aims and serves the greater good.

De-escalation requires that both parties save face, and can come away with tangible minor victories and agree that the real underlying dispute is resolved in the future.

This reluctance to engage militarily is beyond the mere politics of justifying American casualties, but points to broader considerations of U.S power projection in the region in the aftermath of the failure of the Obama administration policy of overthrowing the government of Syria.

To understand the events at play requires a multi-dimensional and realist understanding of motivations and relationships, and how relationships work at the level of statecraft. And so in a way that would be popularly understood – as in Game of Thrones – just because you’re invited to the banquet or receive a high-honored appointment, doesn’t mean that are you indispensable or even a friend. Trump’s ‘GoT’ relationship with Israel and even his own cabinet, needless to say any number of Pentagon bosses, is precisely this. Bolton and Pompeo are such frenemies, as have been any number of ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ members of the Trump administration, more or less foisted and forced upon the chief executive by Trump’s opponents in the permanent administration and his partisan opposition, and within the Republican Party itself.

Did Trump make a backroom deal with Iran? Probably not – there was a high public dimension to Trump’s offers, and a recent history where an unspoken language was developed. Iran has demonstrated a high level of intelligence, restraint, intuition, and strategic thinking in its several thousand year-old civilization. There is no reason to think that they wouldn’t have understood and inferred everything explained in this article, and much more, without needing a direct conversation with Trump which no doubt would have led to yet another impeachment fandango.

January 9, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shell-shocked pundits come crawling back to Hillary over Trump’s Iran belligerence… forgetting she’d have started war sooner

If you squint really hard, it’s ALMOST like she’s in the Oval Office…
RT | January 8, 2020

Social media sang praises of would-be US President Hillary Clinton as actual President Donald Trump seemed headed for all-out war with Iran – even though Clinton had been a much more enthusiastic participant in US wars.

After Iranian missiles struck several US bases Tuesday night, #Resistance twitter wasted no time disavowing the administration they blamed for the hostilities, running into the arms of his arch-rival with the #IVotedforHillaryClinton hashtag.

But claiming Clinton was the less warlike of the two candidates, or would have steered the country away from war with Iran, requires a serious divergence from history. The former Secretary of State once told an interviewer that “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran.”

That was during her 2008 campaign, and in the middle of a discussion about Iran possibly attacking Israel. Perhaps her stance on the Islamic republic had softened a bit by 2016, enough to justify viewing her as the lesser of two Iran hawks?

Nope. The months leading up to that election saw her parroting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades-old talking points about Iran “racing toward a nuclear capability,” expanding “secret facilities,” and “defying their international obligations” before she swept in with the nuclear deal and solved all the problems.

Except the deal was negotiated after she was replaced as the top US diplomat by John Kerry. Clinton was on the same side as Trump, demanding ever more sanctions even as the nuclear deal took effect, this time as punishment for Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Beyond interventionist Democrats, she was courted by a bevy of neocons who couldn’t stomach Trump’s anti-interventionist rhetoric. Inveterate warmongers like Robert Kagan and Richard Armitage swooned over the ex-First Lady.

In short order, the infamous clip of Clinton mocking the brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi – “we came, we saw, he died” – resurfaced on twitter. The so-called “humanitarian” intervention in Libya was largely a creation of Clinton’s State Department, complete with risible wartime propaganda about Gaddafi handing out Viagra so his soldiers could better commit mass rapes, and the continued chaos in that once-advanced state remains a testament to what the region (or world) might look like under her watch.

She wanted a repeat performance in Syria, calling for – and thankfully not getting – a no-fly zone, even while admitting it would “kill a lot of Syrians.”

While Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton, he handily beat her in the Electoral College, which ultimately decides who occupies the White House. Despite her massive advantage in political experience, his promises to bring US troops home attracted significant support. Nearly four years later, however, the US is poised on the brink of a catastrophic expansion of its Forever War.

January 9, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Figures on Left and Right Come Out in Support of Unpopular Anti-Iran Antagonism

By Eric Striker | National Justice | January 6, 2020

A number of figures in the alt-media and extreme-left movement have surprised their audiences by rationalizing the Trump administration’s Israeli-directed push towards war with Iran.

The consensus between high profile voices on the Zionist “far-right” and anarcho-neocon “far-left” in America and Britain reflect the party line in Israel, where even Amir Peretz of the ostensibly left-wing “opposition” Labor party hailed the Pentagon’s decision to assassinate Maj. General Qassem Soleimani by luring him to Iraq under the false pretense of peace negotiations.

Spencer Sunshine, a self-proclaimed anarchist and prominent voice in the American “antifa” scene who has been accused of Zionist entryism in the past, took to twitter to reiterate Sean Hannity’s script on the killing: that the Iranians brought it upon themselves by “antagonizing” America and “meddling” in Iraq. It speaks to the state of the modern co-opted left that somebody like Sunshine can express the Israeli government’s line and still survive the scrutiny of his peers. Sunshine is very suspicious of anti-war sentiment due to the fact that Jews like Sheldon Adelson and Jared Kushner are responsible for our over-the-top Iran policy. He has spent much of his career fighting what he calls “left-wing anti-Semitism” (principled anti-Zionism).

Caroline Orr, another fanatical Jewish supporter of “antifa,” chastised “fellow” leftists for ignoring Soleimani’s supposed “slaughter” of Syrians during the fight to save the country from ISIS. After some pushback, Orr is backpedaling, but her initial approval shows the Jewish nexus between the virulent anti-white forces on the left and the appetite for war against Iran on the so-called right. She also has made a name for herself for promoting fake news about “Russiagate” and attacking anti-war presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.

While a branch of the left led by “tankies” (Workers World Party and Revolutionary Communist Party) behind the ANSWER coalition are adamantly against imperialism, many anarchists and “democratic socialists” support the CIA-led protest groups we have seen in recent months in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, which have largely subsided but were intended to purge pro-Iran political factions. These groups are meant to incite a civil war, so these left-wing voices basically support regime change as well, just not by a full US ground invasion.

The ANSWER coalition’s anti-war protests that erupted across America were small, showing that the left is not passionate about opposing this conflict. Figures like AOC and high ranking advisors in the Bernie Sanders campaign all attended the Zionist Dov Hikind’s march against black “anti-Semitism” yesterday, but not any of the anti-war rallies.

On the other side of the coin, Anne Marie Waters of the “For Britain” group has fully embraced an invasion of Iran. Waters, a remnant of the largely Jewish funded “counter-jihad” movement, does not bother to articulate what the West stands to gain from such a conflict. Her only argument is a neo-liberal desire to impose gay plutocracy on the unwilling Iranians so that Israel can safely continue its expansionist foreign policy.

Mike Cernovich, who made a name for himself in 2016 in part for his non-interventionist views on Syria, has been reduced to an Iraq-war era Toby Keith style jingo. He got so much push back that he too was forced to “clarify” his opposition to war overnight.

Alex Jones of InfoWars has released a new conspiracy theory claiming that the Jews who control Donald Trump’s government had to set off a chain-reaction that will lead to a regional conflagration in order to prevent World War III. According to Jones, the Obama administration is responsible for tensions with Iran by engaging with diplomacy with the country instead of attacking it. His audience isn’t buying it. Over half of the reactions on his Bitchute video on the topic are negative.

Nick Fuentes of the Youtube show “America First” has also come under fire for recent statements on Telegram. While he prefaces his statements by saying he technically opposes a full war with Iran, he followed this by cheerleading threats by Zionists in Washington to bomb ancient Persian cultural sites, calls Iran a “degenerate Muslim shithole,” celebrates “America bullying ppl and throwing around missiles”, and comes to the defense of the “American-led” globalist military order, which Trump himself repeatedly criticized throughout his life and, as Tucker Carlson has said, won the presidency in large part by running against it.

The mealy-mouthed Charlie Kirk of TPUSA, a libertarian-Zionist think-tank Trump has recently adopted to engage in outreach for his 2020 campaign, tepidly approved of Washington’s hit on Soleimani, but has also come out in support of full military withdrawal from Iraq.

Any military entanglement with Iran polls very poorly in America.

The latest opinion research finds that almost 70% of Americans believe heightened tensions with Iran are entirely the fault of the Trump administration. Even after Trump and Mike Pompeo accused Iran of attacking the oil fields of “ally” Saudi Arabia on September 14th, 75% of Americans responded that a war with Iran was completely unwarranted.

While a vocal minority of people are eager to see explosions and dead Arabs at any cost, the majority of Americans understand that a war with Iran will not be like Afghanistan or Iraq. Public support is also not anywhere near where it was for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Such a conflict will be felt at home, either through Iranian sleeper cells attacking US targets, large numbers of dead American soldiers in the Middle East, or exploding food and gas prices. The argument that killing Soleimani has made Americans safer was widely mocked after the State Department put out a subsequent statement telling US citizens to get out of Iraq immediately.

White workers have no stake in this Israeli-dictated war. The current failure of the left and right to hold a full-throated line against the coming catastrophe is why a third position is needed now more than ever.

January 9, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel confiscates sole medical vehicle serving 1,500 Palestinians

MEMO | January 8, 2020

Israeli occupation forces have confiscated the only vehicle available to a medical team serving the needs of some 1,500 Palestinians in an isolated region of the southern West Bank, reported Haaretz.

According to the paper, this is the second time that the vehicle – which serves the residents of Masafer Yatta in the south Hebron hills – has been seized within a year, “cutting off healthcare to an isolated and impoverished population” living inside an Israeli military firing zone.

The medical team make weekly visits to the area’s Palestinian communities, which lie roughly one hour’s drive on dirt roads from the nearest town of Yatta. The jeep in question “is the only vehicle available for providing medical services to these communities”.

Last Thursday, Haaretz reported, Israeli occupation forces intercepted the medical team at Khirbet Al-Majaz, claiming that they were not allowed there “without prior coordination”. The patrol then impounded the jeep and held the medics for half an hour.

In February 2019 the vehicle was confiscated “under similar circumstances”, stated the paper, and only returned six months later after the medical team paid a 3,000 shekel ($865) fine. On that occasion, the team were unable to provide medical care for the entire six months.

The Israeli military commented that “the vehicle was impounded by supervisors at the Civil Administration since it was traveling in a fire zone, a forbidden area for vehicles by law”.

The Israeli military’s “Firing zone 918” was established in the 1980s, and the army has repeatedly sought to remove Palestinians from the area.

January 8, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Justice at Last? ‘Panic’ in Israel as the ICC Takes ‘Momentous Step’ in the Right Direction

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | January 8, 2020

At long last, Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has uttered the long-anticipated conclusion that “all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation (into alleged war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) have been met”.

Bensouda’s verdict has been in the making for a long time and should, frankly, have arrived much earlier. The ICC preliminary investigations into Israeli war crimes began back in 2015. Since then, many more such war crimes have been committed, while the international community persisted in its moral inertia.

The ICC statement, issued on December 20, asserted that the court saw “no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice”.

But can the “interest of justice” be served while the United States government continues to wield a massive stick, using its diplomatic, political and financial clout to ensure Israel emerges unscathed from its latest legal scuffle?

There is little doubt that Michael Lynk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, is absolutely right: A formal ICC criminal investigation into war crimes in Palestine is a “momentous step forward in the quest for accountability”.

He is also correct in his assessment, published in the United Nations Human Rights Officer of the High Commissioner website, that “accountability has, until now, been largely missing in action throughout the 52-year-old occupation.”

I would go even further and expand the timeline of the missing accountability to include the two decades prior to the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, how is one to account for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947-48, the numerous massacres and other wanton killings that accompanied and followed those defining years, or the fact that Israel was never held accountable for its violations of international and humanitarian laws between 1948 and 1967?

That issue notwithstanding, the Palestinian Authority and all political parties in Palestine should exploit this unprecedented opportunity of holding Israel accountable.

As soon as the ICC issued its statement, news reports surfaced conveying a sense of “panic” in Israel. The Times of Israel reported that an Israeli government meeting to discuss the ICC decision was held shortly after, with the aim of considering a proper response, including the possibility of preventing ICC investigators from reaching Israel.

This is eerily familiar. Israel has denied entry to – or refused to cooperate with – international investigators and observers on many occasions in the past.

Following a UN planned investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in 2002, the Israeli government quickly moved, and, sadly, succeeded in blocking the investigation altogether.

It has done so time and again, often demonizing the very individuals entrusted with the mission of examining the illegality of Israel’s behavior in the context of international law. Well-respected judges and international law experts, such as Richard Goldstone, Richard Falk, and John Dugard, were vehemently attacked by Israeli officials and media and, by extension, by the US government and media as well.

Israel has managed to survive dozens of United Nations Resolutions and countless legal reports and indictments by the UN and all UN-affiliated organizations, largely because of blind and unequivocal American support, which has shielded Israeli war criminals from ever answering to their horrific actions in Palestine.

“Remember, it was (then-Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton who took pride in the fact that she personally killed the Goldstone Report,” said US author, Norman Finkelstein, in a recent interview with the news website Mondoweiss.

The Goldstone report was issued in the wake of the Israeli war on Gaza in 2009, dubbed ‘Operation Cast Lead’. The campaign of intimidation and pressure on Goldstone, personally, has forced the once-respected judge to retract his accusations of Israeli war crimes and the deliberate targeting of civilians.

While Clinton did her part in torpedoing the Goldstone Report, former US President, Barack Obama, according to Finkelstein, went to great lengths to “neutralize international law against settlements and other Israeli crimes in the occupied territories”.

Worse still, on September 14, 2016, Obama handed Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself accused of carrying out numerous war crimes against Palestinians, the largest US aid package to a foreign country in modern history, a whopping $38 billion over the course of ten years.

This is not a new phenomenon, where the US enables Israeli crimes and simultaneously shields Tel Aviv from any accountability for these crimes before the international community. All US administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, have honored the same sinister maxim, thus ensuring Israel, literally, gets away with murder.

A particular case in point was in 2001, when 28 Palestinian and Lebanese survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre attempted to try, in a Belgian court, late Israeli leader and accused war criminal, Ariel Sharon. Intense American pressures and a brazen intimidation campaign, targeting the Belgian government and the judicial system, resulted in the dismissal of the case in 2003. To deny Israel’s victims the opportunity to seek justice everywhere in the country, Belgium revised its very law, to the satisfaction of Israel and the United States.

The high level of the ICC investigations places the legal push against Israel at a whole new level. This is uncharted territory for Israel, the United States, Palestine, the ICC and the international community as a whole. There is little doubt that some joint Israeli-American effort is already underway to develop strategies aimed at countering if not altogether dismissing, the ICC investigation.

It is clear that justice for Palestinians in the face of Israeli aggression, itself fueled by unconditional American support, is not at all possible if it is not accompanied by regional and international unity, and a clear and decisive decision by all parties concerned that Israel, once and for all, must pay for its military occupation, racist apartheid laws, protracted siege on Gaza, and the many massacres in between.

Without this kind of international will, the ICC investigation could become another sad case of justice denied, a non-acceptable option for any justice-seeking individual, organization, and government anywhere in the world.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU).

January 8, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

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