Israeli forces detain Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi al-Hadami. (Photo: via Social Media)
Israeli forces detained Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi al-Hadami of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday, according to an official statement, reports Anadolu Agency.
In a statement, the Jerusalem Affairs Ministry said Israeli forces raided the minister’s home and searched it before taking him into custody.
There was no comment from the Israeli military on the arrest.
This is the second time Israeli forces arrested the Jerusalem minister in the last three months.
Israeli forces have escalated their actions against Palestinian activities in Jerusalem since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the occupied city as Israel’s capital in 2017.
Jerusalem remains at the heart of the decades-long Middle East conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem – occupied by Israel since 1967 – might one day serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.
September 25, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, Zionism |
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“In A Time Of Universal Deceit, Telling The Truth Becomes A Revolutionary Act” – George Orwell
At the moment, the Jewish State is experiencing growing political instability while exploring its ability to defy Netanyahu’s alleged criminality and his racial incitements against Arabs, while at the same time, the UK has been reduced into a dutiful Israeli remote colony.
Two days ago, the Lobby scored three significant victories that are indicative of Britain’s descent into an Orwellian dystopia. It is now an unfit habitat for intellectuals, artists and humanists and their exodus has begun.
In a statement astonishing for its obsequiousness, ‘opposition’ leader Jeremy Corbyn praised the police for tearing down a poster depicting, in cartoon form, an uncanny portrayal of Corbyn himself under ‘attack’ by Benjamin Netanyahu shown piloting an Israeli air force plane named ‘The Lobby’ and dropping bombs of ‘defamation’ with the words ‘anti-Semite, anti-Semite, anti-Semite.’
By his response, Corbyn was kind enough to reveal to the Brits that he could be many things, but acting as a prime minister isn’t really among them. And not just because of his clumsy unprincipled action against a legitimate political cartoon but because the man publicly displayed that he can’t handle elementary freedoms. Somewhere, there exists a positive interpretation that would make Corbyn’s shameless groveling seem sophisticated, his response did make the cartoon into national news so that every Brit is now aware of the poster and its message.
Yesterday we also learned that Israel’s stooges managed to cancel a literature event in Brighton. Bad News for Labour- Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief is, according to its publisher, “a ground breaking study on the reality behind the headlines on antisemitism and the British Labour Party.” I have not seen a ‘ground breaking’ text from Pluto for years, nonetheless, someone within the Hasbara army decided that the Brits are unfit to digest the book. Waterstones Brighton ‘rapidly surrendered’ and canceled the event. One more piece of evidence that Britain doesn’t really need enemies, it became an authoritarian society voluntarily. I wonder how long it will be before Corbyn tweets that it was he and the Labour Party who begged Waterstones to cancel the event.
But Zionist tour de force did not end there. We learned yesterday that singer, songwriter and right wing enthusiast Alison Chabloz was once again sent to jail: this time for eight weeks. The Zionist Campaign Against Antisemitism’s web site reports that “District Judge Jonathan Taaffe found Ms Chabloz guilty of breaching the conditions of her suspended sentence after blog posts that she published since June 2018 were found to constitute a breach of a social media ban.” Apparently the definition of ‘social media’* in Britain underwent a dramatic expansion this week in order to fit the Zionist call. The CAA was pleased to let us know their part in this fiasco, “the trial in Chesterfield today follows contact between Campaign Against Antisemitism’s lawyers and the National Probation Service.”
In 1917 Lord Balfour issued a declaration in the name of the British government announcing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a tiny Jewish population. In 1917 Britain was an empire although Palestine wasn’t then a British colony. Just over one hundred years later not much is left of the empire and even less remains of British dignity. Britain has allowed itself to be reduced to an Israeli colony, even to the point that Britain willingly sacrifices any of its most sacred values when asked to do so by a single right wing ethnic lobby that is largely committed to foreign interests.
September 25, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | UK, Zionism |
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Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) recently introduced new pro-Israel legislation in Congress that would enable Americans to sue the Palestinian government.
New legislation introduced in Congress would potentially destroy the ability of the Palestinian leadership to engage in diplomatic and legal channels to support Palestinian national aspirations. The legislation would give Palestinian leaders two options: withdraw from international bodies that are integral to their pursuit of justice, or be held liable for actions they didn’t commit, potentially resulting in the government’s eventual bankruptcy and demise.
In addition to the roughly two dozen Israel-related bills in various stages currently before Congress, new legislation would open the Palestinian Authority (PA) to disastrous lawsuits and quash any hopes of a negotiated settlement with Israel. The PA has its share of corruption, as it attempts the impossible task of ruling while under the thumb of Israeli occupation. Nevertheless, analysts say that a dissolution of the Palestinian government through U.S. legislation could be catastrophic.
Current legislation promoted by segments of the Israel lobby would do just that.
The latest bipartisan legislation would enable American victims of political violence in Israel to work through the American court system to collect damages from the Palestinian government. (Notably, it would not afford American victims of Israeli violence, such as this 16-year-old, the same opportunity.)
The legislation is the latest in a string of attempts to extract huge sums of money from the Palestinian government for violence perpetrated by individuals acting alone. Previous rulings declared such lawsuits outside US jurisdiction. (Iran has also been targeted.)
Current legislation: “Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019”
H.R.1837 (and its twin S.2132) is written in such a way that, in the words of human rights attorney Zaha Hassan, undermines “the ability of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to engage diplomatic and legal channels to support Palestinian national aspirations and to seek accountability through international mechanisms.”
She writes that this would result in “the end of a Palestinian negotiating partner for any future peace talks.”
In addition, Hassan points out, this would severely impact the international effort on behalf of justice for Palestinians.
She writes: “Many Palestinians and those in the solidarity community may not fully appreciate how the international delegitimization or bankrupting of the PLO – the body still recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people – could impact their human rights advocacy in the US and globally. Whatever one’s views about the PLO or PA, no longer having an address for the national aspirations of the Palestinian people will make international and US advocacy much more difficult.”
The legislation seeks to impose US court jurisdiction on Palestine so that American citizens (and their lawyers) can target the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) with lawsuits for suicide attacks in the early 2000s.
(Note that Palestinian suicide bombings killed far fewer civilians than Israeli bombings of Palestinians; see stats here and here. Additional info about suicide bombings is here, here, and here.)
Given the anti-Palestinian sentiment within some US courts (discussed below), it is likely that the PA would be found liable and face crippling fines – in spite of its lack of involvement in the incidents.
To escape certain bankruptcy, Palestine would need to resign from institutions that give it legitimacy in the world, such as its memberships in UNESCO and the International Criminal Court. (It has full membership in two additional international agencies, and observer status in six).
The loss of such memberships would be extremely damaging. For example, stepping down from membership in the International Criminal Court would bar Palestine from pursuing war crimes claims against Israel.
(That being said, many in the activist community believe that while the UN and ICC are vital components of justice for Palestinians, grassroots advocacy from American citizens is at least equally as important, as the US bankrolls and defends Israel’s actions.)
Under the new legislation, Palestine would be able to remain a member of the UN General Assembly (as a nonvoting observer) and maintain an office in the US for official UN business, but anything more would amount to “consent to jurisdiction,” and Palestine would be vulnerable to lawsuits.
There is already one court case in the US that could be devastating.
A past lawsuit against the PLO, was eventually decided in Palestine’s favor, but this would likely change if the new legislation goes through.
Initially, New York Judge George Daniels ordered the Palestinian government to pay over $650 million in damages for its alleged part in suicide attacks (more below), but an appeals court then dismissed the case. Under the new legislation, the verdict would likely be reinstated.
Such lawsuits could cause the PA eventually to go bankrupt. In addition, the PA would officially be equated with a terrorist organization, even though it had no connection with the violence.
This punishing and unjust Catch-22 situation would be imposed on a people already dealing with illegal occupation and blockade.
Congress’ double standard
As pro-Israel lawmakers lay this trap for Palestine, US laws are already on the books – for example, the Leahy Laws – that require limiting aid to countries practicing Gross Human Rights Violations (GHRV). These laws, however, have never been applied to Israel – in spite of its well-documented history of human rights violations (for example, see this, this, and this).
Another legislative irony lies in the fact that the new law would seek to hold the Palestinian government responsible for rogue members of its community whose acts the leadership roundly condemned; meanwhile refusing to hold the government of Israel responsible for illegal and immoral acts that the Israeli government and military openly and officially perpetrate.
Human Rights Watch lists five main categories of human rights abuses by Israel, all of which have been chronicled for decades: unlawful killings; forced displacement; abusive detention; the closure of the Gaza Strip and other unjustified restrictions on movement; and the development of settlements, along with the accompanying discriminatory policies that disadvantage Palestinians.
Additionally, Congress is entertaining legislation that could potentially strip Americans of their First Amendment rights, in order to protect Israel from criticism and from economic ramifications for its policies that contravene international law.
US jurisprudence reveals yet another double standard in the issue of Americans who have been killed or injured by Israeli troops, and have been unable to find justice.
Rachel Corrie was one of several American citizens killed while peacefully protesting in Israel; after twelve years of litigation, Israel cleared itself of wrongdoing; a court case in the US was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction. Emily Henoschowitz is an Israeli-American who lost an eye due to Israeli military violence. Israel never compensated her. US citizen Tariq Abu Khdeir’s severe beating by an Israeli officer was video taped; the officer was later sentenced to only 45 days of community service and a suspended prison term of four months.
The most dramatic example of Americans killed by Israel – and then denied justice – is the USS Liberty.
On June 8, 1967, 34 American servicemen were killed and 174 were wounded when Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked the clearly-marked Navy ship, the USS Liberty. An independent commission led by four-star Admiral Thomas Moorer found that the Israeli attack constituted “an act of war” against the US, and stated: “There is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.” Yet, Israel has never been held to account for its lethal actions against American servicemen (and US media have largely buried the facts).
These are just a handful of the many wrongdoings on the part of Israel that have gone unacknowledged, excused, or unpunished by the US court system; meanwhile Congress seeks to castigate the government of Palestine for the actions of Palestinians operating outside its authority.
Billions to Israel, standard conditions waived
The House version of the bill currently under consideration contains some troubling assertions that deserve a close look.
• The section of the legislation entitled, “Security Assistance for Israel,” makes into law the US MOU to provide Israel $3.8 billion – an amount that the majority of Americans consider excessive.
• The bill also states that Israel is eligible for special treatment – specifically, a waiver of licensing requirements for weapons exports. The expressed reason for the waiver is Congress’ “findings” that “Israel has adopted high standards in the field of export controls” and that Israel is a signatory to “the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.”
• It also waives the Arms Export Control Act whenever Israel informs the US that it is “under an existing or imminent threat of military attack.” At this point the President may grant “immediate transfer” of whatever Israel needs, in amounts “not subject to any limitation.” This waiver is spelled out in spite of Israel’s frequent violations – or perhaps because of them (see this and this).
These waivers are deeply problematic. In fact, as reported by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Israel routinely sells weapons to human rights abusers, including South Sudan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka (Israel also sold to South Africa during its Apartheid era). In addition, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International revealed that Israel used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas during its 2008-2009 incursion into Gaza – a charge which Israel at first denied, but later acknowledged.
Although Israel’s weapons sales and its use of chemical weapons are well-known, Congress insists that Israel deserves favored status in the sharing of US munitions.
About the sponsors of the bills
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), who initiated the House version of the bill, has received $613,041 in campaign contributions from pro-Israel organizations during his ten years in office, and has taken five AIPAC-sponsored trips to Israel. In 2109 alone, he introduced H.R.1837, the US-Israel Cooperation Enhancement and Regional Security Act; denounced boycott of Israel; and criticized Gazan rockets but not Israeli sniper killings of unarmed demonstrators. Deutch serves as Chairman of Middle East, North Africa, Int’l Terrorism Subcommittee.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), has been an outspoken supporter of Israel before he introduced S.2132. In 2014, he condemned boycotts; in 2015 he spoke at the AIPAC policy conference, and when Israeli PM Netanyahu came to Capitol Hill without a presidential invitation, Lankford welcomed him warmly; he discouraged a change in EU labelling laws for “certain products made by Israeli companies”; in 2018 he supported Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. On Lankford’s official website, he criticizes Obama’s occasional “inexplicable deference to the Palestinians.”
Palestine at the UN
Because the US and Israel – two critical entities in the quest for self-determination – insist that Palestine has no legitimacy, Palestine has for several years pursued legitimacy in the global arena.
The State of Palestine began pursuing membership in the UN and its agencies in 2011, after President Obama’s target date for a two-state solution had come and gone.
“The Quartet” (the US, the EU, Russia, and the UN) had not managed to negotiate a two-state solution. Abbas explained that Israel was responsible for the failure, noting that settlement building, the ongoing blockade of Gaza, and other policies
are unilateral actions and are not based on any earlier agreements. Indeed, what we witness is a selective application of the agreements aimed at perpetuating the occupation…the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations resolutions.
At that point, with no solution in sight, Palestinian leaders embarked on a different path to statehood: seeking recognition from individual countries. The effort met with relative success: the UN General Assembly voted 138-9 (with 41 abstentions) to grant Palestine non-Member Observer State status, a move that Israeli PM Netanyahu’s office called “a meaningless decision.”
138 countries recognize the state of Palestine
Still, this upgrade is widely considered “de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine.” Since then, 138 out of the 193 UN member states and two non-member states have recognized the state of Palestine. In other words, 71.5 percent of the UN member countries officially consider Palestine a country.
In 2015, the State of Palestine became a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which gave the court jurisdiction over the Israel’s 2014 incursion into Gaza – in which 2,250 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed.
The US has not recognized the State of Palestine, but has referred to the “Palestinian territories” – until recently. The US State Department has removed Palestine from its list of countries and regions. It is unclear why this occurred or whether it will be changed. As of today, there is no mention of Palestine, Palestinian, Occupied Territories, West Bank, or Gaza in the State Department’s list of “Countries and Areas.”
Attacks against Palestine’s economy and legitimacy are nothing new.
First attempt to extort money from the PA
The US State Department explains that until the 20th century, immunity of a state from jurisdiction of another state was “an undisputed principle of customary international law [that] seemed to have no exceptions.” When governments began engaging in commerce, however, a more “restrictive theory” of immunity began to develop; the US officially enshrined this into law, gradually refining the legislation to make foreign states’ funds more accessible.
The 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) defined protection for sovereign nations against lawsuits by US citizens. A “terrorism exception” enabled action against those states that were designated state sponsors of terrorism.
2015: Israeli NGO v. PLO wins then loses
In 2015, an Israeli NGO represented ten Americans whose family members had been killed or injured during suicide bombings in 2002-2004 in Israel. The organization, Shurat HaDin (which has acted as a proxy for Mossad – Israel’s CIA), alleged in Sokolow et al v. Palestine Liberation Organization et al that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had participated in the plots.
Shurat HaDin won the suit, and the families were awarded over $650 million.
Michael Ratner, former president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said at the time of the verdict, “the trial was a concrete demonstration of this country, the United States’ utter hypocrisy on the issue of who gets justice…The courts in our country, in the United States, will bend over backwards to hold Palestine liable.”
Ratner pointed to three cases he had tried – and lost – on behalf of Americans killed by Israel. In the Rachel Corrie case, he was up against a US president who could “authorize gross violations of human rights, especially by Israel, and a court will look the other way… [as Israel commits] war crimes.”
He continued,
And if they can’t, if for some reason the law says you can’t do that, then who will step in here? Our Congress will step in. And as they did here, it will pass laws and statutes that give the courts laws that allow people in the United States, citizens, to sue Palestinians. But those laws will exempt Israel.
In another case, Ratner’s organization represented a Turkish-American citizen who had been killed during a 2010 Israeli military raid on a humanitarian flotilla in international waters, as it headed to Gaza. The conclusion: Israel, as a state, has sovereign immunity. The case never went to court – although the International Criminal Court had determined that Israeli soldiers had committed war crimes.
A year after the Sokolow decision, in August 2016, a US appeals court dismissed the case and threw out the verdict, declaring that the lower court had erred in presuming the US had jurisdiction in the case. (Details about the case here.)
Shurat HaDin went to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a review of the appellate decision; the request was denied.
Judge George Daniels
The New York judge who had found in favor of Shurat HaDin and tried to take $650 million from the PA was George B. Daniels, who had a history of such rulings.
Daniels’ name has been prevalent in New York City court cases of this type. In 2016, he ruled, in the context of zero evidence, that Iran had been directly involved in 9/11. He ordered Tehran to pay $7.5 billion to victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — and $3 billion to insurers over related claims — after ruling that Iran had failed to prove that it did not help the bombers.
Upon Iran’s refusal to pay, in June 2017 Daniels ordered the seizure of a Manhattan building worth $500 million that was said to be owned by Iran.
In a separate suit against Iran, the same judge – George Daniels – ruled that Iran should pay 47 plaintiffs over $6 billion for its alleged part in training the 9/11 attackers. Iran refused to pay, having already been cleared of guilt on multiple fronts (as reported in non-US media only, for example here).
Philip Giraldi writes that New York courts – especially the Federal Court for the Southern District of Manhattan, where Sokolow was tried – is a great place for “suing the pants off of any number of foreign governments and individuals with virtually no requirement that the suit have any merit.” “Friendly” judges in this district (like Daniels) attract practitioners of “predatory capitalism.”
Giraldi summarizes:
America’s judiciary has been manipulated and politicized. If you are a foreigner of any kind but most particularly an Iranian or Palestinian or indeed an Arab or Muslim and you are being tried in a court in New York City you might just as well save your money and not seek to find a lawyer to defend yourself. If a slimy vulture fund owner wants your money chances are he will get it. And if an even completely ridiculous attempt to tie you into terrorism or terrorism support is made, you will be railroaded by the system.
Second Attempt: ATCA – the “Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act”
Since Sokolow in the end failed to bring the desired results, Congress sought other means to compensate the victims – and, especially, implicate Palestinian leadership. ATCA, the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, which became law in 2018, seemed to close the jurisdiction loophole.
In the words of Harry Graver and Scott Anderson of lawfareblog.com, ATCA “primarily intended to revive [the Sokolow v. PLO] plaintiffs’ cases by amending the underlying law,” by “[expanding] the personal jurisdiction of the federal courts.”
ATCA attached judicial authority to economic aid: the Palestinian government’s acceptance of financial assistance from the US became “consent to jurisdiction” – the PA and PLO found themselves under the purview of US courts.
When this change went into effect, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas informed Washington, “The government of Palestine respectfully informs the government of the United States that…it fully disclaims and no longer wishes to accept any form of assistance referenced in ATCA.”
Not an admission of guilt – Palestinian leadership has always denounced politically motivated violence – this move by Abbas shielded the PA from bankruptcy by removing its “consent” from the newly-minted jurisdiction.
Fast-forward to today: Congress’ latest iteration of the anti-Palestinian legislation seeks an insidious new form of collective punishment for the beleaguered Palestinian government and people.
At the same time, our legislators on Capitol Hill refuse to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing thoroughly documented and egregious human rights violations.
To contact your Congress members about the legislation, go here.
Kathryn Shihadah is staff writer for If Americans Knew.
September 24, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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As the dust settles from the recent elections in apartheid Israel, the horse-trading begins. This horse-trading will determine which one of two war criminals will end up leading the racist, brutal state as its prime minister.
There are two distinct and diametrically opposed approaches to viewing the Israeli elections — one that focuses on reality and one that focuses on gossip. The reality deals with Israel being a perpetrator of terrorism and destruction in Palestine for over seven decades. The two men who now compete for the prime minister’s seat are both responsible for much of the terror and destruction and it is not unlikely that one day they will sit side by side as defendants facing a war-crimes tribunal.
The gossip deals with which one of these glorified war criminals will actually be the prime minister and what deals will have to be made to get him there.
It is not common to hear Israeli actions described as terrorism and destruction, nor are there any attempts by international bodies to curb them. At the same time, the most common accusation against Palestinians and those who support justice for Palestinians is that they are engaged in terrorism and anti-Semitism and are bent on destroying Israel.
Zionist terrorism plagues Palestine
Zionist terrrorism has not only plagued Palestine for more than a century, it has become a menace to countries around the world, as Israeli agents have executed Palestinian leaders practicaly everywhere, showing no regard for the laws and sovereignty of governments even in countries that have good relations with Israel.
Though Zionist terrorist attacks began much earlier, from the end of 1947 through all of 1948 and well into 1949 Zionist terror militias, like Roman legions, swept through Palestine, terrorizing the population and destroying towns and villages all across the country. They destroyed without regard for international law, human decency, or even the historic value of the places. Then, once this campaign of terror ended, the newly formed Israeli army — a more organized, better funded, and better-armed version of the terrorist militias that preceded it — was used to terrorize the Palestinians who were now vanquished to Israeli controlled areas or refugee camps outside of Palestine.
In Palestine, it was done through the military rule that was imposed on the Palestinians who remained in the country. In the newly formed Gaza Strip — the name given to the massive ghetto Israel created and into which it pushed Palestinian refugees — it was the Israeli army. A special terror squad was created that would enter the Gaza Strip and commit acts of terror to further frighten the Palestinian refugees. Similar terror attacks by Israeli army units took place in other countries surrounding Palestine as well.
Terrorism and violation of sovereignty
Israeli terror squads operated and continue to operate in foreign countries in violation of their sovereignty and the laws of their lands. This is true not only for countries, like Lebanon or Iran, that Israel regards as hostile states, but also for friendly countries like France and Norway.
The list of violations Israel has committed is too long to list, but here are several examples that are worth mentioning. On July 8, 1972, a massive explosion in Beirut took the life of the Palestinian writer and leader Ghassan Kanafani. A bomb was planted in his car, killing him and his 16-year-old niece, Lamees. A year later, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and assassinated several other Palestinians in their homes as they were sleeping. One of these was Yousef Al-Najjar, whose wife was also killed in the raid.
These were blatant violations of the sovereignty of a neighboring country, not to mention cold-blooded assassinations for which no one was held accountable. Israel had also for decades entered Lebanese air space in violation of its sovereignty and bombed Palestinain refugee camps, taking untold numbers of innocent lives.
In 1973 Israel murdered Ahmed Bouchikhi, an innocent man in Lillehammer, Norway, mistaking him for Fatah leader Abu Hassan Salameh. No one was arrested or served jail time, though this was a gross violation of the sovereignty of another nation and an act of terrorism. The lack of consequence seems to have encouraged Israel to continue pursuing terrorism.
In 1992 Israel assassinated Palestinian leader Atef Bseiso on a Paris street. Bseiso was heavily involved in U.S.-PLO talks and in laying the groundwork for PLO-Israeli negotiations that at that point had been going on for several years. In this case, too, no one was held accountable.
In 1997 Israel attempted and failed to assassinate Khaled Mash’al, who was at the time the head of Hamas’ political bureau. The attempt took place in broad daylight on a street in Amman, Jordan, a country with which Israel has diplomatic relations, when Israeli agents tried to inject poison into one of Mash’al’s ears. The assassins were clumsy and were caught by the Jordanian police. King Hussein of Jordan demanded that Israel immediately send an antidote, which it did in exchange for the release of the agents.
For many of the terror attacks and assassinations it has perpetrated, Israel has used the excuse of “retaliation” for the attack during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The claim has generally been that the people assassinated were somehow involved, although no proof was ever provided. On top of that, even if it were true, without a proper trial the Israeli violence has no legitimacy.
Destruction of Palestine
Israel has been destroying Palestinian towns, cities, neighborhoods, and historical and religious monuments without hesitation. Ancient names of ancient streets are changed, names of historical villages are erased, and an entire fictional historical narrative is created to cover up for Israel’s attempted erasure of Palestine.
Rather than protest the destruction, the world, and particularly the West, accepted and even helped spread the new narrative, ignoring the erasure of a country and a history that is thousands of years old. This was done to the point where school children around the world study the Zionist-biblical narrative of “Israel,” rather than studying the actual history of Palestine.
Who will lead next?
In the coming weeks we will find out which war criminal will lead and navigate this legacy of terrorist attacks and destruction over the next few years. While people with a taste for gossip will enjoy discussing whose backside precisely will end up in what chair around the Israeli cabinet table, those who dread the future of Palestinians will focus on the reality in Palestine. That reality is the oppression of Palestinians, 5 million of whom live within Palestine and whose lives are affected directly by the decisions of the Israeli government, yet who are not permitted to participate in the democratic process.
The Joint List, a list of four political parties that are predominantly Palestinian citizens of Israel, came out somewhat a winner and is the third largest party in the Israeli Knesset. While this is a pleasant bit of gossip, the reality is that even if they had won twice that number of seats they would still be marginalized and ignored by the Zionist power brokers, who always find ways to sideline them and prevent them from participating in the process in a way that would give their constituents a voice.
Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”
September 24, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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In August 2019, the Israeli Ministry of Finance announced that TransJerusalem J-Net Ltd, a consortium comprised of the Spanish multinational company CAF- Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles and the Israeli public company Shapir Engineering and Industry, won the tender to expand the Jerusalem light rail[1], which connects Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem with the western part of the city. The tender, estimated at 11 billion NIS[2] (more than 3 billion USD), includes the construction, operation and maintenance of the Green Line, the extension of the existing Red Line, and the operation and maintenance of the Red Line, currently operated by the CityPass consortium.
CAF, which specializes in the design and implementation of transit systems,[3] will hold a 50% stake in J-Net.[4] In February 2019, the company’s workers’ council voted against participating in the Jerusalem light rail and urged the company to withdraw from the bid, stating that “CAF’s workers do not deserve to assume the responsibility for carrying out a job rejected by the overwhelming majority of the international community.”[5] Shapir Engineering and Industry, which specializes in construction, development and infrastructure projects, will hold the remaining 50%.[6]
The Jerusalem light rail connects Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem with the western part of the city, expropriating occupied Palestinian land and promoting increased territorial contiguity for settlements.[7] Executed through public-private partnerships, the light rail project depends on the participation of Israeli and multinational companies for its implementation.
Currently, the only active line is the Red Line, which runs from the settlement neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev through the city center to Mt. Herzel. The construction of the line involved the expropriation of 8.16 hectares (81,600m2)[8] of land in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods, in violation of international law. The winning consortium will also construct the extension of the Red Line, which will reach the settlement of Neve Yaakov.[9]
The planned Green Line will connect the settlement neighborhood of Gilo to the western part of the city and to Mt. Scopus. The project includes the construction of 53 new stations, the supply of 144 railroad cars and the renovation of the existing 46 cars of the Red Line.[1] The winning consortium will also supply the communication systems for the light rail and operate and maintain both lines – 15 years for the Red Line and 25 years for the Green Line – with the possibility of extending the term of operation.[2]
By taking an active part in an infrastructure project that strengthens the illegal settlement enterprise and the continued fragmentation of Palestinian communities, the companies are facilitating the illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and are complicit in violations of international law.
[1] CAF Press Release. The Consortium Made Up of the CAF Group and the Construction Firm Shapir Awarded the Jerusalem Tram Project. August 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[1] Company’s announcement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. 08 August 2019.
[2] Government of Israel. Infrastructure for Growth. 2019
[3] Company Annual Report, 2018.
[4] CAF Press Release. The Consortium Made Up of the CAF Group and the Construction Firm Shapir Awarded the Jerusalem Tram Project. August 2019.
[5] Nieuwhof, Adri. Workers Reject Spanish Firm’s Bid for Israeli Settlement Project. Electronic Intifada, February 2019.
[6] Company’s announcement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. 08 August 2019.
[7] Who Profits. Tracking Annexation: The Jerusalem Light Rail and the Israeli Occupation. July 2017.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
September 24, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Ordinary Americans can organize and win
During many years of writing about or describing the terrible damage that the “special relationship” with Israel has done to the United States the question occasionally comes up “Given the enormous power of the Zionist lobby, what can we do to bring about change?”
It is a simple question, though one that begs for multiple answers, but it also requires some thinking about how the Establishment, better known as the Deep State, operates in America. The American Deep State, which has as one of its dearest principles eternal nurturing of Israel’s interests, is actually a bundle of individual enterprises that together operate to sustain policies that are mutually beneficial. Its epicenters include financial services and faux news media in New York and the political hub in Washington, but it also is served by Hollywood’s entertainment plus propaganda machine.
And the three parts of the Deep State are essentially interchangeable, with generals and intelligence figures ignorant of finance winding up in the KKR Global investment firm as has General David Petraeus and Michael Morell in Beacon Global Strategies, while leading representatives from Wall Street do a turn in government, particularly at the Treasury Department. Television news and entertainment also feature celebrities from across the Establishment while Hollywood draws on all of the above and works hard to make sure the contrived narrative about American democracy and its wonderful “allies” is promoted at every opportunity.
Which brings us to the Israel Lobby which is an integral part of the Deep State and in some ways one of its most powerful elements as it has a foot in all the other components plus depth that enables it to interfere in American government at the federal, state and local levels. It is indisputably the driving force behind U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and even beyond as it enforces standards on alleged anti-Semitism and engages in Lawfare and other shady practices to protect the Jewish state. It differs somewhat from other parts of the Establishment in that it pretends to have no such power at all, a fiction that it preserves by pretending that its actions are all in defense of U.S. national security against evil nations like Iran. From the Lobby’s expressed point of view, Israeli and American interests just happen to coincide.
By some estimates, there are 600 Jewish organizations active in the United States that have at least as part of their raison d’etre the defense of Israel and Israeli interests. They are supplemented by Christian Zionist groups like Christians United for Israel (CUFI) that claims seven million supporters. The leading predominantly Jewish organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) are largely funded by Jewish oligarchs and exist to promote Israeli interests, to include pressuring the United States into attacking Iran.
The Israel Lobby groups are awash in money, with AIPAC alone having an annual budget of more than $100 million and 200 employees, who are able to blanket Capitol Hill and actually write legislation for lazy congressmen. The salary and benefits of its Executive Director Howard Kohr exceed $1 million. Against that, no organization critical of the Israeli relationship has resources sufficient to do anything beyond surviving at a basic level and trying to get the message out.
So what to do? First of all, there is Congress. Pat Buchanan once referred to Congress as “enemy occupied territory.” He was referring to the Israel Lobby’s ability not only to control the discussion on the Middle East but also to focus its efforts to defeat any congressman who dared criticize the Jewish state. Politicians like Paul Findley, Chuck Percy, William Fulbright, Pete McCloskey, James Traficant and Cynthia McKinney, who were brave enough to stand up against Israel, found themselves out of a job after confronting well-funded and media supported opponents at reelection time, sending the message that it was career ending to do so.
That would suggest that it must be regarded as a given that congressmen and women will be terrified of saying the wrong thing about Israel, but the reality is not quite so simple. I have had numerous contacts with congressmen through the years, first by way of government Congressional Delegations (CODELS) when I was overseas with CIA, and more recently in Washington at various conferences and meetings. A quite surprising percentage of legislators were privately quite willing to express their dislike of Israel and its policies, though none of them were brave enough to go public with such sentiments. Some of them even expressed their desire to see the Israel Lobby effectively destroyed because of its corruption of America’s institutions, surely an admirable viewpoint.
That means that there is an audience in Congress even if it is essentially passive. American citizens who wish to become involved but are disdainful of getting active in political campaigns or in even dealing with congressmen should recall Plato’s warning that “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” A good friend of mine from California who has worked the congressional circuit on Palestinian issues, most recently in backing the Congresswoman Betty McCollum bill opposing Israel’s military detention of children, believes that it is necessary to be persistent to get through. She calls her congressman and tries to set up an appointment to discuss the Middle East, saying that she is available whenever there is an opening in the schedule and is even willing to fly to Washington if that works best. When she is predictably put off, she persists, calling again and again until she gets an appointment. The appointment itself is usually with a staffer, but when she gets to the office she pushes again for another meeting, this time with the congressman. She repeats the process as necessary.
One might argue that one woman meeting with one congressman has virtually no impact, which may on the surface be true, but it reflects a failure to understand how congress works. If that same congressman gets twenty-five calls on one issue, it is highlighted by the staff and the congressional office begins to pay attention. If there are a hundred calls it is treated seriously. Surely in every congressional district in the U.S. there are one hundred activists willing to bug congress on the issue of the Israel relationship and the wars and devastation that it has brought. If everyone angry about Israel were to call his or her congressmen there would be a panic on Capitol Hill to be sure, but major unrest over the lopsided and dangerous relationship is exactly what is needed. One particular subject to raise with congressmen is the issue of Zionist foundations’ apparent immunity from having to register as foreign agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938. Russian media outlets have been forced to comply even though they are in no position to advance policies favorable to Moscow. The Israel Lobby, which even writes legislation favorable to its most favored nation, is only exempted because congress and the White House fear confronting Jewish power.
For activists who identify with the political parties, in a like fashion putting pressure on delegates to next year’s nominating conventions would also be desirable. While the Republican Party’s hawkish representatives would almost certainly be difficult to approach in that fashion, the Democrats could prove to be much more susceptible. There has been considerable criticism of Israel surfacing among the Democratic base, not just from the “Squad in Congress,” most of which is now more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to the Israeli occupiers. An uprising by the party faithful demanding an open discussion of the blank check support for Israel is not inconceivable and it would really shake up the status quo.
The same basic formula works with the media. Send in one letter-to-the-editor criticizing Israel and you will be ignored. Send in letter after letter and one piece might eventually appear. If one hundred newspaper subscribers are sending in letters, the editorial staff will begin to take notice. This has, in fact, been a development in the mainstream media over the past five years. Disenchantment with Benjamin Netanyahu and the horror that he represents has been growing, so much so that the genie is out of the bottle regarding Israeli “democracy.” As a result, it is now possible to read op-eds and editorials highly critical of Israel even in Jewish-owned Establishment pillars like The New York Times. But much, much more of the same is needed.
Finally, people who want to be freed from the Israeli yoke should support organizations that are seeking to do just that and have been in the front line of the struggle. There is my own Council for the National Interest as well as If Americans Knew, The Washington Report and IRMEP just for starters, supplementing the activity of a number of groups that focus on Palestinian rights. Sites like the Ron Paul Institute and Antiwar are also excellent sources of information.
All such organizations do benefit from the support of activists who are willing to speak up and protest over the brutal behavior of the Israeli government, particularly as the Israel Lobby has turned the United States into a co-conspirator for the Jewish state’s war crimes. All the groups are active in holding seminars and speaking events nationwide, information which can be obtained from their websites.
So, the message is that the Israel Lobby is powerful but it is not invulnerable. We have to keep pounding on congress, the political parties and the media if we are ever to be unshackled from the Israeli monster. We have to do it and even more because the very future of our country and what kind of nation we will be is at stake.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
September 23, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | United States, Zionism |
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NAZARETH – Israeli authorities in the 1948 occupied lands on Sunday morning demolished a Palestinian house under construction in Qalansuwa city at the pretext that it was built with no license.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli bulldozers escorted by municipal employees and police forces stormed al-Sahel al-Gharbi area of Qalansuwa and later embarked on razing the house, which belonged to the family of Abu Arrar.
The Israeli authorities had already demolished two homes belonging to the same family in the area about four years ago.
Like in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel systematically demolishes Palestinian homes and structures in the Palestinian towns and cities in the 1948 occupied lands at the pretext of unlicensed construction, while it prevents the local residents from obtaining permits or make it difficult for them to meet construction conditions.
September 22, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Co-founder of Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) will be unable to speak at an event at the UK Labour Party’s upcoming annual conference due to his visa request being delayed, according to Palestine Post 24
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), a pro-BDS group hosting the event on the sidelines of the Labour conference in Brighton, said on Friday that Omar Barghouti would instead address the gathering by video due to the UK government’s “unexplained, abnormal delay” in issuing him a visa.
“The unprecedented delay in processing Barghouti’s travel visa application by the British government is part and parcel of the growing efforts by Israel and its allies to suppress Palestinian voices and the movements for Palestinian rights,” PSC said in a statement.
Barghouti had been set to speak at the “Palestine in the age of Trump” event alongside Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and Unite union chief Len McCluskey, both allies of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“They fear our shining a light of truth that reveals their lies. They dread our tireless quest for freedom, justice and equality,” Barghouti said, according to the PSC statement.
There was no immediate comment from the UK Home Office, which handles visa requests.
Earlier this year, Barghouti was denied entry to the US for a multi-city speaking tour.
The Arab American Institute said at the time that Barghouti, a resident of Acre who is married to an Arab Israeli and holds Israeli permanent resident status, was not provided an explanation for his denial of entry beyond being told it was an “immigration matter.”
James Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute, called Barghouti’s ban an “arbitrary political decision,” and accused the Trump administration of working to “silence Palestinian voices.”
Israel has barred Barghouti from leaving the county a number of times in recent years by refusing to renew travel documents granted to Palestinian residents of Israel who do not have full citizenship.
The BDS campaign, a non-violent movement, advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
September 22, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, United States, Zionism |
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It didn’t take long for the American Administration to crudely interfere with an open society’s most sacred ethos, that of academic freedom. We learned this weekend that the US Department of Education has ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remake their joint Middle East studies program after concluding that they were offering students “a biased curriculum that, among other complaints, did not present enough “positive” imagery of Judaism and Christianity in the region.”
Academic freedom is a relatively simple principle. It refers to the ”liberty to teach, pursue, and discuss knowledge without restriction or interference, as by school or public officials.”
This principle seems to be under attack in America. The American administration has openly interfered with the liberty to freely teach, pursue and discuss knowledge.
The New York Times writes: “in a rare instance of federal intervention in college course content, the department asserted that the universities’ Middle East program violated the standards of a federal program that awards funding to international studies and foreign language programs.”
According to the NYT the focus on ‘anti Israeli bias’ “appears to reflect the views of an agency leadership that includes a civil rights chief, Kenneth L. Marcus, who has made a career of pro-Israel advocacy and has waged a years long campaign to delegitimize and defund Middle East studies programs that he has criticized as rife with anti-Israel bias.”
One may wonder why America is willing to sacrifice its liberal ethos on the pro Israel altar? Miriam Elman provides a possible answer. Elman is an associate professor at Syracuse University and executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes BDS. Elman told the NYT that this “should be a wake-up call… what they’re (the Federal government presumably) saying is, ‘If you want to be biased and show an unbalanced view of the Middle East, you can do that, but you’re not going to get federal and taxpayer money.”
In Elman’s view academic freedom has stayed intact, it is just the dollars that will be withheld unless a university adheres to pro Israel politics.
Those who follow the history of Zionism, Israeli politics and Jewish nationalism find this latest development unsurprising. Zionism, once dedicated to the concept of a “promised land,” morphed decades ago into an aspiration toward a ‘promised planet.’ Zionism is a global project operating in most, if not all, Western states. Jewish pressure groups, Zionist think tanks and Pro Israel lobbies work intensively to suppress elementary freedoms and reshape the public, political and cultural discourse all to achieve Zionism’s ambitious goal. After all, Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to suppress criticism of Jewish power.
This authoritarian symptom is not at all new. It is apparently a wandering phenomenon. It has popped out in different forms at different times. What happened in the USSR provides a perfect illustration of this symptom. In the early days of Soviet Russia, anti-Semitism was met with the death penalty as stated by Joseph Stalin in answer to an inquiry made by the Jewish News Agency : “In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.”
In the Weimar Republic, Jewish anti defamation leagues attempted to suppress the rise in anti Jewish sentiments in the 1920s. There’s no need to elaborate on the dramatic failure of these efforts in Germany. And despite Stalin’s early pro-Jewish stance, the Soviet leader turned against the so- called “rootless cosmopolitans.” This campaign led to the 1950s Doctors’ plot, in which a group of doctors (mostly Jewish) were subjected to a show trial for supposedly having plotted to assassinate the Soviet leader.
In Britain and other Western nations we have seen fierce pro Israel campaigns waged to suppress criticism of Israel and Jewish politics. Different lobbies have been utilizing different means amongst them the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism by governments and institutions. In Britain, France, Germany and other European countries, intellectuals, artists, politicians, party members and ordinary citizens are constantly harassed by a few powerful Jewish pressure groups. In dark Orwellian Britain 2019, critics of Israel have yet to face the death sentence, but they are subjected to severe reprisals ranging from personal intimidation to police actions and criminal prosecution. People have lost their jobs for supporting Palestine, others have been expelled from Corbyn’s compromised Labour Party for making truthful statements. Some have even been jailed for satirical content. And as you might guess, none of this has made Israel, its supporters or its stooges popular. Quite the opposite.
I learned from the NYT that the administration “ordered” the universities’ consortium to submit a revised schedule of events it planned to support, a full list of the courses it offers and the professors working in its Middle East studies program. I wonder who in the administration possesses the scholarly credentials to assess the academic level of university courses or professors? Professor Trump himself, or maybe Kushner & Ivanka or Kushner’s coffee boy Avi Berkovitch, or maybe recently retired ‘peace maker’ Jason Greenblatt?
It takes years to build academic institutions, departments, libraries and research facilities. Apparently, it takes one determined lobby to ruin the future of American scholarship.
September 22, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | promised planet, United States, Zionism |
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The most important news coming out of occupied Palestine last week was not the blow delivered to Benyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu or Gantz, it will be business as usual, now that the elections are over: more attacks on Gaza, possibly a large-scale war on Gaza, possibly a war on Lebanon, or Iran, who would know, as Israel always has a profusion of targets.
No, the most important news was not the elections but the killing of a Palestinian woman in the West Bank, only a few days after a 10-year-old boy, Abd al Rahman Yasir Shtewi, had been shot in the head by a soldier near the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum during a demonstration over the closure of an access road. He was taken to hospital in critical condition.
The woman, Alaa Wahdan, was shot with an assault rifle as she walked towards a checkpoint near the Qalandiya refugee camp, built for refugees after the massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle in 1948.
She was walking on the road, having missed the pedestrian lane allotted to the Palestinians. That was the crime for which she had to die. She was told to stop. According to the five heavily armed men who blocked her way, she pulled out a knife, a small yellow-handled thing photographed lying on the road. Alaa was five to seven meters away and the knife could have been knocked away with the butt of a gun but one of the armed men shot her instead, the bullet apparently severing an artery in her leg.
Alaa fell to the road and was left there unattended for half an hour, bleeding to death. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it was prevented from attending to her. The soldiers watched her drag herself along the roadside on her front, the blood pouring out of her body, leaving a long, wide red stain behind her. Not one of them made any attempt to comfort her or staunch the wound. They watched her bleed to death. They let her die, in line with unstated state policy.
Who Alaa was precisely, a mother, a sister, a daughter or an aunt, was of no interest to the occupiers. She was a down-page story in the media, not even worthy of being given a name, no more than the African ‘terrorists’ of the 1940s or 50s were worthy of being given a name by the British or French occupiers of their land who tortured and murdered them. In the words of Mickey Rosenfeld, the police gauleiter of occupied Jerusalem, she was no more than a “female terrorist” who was “injured moderately.” If this is so, Mr Rosenfeld, why did she die?
In the background, while Alaa crawled along the road, her lifeblood draining away, the spivs, the thieves and the war criminals quarreled over who should be next to take over the occupation of Palestine. The choice was between Netanyahu and Gantz, the outcome of the elections so close that the ‘kingmaker’ will be Avigdor Lieberman, the Moldovan immigrant who arrived in Palestine when he was 20 and lives with his wife and children on Palestinian land in the settlement of Nokdim.
Like Menahim Begin in the 1970s, Lieberman was once regarded as a thug and fanatic who would never make it into the mainstream of Zionist politics but as the mainstream has shifted further right year by year it finally reached him. He once advocated the bombing of the Aswan dam as a means of shutting up the Egyptians. He thinks the ‘Arab’ members of the Zionist ‘parliament’ are the allies of terrorists.
He wants Muslim and Christian Palestinians to be required to swear an oath of loyalty to a state which has declared itself to be a Jewish, which has practically stripped them bare of all they possess and which plans to keep going until nothing is left.
His philosophy can be summed up in his own words: “Whoever is against us there’s nothing to do …. We have to lift up an axe and remove his head … otherwise we won’t be here.” The option of handing back part of what has been stolen as a means of making peace is not even within his realm of thinking.
As for Netanyahu, his campaigning was nakedly racist. He warned against an ‘Arab’ party ending up in government and his Likud party stationed cameras outside polling booths to intimidate Palestinians and prevent them from voting. It didn’t work. They turned out in higher numbers than ever. It is the measure of this individual’s vile nature that he wanted to attack Gaza either to win or postpone the elections, riding to eventual victory over the bodies of more dead Palestinian men, women and children.
Gantz got in his way, but only for the same electoral reason, because he also is a killer of Palestinians, and currently the subject of prosecution in the Netherlands for the bombing of an apartment building in Gaza in 2014 which killed six members of the same family.
As the Palestinians well know, it makes no difference which of the parties is in power because their policies – more war, more killing, more settlements, with annexation now only a few steps away – are all the same.
The pathology of the Zionists puts them beyond reason. They do not connect up with any laws or values except their own and trying to reason with them on the basis of international law and universal values is a waste of time, pebbles thrown against the side of a tank.
In 2013 Mehdi Hassan interviewed Dani Dayon as the centerpiece of an Oxford Union debate. Until recently Dayon was the head of the Yesha settler council. Sitting in the front row, Ghada Karmi, born in Al Quds to a family that owns land on the West Bank taken over by foreign settlers like Dayon, had to endure the lies and delusions that flowed from this man’s mouth. Cutting through the arrogance and his smiling, self-assured attempts to deceive the audience, she told him what he actually was in her eyes and the eyes of the world – a common thief.
There is no mystery about what has ‘happened’ in Palestine. There is no ‘conflict of rights,’ ‘contested narratives’ or ‘disputed’ ownership. These are all propaganda phrases designed to conceal the indisputable reality. From the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, Palestine has been stolen by people whose moral right to stay there can only be conferred on them by the people whose land they have stolen. Had they ever accepted this principle, had they ever apologized for their crimes, had they agreed to share instead of wanting to take the lot, using all the brutal means at their disposal, this moral right could have been secured but they forfeited this possibility long ago, preferring endless war to the possibility of peace. There is no ‘two state’ solution in sight. Add it to the list of myths still being purveyed. There is no solution in sight at all, at least not one based on rational discussion and the application of international law.
There is no statute of limitations here. The land was stolen and will remain stolen no matter how long the Zionists hold it. There is no ‘land of Israel’. There is no ‘Temple Mount’ and no ‘tomb of the patriarchs’ in Hebron. These are all deceptions sitting atop a mountain of lies intended to bury the truth. There is Palestine, there is the Haram al Sharif, the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, where the settler state pogrom against the Palestinians continues without pause, and countless other sites on the map, all of them occupied and renamed. Not a drop of water in the sea or a speck of sand on the beach belongs to the Zionists. It has all been stolen.
As soon as the elections were over, ‘kingmaker’ Lieberman, leading the party of Russian ‘immigrants’ to an illegally occupied land, started stitching together a ‘national unity’ government. As excited or as preoccupied with the process as the Zionist population of Palestine might be, there is no prospect of change for the Palestinians except change for the worse.
Gantz is as much a warmonger as Netanyahu or Lieberman and as the Palestinians will continue to resist occupation of their land where and when they can, as is their natural right and their right under international law, more large-scale violence is only a matter of time. In their arrogance the Zionists are ignoring all the warning signs, the cries of ‘death to Israel’ from the Houthis, the tens of thousands of missiles in Hizbullah’s armory and the determination of Iran to defend itself and its allies. The Zionists can kick the Palestinians around, but not these powerful enemies, who have behind them the support for Palestine of Muslims everywhere, not to speak of the numerous defenders of Palestine and Palestinian rights in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and many other countries.
The Zionists came to the Middle East as a ‘rampart’ of ‘western civilisation’ and that is where they have remained, on the ramparts, behind the palisades, the fences and the wall, fencing others out and fencing themselves in. They wanted to be in the Middle East but not of the Middle East. It was beneath them. They hijacked those aspects of its culture that suited them but looked down with contempt on the rest and they still do.
In any case, western domination was the accurate phrase, not western civilization. The ‘west’ has never been civilized, not in the Middle East or in any other lands against which it went to war and occupied. Rather, it has been utterly barbaric, as the word is generally understood, and Zionism has been part of that barbarism.
Not wanting to be part of the Middle East except on its own unacceptable terms, Zionism has to rely on powerful outside backers, a role currently filled by one of them, the United States. However, will it always be there to give the Zionist state the support it demands, will it always be capable of giving it the support it demands, will it ultimately be willing to put its own life on the line for a small state far away that is held in contempt by much of the world, not for bad reasons but for perfectly understandable ones, and one that is held in contempt as well by an increasing number of Americans?
Only arrogance could be the reason for the willingness of the Zionists to stake their future on such uncertainties, when for a small price, except in their own greedy eyes, they could have secured their place in the Middle East long ago. There is one other reason for their confidence, though, and that is their possession of nuclear weapons. At the worst, backs finally against the wall, they can take everyone down with them.
Take a serial killer out of the psychiatric ward, hand him a machine-gun and wait to see what happens. That is the prospect ahead of the Middle East as long as the Zionist state remains a killer at large.
– 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).
September 20, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Israeli occupation forces raided today, Thursday, 19 September 2019 at around 2:00am the office of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah.
The Israeli forces stole five laptops, memory cards, three laptop memories, one laptop card, several books and additionally searching through the belongings of the office.
This is the third incident where the Israeli soldiers have raided the office, the first was in 2002 and the second incident was in 2012.
Addameer reassures that those constant raids will not stand in the face of any duties the organization has for Palestinian political prisoners. The organization will continue to support Palestinian prisoners to flight all human rights violations they suffer from including torture, arbitrary detention and unfair trails.
Addameer sees this raid as a part of ongoing and systematic attacks against the Palestinian civil society organization. Those attacks are targeting the organizations that have a role in facing the occupation’s violations and claiming accountability for those violations. This is additionally a part of the occupation’s campaign to shrink space, delegitimize and de-fund those human rights and civil society organizations.
September 19, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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The Oxford definition of ‘terrorism’ is: “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” Although the term could apply to the belligerents in many wars, the term ‘terrorism’ takes on its everyday meaning when violence is perpetuated by the weak in resistance to the powerful.
What other form of resistance is available to an oppressed people? One does not have to search hard to find a Jewish source begging for the peaceful resistance of a Palestinian Gandhi or King.
The request itself is odd, it invites a comparison to the conditions Gandhi and King fought, and is an implicit, although perhaps unintended, admission that Israel represents another oppressive racist regime.
It takes chutzpah to complain about the form of resistance employed by the people you are oppressing. Why are the Palestinians obliged to meet violence with nonviolence? Certainly you have to take your victims as they are.
Gandhi wrote about the uses of nonviolent resistance and King referred to Gandhi’s writings. For Gandhi and King nonviolence was not an end in itself, it was a strategy, a means to achieve a goal. Despite later deifications, neither Gandhi nor King was a saint, they were leaders who employed non violent resistance because it was effective under their circumstances.
Both men were vastly outpowered by the brutal regimes they opposed. Nonviolence did not allow them or their followers to escape injury or death, their battles required at least as much physical bravery as for any soldiers.
Both Gandhi and King deliberately provoked their enemies and then refused either to back down or to physically fight back. The decision to meet violence with nonviolent resistance was a powerful tool used to expose the brutality of the regime. The march to Selma would have amounted to little without the press. What they ‘achieved’ was an unforgettably painful display of violence. To the extent nonviolence succeeded for King, it was because the ‘soldiers’ on the other side gave Americans a clear picture of the savagery to which blacks were subjected. It became increasingly difficult for those who had long averted their eyes to claim ignorance.
One reason the Palestinians are portrayed as ‘failing’ to meet the standard set by Gandhi or King is that their use of the tactic of nonviolence has not attracted sympathetic coverage, it has not been effective enough in exposing Israel’s brutality. There are, of course, numerous examples of peaceful Palestinian resistence. One example is commemorated on ‘Land Day’ remembering the day in 1976 that Israel killed peaceful Palestinian protestors. Another occurred during the first intifada, as Neve Gordon writes in 972, when the “Palestinians adopted massive civil disobedience strategies, including daily protests” against Israel’s occupation. Israel responded with violence and mass incarcerations. While they could easily provoke violence through peaceful protest, the Palestinians could not win the media nor shame the Israelis into change.
This, of course, begs the question of control of the media. King was extensively covered in the media. Do the Palestinians have access to the same? At best, Haaretz might decry the proportionality of Israel’s violence, but will it explore the true meaning of Palestinian protest, both the original and the ongoing taking of their property and destruction of their society? Would the international press do any better?
As I was writing this I realized that Palestinian nonviolent protests in Gaza have had perhaps a small effect on public opinion. The mainstream media in the US is universally favorable to Israel, but although they tried, the media was not entirely successful in creating sympathy for the Israeli snipers. For example, The Guardian, in reporting that one year into the protest, the Israelis had killed 190 and wounded 28,000, noted that, “Children, journalists and medics have been killed, even when they were standing far back from the fence.” Spin that one. Here’s an attempt by Eric Yoffe, a self-described ‘liberal’ American Jew, to justify killing protestors who had not killed a single Israeli. “If 100 Jewish bodies were strewn across southern Israel, would the American left more readily forgive Israel’s defensive actions against an angry mob of tens of thousands propelled by the murderous, anti-Semitic terrorists of Hamas?” This is simply a variation on the “I thought he was going to hit me so I hit him back first” defense. Perhaps the need to resort to such a feeble rationale helps explain why we finally have a tiny Congressional support group for the Palestinians. Seventeen were so daring as to vote against an anti BDS bill.
Further, Israel has shown little sign that it is willing to change its basic oppressive policies in response to any actions or restraint by the Palestinians. This is an interesting video in which Israeli ‘settlers’ are asked if they would move if told to do so by their government and knowing the move would mean peace in the region. Their responses are variations on “No, I would not, it is my land.” Perhaps they are merely following the lessons of their religion.
In the story of Exodus, recounted annually even by many secular Jews at Passover, Moses unsuccessfully begs the Pharaoh for his peoples’ freedom. The lesson to be learned: Jewish liberation comes only after Egyptian civilians are subjected to terrible brutality.
September 19, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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