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Iran and Hezbollah Stand Ready for War

By Jeremy Salt | American Herald Tribune | July 18, 2019

Individually or collectively the construct known as ‘the West’ has had its foot on the neck of the Middle East and North Africa for more than two centuries. Occasionally the foot has been lifted but never voluntarily, only when ‘the West’ was no longer capable of holding it in place. Examples are France’s unwilling retreats from Syria in 1946 and Algeria in 1962, and Britain’s final loss of control over Egypt following the failure of the ‘tripartite aggression’ of 1956, otherwise known as the Suez War.

When they came to Palestine the Zionists packaged themselves as standing on the ramparts of civilization against barbarism. As ‘Western civilization’ had always been spectacularly uncivilized in its treatment of black and brown people, the Zionists were standing on the ramparts of Western barbarism, not civilization.

An existential moment seems to be approaching in Middle Eastern history. The so-called West has dominated the region and North Africa since Napoleon landed a French army in Egypt in 1798. Since then, few countries that have escaped invasion, occupation, subversion and the overthrow of governments.

The record is seamless, continuing with the destruction of Iraq, Libya and Syria and the current confrontation with Iran. Ever-tightening sanctions imposed since the 1979 revolution are designed to implode the country from within, with military attack repeatedly threatened by the US and Israel.

Unless and until this long historical cycle of violence across the region is broken, the Middle East seems doomed to suffer its repetition endlessly. At this juncture of history, however, the West is not what it used to be and is no longer capable of imposing its will on the Middle East except at tremendous cost to itself.

The former imperial powers, Britain and France, are now no more than satraps of one power, the US, a single imperial power in noticeable decline. The costs of its wars alone have been enormous. Since 2001 it is estimated to have spent $5.6 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and on combatting ‘terrorism’ in other arenas.

This is money every American knows – and Donald Trump said in 2016 that he knew – is needed for urban redevelopment and the upgrading of broken infrastructure and inadequate social services across the country. Furthermore, there is no American public appetite for more wars in the Middle East.

Conversely, as imperial decline approaches the point of imperial exhaustion, the determination of the ‘axis of resistance’ is strengthening. It is now speaking back to the West and Israel in the same dominant language that the west has always used, which of course is the language of force. In the mainstream media, this will be called ‘defiance’ rather than what it is, which is the rising determination of the people of the Middle East to determine their own future and finally shake off the fetters of external domination. The message being sent forth by both Iran and Hezbollah is that if the collective West and/or Israel dare attack again they will be ready for them.

The message being sent forth by both Iran and Hezbollah is that if the collective West and/or Israel dare attack again they will be ready for them.

This is not empty talk. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, always means what he says and only says what he means. No-one follows his statements more closely and takes them more seriously than the Israeli military command. He is an enemy who has earned their respect.

In June Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shot down a $200 million RQ-4 high altitude drone, the biggest and most sophisticated in the US drone fleet. Although the US had only recently designated the Revolutionary Guard as a “foreign terrorist organization,” and although it claimed, falsely, that the drone had been flying over international waters, it did not retaliate. Trump claimed that he called an attack off when he learned that it would cause 150 civilian casualties. In fact, the real reason seems to have been that Iran passed on the message through a third party that if the US attacked it would immediately strike at US targets in the Gulf.

John Bolton and Benyamin Netanyahu have been pushing hard for war, against strong resistance within the US administration. If they succeed, Iran has warned that it will immediately close the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping and retaliate against US military bases and other targets in the gulf. Any war started in the gulf will quickly spread across the region, involving Israel. Conversely, any war started by Israel against Lebanon and Hezbollah will quickly spread to the gulf.

The effects will be felt around the world with an infinitely worse effect on the global economy than the energy crisis which followed the 1973 war, when Israel was caught napping in the occupied Sinai and would have lost the war but for Anwar Sadat’s betrayal of his Syrian wartime ally, Hafez al Assad and but for emergency arms shipments flown directly to Israel’s Sinai front by the US.

Hassan Nasrallah is showing such confidence that it has to be assumed that he knows something about Hezbollah’s weaponry that we don’t and Israel probably does not either. Very probably it is the capacity to seriously degrade Israel’s air power. This is an issue Iran and Hezbollah have been working on for decades, as it is the key to the outcome of any future war.

Hezbollah is far stronger now than it was when it humiliated Israel in 2006. It can fire enough missiles simultaneously to overwhelm Israel’s anti-missile systems. They can reach any corner of enemy territory. If Hezbollah is also capable of shooting down aircraft, Israel faces the prospect of starting another war it cannot win, with far worse consequences than it has ever faced in its history.

Israel has had one outstanding victory since 1948. This was in 1967 when it attacked Egypt and Syria, rendering their ground forces useless by destroying their air ccover before going on to occupy the Golan Heights and the rest of Palestine. It was this war that gave rise to the myth of Israeli invincibility, exploded only six years later when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal and routed the occupying Israeli forces.

Israel’s 1982 war on Lebanon was more of an onslaught on a defenseless civilian population, a prelude to its massacres by air and artillery in Gaza. Close to 20,000 people, overwhelmingly civilians, were killed in Lebanon before it was over. Given the combination of airpower, artillery, armor and the number of ground troops (80,000 to 100,000) Israel simply swamped lightly-armed Palestinian and Syrian resistance.

Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon lasted for more than two decades before being ended by Hezbollah in 2000. Since 1985 Hezbollah had vastly improved its capacities at all levels, including electronic warfare, enabling it to intercept Israeli communications and ambush and destroy even elite units. Unable to defeat Hezbollah and facing a rising tide of anti-war sentiment at home, the Israeli government finally decided to cut and run, virtually overnight.

Frustrated, Israel struck back in 2006, only to be thwarted again in an even more humiliating defeat. Its reserves were so poorly disciplined that commanders hesitated to send them into battle, but even elite forces such as the Golani Brigade were outfought by Hezbollah’s part-time soldiers. Even with total command of the air Israel proved incapable of seizing and holding territory only a few kilometers north of the armistice line. Thoughts of advancing across the Litani river and taking on the professional core of Hezbollah’s fighting forces had to be abandoned.

The US held the door open for Israel week after week, giving it the time it said it needed to finish off Hezbollah. Suffering one setback after another, however, Israel was not up to the task. After 34 days it had had enough and retreated, leaving behind the wreckage of dozens of armored vehicles, including the supposedly invulnerable Merkava tank, destroyed by Hezbollah’s Sagger anti-tank missiles. Hezbollah had also taken the war to sea, crippling an Israeli warship in an apparent missile strike.

The unpalatable truth for the Israeli military command was that its ground forces had been outsmarted and outfought along Hezbollah’s first line of defense in the south. Even with its air power Israel proved incapable of moving beyond this line.

In the years since 1982, as the weaknesses behind the myth of the ‘invincible’ Israeli armed forces have been gradually exposed, the enemies Israel has vowed so often to obliterate have been catching up, reaching the point of armed capacity where Nasrallah says Israel is too frightened to attack again.

He has mocked it for taking 13 years to discover tunnels Hezbollah had dug from Lebanon. In a recent interview with Al Manar television station, marking the 13th anniversary of the 2006 war, he taunted Israel by showing a map of all the strategic targets Hezbollah will hit along the coastal strip if Israel dares to go to war again. They include Ben-Gurion airport, petrochemical plants, arms depots and the ports of Tel Aviv and Ashdod (Palestinian Isdud).

Nasrallah referred to “game-changing” offensive weapons that could bring Israel to “the verge of vanishing.” They include drones and precision missiles but when asked whether Hezbollah also had anti-aircraft missiles he would not say, referring only to a policy of “constructive ambiguity.”

Hezbollah claims that it can reach any part of Israel with its missiles and is capable of inflicting massive destruction of civilian and military targets. A land invasion has also been planned, with Nasrallah saying Hezbollah has “several scenarios” for the penetration of Galilee by its forces.

Since 2006 Israel has repeatedly threatened to destroy Lebanon in the next war. The template would be Dahiyeh, the largely Shia suburb of Beirut, which Israel sought to obliterate from the air in 2006. Military, intelligence and political figures have all threatened that the next time around the ‘Dahiyeh strategy’ would be applied to the entire country. One Israeli ‘ defense official’ says that in the next war Lebanon will “experience” a level of destruction not seen since the Second World War. “ …. We will crush it and grind it to the ground.” (David Kenner, ‘Why Israel fears Iran’s presence in Syria,’ The Atlantic, July 22, 2018).

Nevertheless, behind the bluster and threats lies fear. No one but Hezbollah and perhaps Iran really knows the size and capacity of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal but US and Israeli estimates put the number at between 100,000-130,000. Hezbollah is capable of firing 1200-1500 missiles a day. In recent years Israel’s developing nightmare has been that these weapons would be launched in sufficient numbers and with sufficient accuracy to destroy civilian and military infrastructure and paralyze daily life. In fact, as Nasrallah’s confident remarks indicate, that point seems to have been reached.

Just as Hezbollah is ready for the next war so is Iran. The target of European subversion and intrigue since the 19th century, Iran has been threatened and punished with economic sanctions, assassination and subversion since it dared to take hold of its own future in 1979. Telegraphing their punches in advance, the US and Israel have repeatedly threatened it with obliteration.

The scholar Sayed Mohammad Marandi has written on Iran’s position in the face of these continuing threats (‘Iran faces US aggression and European hypocrisy but this time it’s ready,’ Middle East Eye, July 12, 2019). Basically, Iran has had enough. Writes Professor Marandi: ‘Repeated threats of nuclear holocaust and genocide by Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump are deeply embedded in western civilization’s centuries-old tradition of colonization, mass slaughter and moral absence.”

Given the west’s record “there is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilized manner today.” Iran’s preparations include the development of a formidable arsenal of missiles, the acquisition of weaponry needed to fight a sea war in the gulf and the construction of underground military facilities.

Retaliation by Iran would involve the destruction of oil and gas facilities as well as oil tankers and other shipping on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz. Finally, “western establishment politicians and pundits seem to thrill at sending nations back to the stone age. But be sure that if there is war, this time around Iran and its allies will make sure they come along for the ride.”

As Professor Marandi, as President Rouhani and Ayatollah Khamenei have all made clear, and as Nasrallah has made clear, these current targets of the west are prepared to fight back with all the weapons at their disposal. This is not a question of the Iranian government or Hezbollah merely being punished but being destroyed, at a time, however, that the West – as led by the US – has never been in a weaker position to impose its will without incurring incalculable military and economic costs to itself.

If John Bolton and Benyamin Netanyahu get the war they want, Iran and Hezbollah, knowing that the object is their destruction, will strike back with full force from day one. The devastation on both sides would be massive, with the possible use of nuclear weapons part of the picture. A climactic point seems to be approaching fast in the history of the Middle East.

July 18, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pandering to Christian Zionism: Trump Outreach on Display in Washington

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 18, 2019

In Washington on the weekend after the Fourth of July, Israel was praised and Iran was condemned in the strongest terms, with a bit of a call to arms thrown in to prepare the nation for an inevitable war. It might just seem like a normal work week in the nation’s capital, but this time around there was a difference. The rhetoric came from no less than five senior officials in the Trump Administration and the audience consisted of 5,000 cheering members from the Christian Zionist evangelical group called Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

Christian Zionism is not a religion per se, but rather a set of beliefs based on interpretations of specific parts of the Bible – notably the book of Revelations and parts of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah – that has made the return of the Jews to the Holy Land a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ. The belief that Israel is essential to the process has led to the fusion of Christianity with Zionism, hence the name of the movement. The political significance of this viewpoint is enormous, meaning that a large block of Christians promotes and votes for a non-reality based foreign policy based on a controversial interpretation of the Bible that it embraces with considerable passion.

It would be a mistake to dismiss CUFI as just another group of bible-thumpers whose brains have long since ceased to function when the subject is Israel. It claims to have seven million members and it serves as a mechanism for uniting evangelicals around the issue of Israel. Given its numbers alone and concentration is certain states, it therefore constitutes a formidable voting bloc that can be counted on to cast its ballots nearly 100% Republican, as long as the Republican in question is reliably pro-Israel. Beyond that, there are an estimated 60 million evangelical voters throughout the country and they will likely follow the lead of groups like CUFI and vote reflecting their religious beliefs, to include Trump’s highly visible support for the Jewish state.

Trump’s reelection campaign is reported to be already “… developing an aggressive, state-by-state plan to mobilize even more evangelical voters than supported him last time.” This will include, “voter registration drives at churches in battleground states such as Ohio, Nevada and Florida.” Without overwhelming evangelical support, Trump reelection in 2020 is unlikely, hence the dispatch of all available White House heavyweights to CUFI’s annual summit at the Washington Convention Center.

Though it is an organization that defines itself as Christian, CUFI makes no effort to support surviving Christian communities in the Middle East as most of them are hostile to Israel. The group also supports war against Iran as a precursor to total global conflict. Hagee has explained that “The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.”

CUFI operates out of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio Texas. It was founded at the church in 2006 and is headed by John Hagee, a leading evangelical who has been courted both by the Trump Administration and by Israel itself, which presented him with a a Lear business yet complete with a crew so he would be able to do his proselytizing in some comfort. He frequently appears at commemorations in Israel, is a regular at the annual AIPAC meeting and has been a guest at the White House. He was present at the Trump administration’s ceremony last year when it moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and gave a speech. He has said that “there has never been a more pro-Israeli president than Donald Trump.”

Present at the CUFI summit were Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and US negotiator in the Middle East Jason Greenblatt. Lest there be any confusion, the White House was represented by two Christian Zionists, two Jewish Zionists and John Bolton, who has been variously described. All five have been urging a military response against Iran for its alleged “aggression” in the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister also addressed the conference via videolink, with his similar “analysis” of the Iranian threat. There were also a number of Republican Senators present, to include Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt and Tim Scott.

The speeches were all pretty much the same but perhaps the most suggestive was the 2,000 word plus exhortation delivered by Pompeo. His presentation was entitled “The US and Israel: a Friendship for Freedom.” He asked, in a speech full of religious metaphors and biblical references, his audience to “compare Israel’s reverence for liberty with the restrictions on religious freedom facing Christians and people of all faiths throughout the rest of the Middle East,” where “if a Muslim leaves Islam it is considered an apostasy, and it is punishable indeed by death.”

Pompeo was more interested in stirring up his audience than he was in historical fact. He said “In Iraq, Syria, and other countries in the region, the last remnants of ancient Christian communities are at near-extinction because of persecution from ISIS and other malign actors. And just one example: before 2003, there were an estimated 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq. Today, sadly, almost a quarter of a million.”

Pompeo, whose grasp of current events appears to be a bit shaky, did not mention two of the principal reasons that Christianity has been declining in the region. First and foremost is the Iraq War, started by the United States for no good reason, which unleashed forces that led to the destruction of religious minorities. Second, he did not note the constant punishment delivered by Israel on the Palestinians, which has led to the departure of many Christians in that community. Nor did he say anything about the reverse of the coin, Syria, where Christians are well integrated and protected by the al-Assad government which Pompeo and Bolton are seeking to destroy to benefit Israel.

The Secretary of State also delivered the expected pitch for four more years of Donald Trump, saying “But thank God. Thank God we have a leader in President Trump – an immovable friend of Israel. His commitment, his commitment – President Trump’s commitment is the strongest in history, and it’s been one of the best parts of my job to turn that commitment into real action.”

But it has to be Pompeo’s conclusion that perhaps should be regarded as a joke, though it appears that no one in the audience was laughing. He said “Our country is intended to do all it can, in cooperating with other nations, to help create peace and preserve peace [throughout] the world. It is given to defend the spiritual values – the moral code – against the vast forces of evil that seek to destroy them.”

It was a reiteration of Pompeo’s earlier “America is a force for good” speech delivered in Cairo in January. Nobody believed it then and nobody believes it now, given what has been actually occurring over the past 18 years. It would be interesting to know if Pompeo himself actually thinks it to be true. If he does, he should be selling hot dogs from a food truck rather than presiding as Secretary of State.

So, the bottom line is that the Trump Administration pandering to Hagee and company is shameful. Christian Zionist involvement in American politics on behalf of the Washington’s relationship with Israel does not serve any conceivable US national interests unless one assumes that Israel and the United States are essentially the same polity, which is unsustainable. On the contrary, the Christian Zionist politicizing has been a major element in supporting the generally obtuse US foreign policy in the Middle East region and vis-à-vis other Muslim countries, a policy that has contributed to at least four wars while making the world a more dangerous place for all Americans. Christian Zionist promoted foreign policy serves a particularly narrowly construed parochial interest that, ironically, is intended to do whatever it takes to bring about the end of the world, possibly a victory for gentlemen like Pastor John Hagee if his interpretation of the bible is correct, but undeniably a disaster for the rest of us.

July 18, 2019 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NDP Suppresses Palestinian Solidarity Again

By Yves Engler · July 17, 2019

Rana-Zaman-2-770x770

Rana Zaman

One side is playing for keeps. They oust elected representatives and block members from voting on efforts to challenge a brutal occupation. On the other side, members defending a morally righteous cause twist themselves in knots to avoid directly criticizing nakedly authoritarian party leaders.

Recently, the NDP national office overturned the vote of party members in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour after they elected Rana Zaman to represent the riding in the upcoming federal election. Party ‘leaders’ excluded the Muslim woman of Pakistani heritage from running because she defended thousands of Palestinians mowed down by Israeli snipers during last year’s “Great March of Return” in the open-air Gaza prison. A prominent local activist, Zaman represented the party provincially in 2017.

In May the leadership of the Ontario NDP blocked a resolution on Palestinian rights from being debated at their biannual convention. According to party member Moe Alqasem, the resolution “was pushed to the very bottom of its list of resolutions on block 4” despite having “as many endorsements as the top resolution on that same list … The appeals committee refused to re-prioritize it on the list, a speech was given in favor of the re-prioritization and the room erupted into cheers and chants for a few minutes. The committee’s decision was next to be challenged on the main floor of the convention, but the chair ‘conveniently’ decided that we were behind on time. There were several attempts to amend the agenda or the order-of-the-day to allow for the membership to challenge the committee’s decision again, conveniently however the chair decided that it was not possible. The chair spent 20 minutes refusing us the opportunity to speak for 1 minute on the resolution. Knowing full well that the membership was supportive of Palestine. Later on during that convention, somehow the order-of-the-day was amended in favour of another resolution and the committee’s decision was challenged in front of the general membership. Several other rules were amended, the same privileges were not afforded to the Palestinians and the Palestine-Solidarity members within the party.”

Recently, the NDP hierarchy undermined former Toronto mayoral candidate Saron Gebresellassi’s bid to represent the party in Parkdale-High Park possibly because she signed an open letter calling on the NDP to withdraw from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group. The national office took 141 days to vet her candidacy, giving her only 23 days to sign up new members to vote. Then a good number of the 400 members she registered were disenfranchised beforehand and at the riding association vote. At the centre of the sordid affair was Parkdale-High Park president Janet Solberg who was maybe the loudest anti-Palestinian at the NDP’s 2018 federal convention. According to Myles Hoenig, “Janet Solberg, sister of Stephen Lewis, leader of the Ontario NDP for most of the 70s who kicked out the leftist contingent known as The Waffle, played a leadership role in officiating this election. In a 3 way call to the candidates, she openly expressed her hostility to Saron by stating how she won’t support her.” A former Ontario NDP president, vice president and federal council member, Solberg pushed to suppress debate on the “Palestine Resolution: renewing the NDP’s commitment to peace and justice”, which was endorsed by more than two dozen riding associations before the federal convention. The motion mostly restated official Canadian policy, except that it called for “banning settlement products from Canadian markets, and using other forms of diplomatic and economic pressure to end the occupation.”

Six months after suppressing the Palestine Resolution, NDP foreign affairs critic Hélène Laverdière and party leader Jagmeet Singh participated in an unprecedented smear against one of Canada’s most effective advocates for Palestinian rights. After Dimitri Lascaris called on two Liberal MPs to denounce death threats made by B’nai B’rith supporters against a number of Liberal MPs and the Prime Minister, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs called on MPs to attack him, prompting Laverdière to call Lascaris “anti-Semitic” while Singh inferred as much.

In the lead up to the 2015 federal election the NDP leadership ousted as many as eight individuals from running or contesting nominations to be candidates because they publicly defended Palestinian rights. The most high-profile individual blocked from seeking an NDP nomination was Paul Manly, a filmmaker and son of a former NDP MP. Manly recently delivered a blow to the NDP by winning the Nanaimo-Ladysmith byelection as a candidate for the Green Party.

In another Palestine-related development, four NDP MPs (quietly) withdrew from the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG). They did not do so because someone politely convinced them it was immoral to participate in a group promoting “greater friendship” with a belligerent, apartheid, state, but because they were directly challenged through an open letter signed by more than 200 prominent individuals, as well as other campaigning.

NDP MP Randall Garrison remains vice-chair of CIIG and a prominent anti-Palestinian voice within the party. Any NDP activist with an internationalist bone in their body should hope Victoria-area Palestine solidarity campaigners help defeat him in the October election. There must be a price to pay for egregious anti-Palestinianism. In a similar vein, individuals such as Solberg should be confronted on their anti-Palestinianism.

At the end of May I learned Jagmeet Singh was making a major announcement in Montréal. With a hastily drawn placard in my bag, I attended thinking of interrupting the event to decry NDP participation in CIIG and suppression of the 2018 Palestine Resolution. I hesitated for a series of reasons, notably a sense that disrupting a major announcement by the social democratic party was too extreme. I now regret not walking in front of the cameras to denounce NDP anti-Palestinianism at the launch of their climate plan. Unfortunately, this is the type of action required to force party leaders to have second thoughts about blithely ousting pro-Palestinian candidates and suppressing debate on resolutions opposing Palestinian subjugation. NDP leaders fear anti-Palestinian individuals and groups’ no holds barred brand of politics. They need to know the Palestine solidarity side is also prepared to ruffle feathers.

Enough of walking on egg shells. In Alqasem’s devastating report about the Ontario NDP suppressing discussion of a resolution upholding Palestinian rights he begins by letting the perpetrators off the hook. He writes, “the following is not an attack on the membership, the party or administrators within.” But, how can one not politically “attack” the NDP “administrators” who just suppressed internal democracy in order to enable the subjugation of a long-suffering people?

After the federal convention 18 months ago I wrote: “Over the next year NDPers who support Palestinian rights and care about party democracy should hound the leadership over their suppression of the Palestine Resolution. Every single elected representative, staffer, riding association executive and party activist needs to be prodded into deciding whether they side with Palestinian rights and party democracy or suppressing the Palestine Resolution and enabling ongoing Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession.” These words still ring true, even if they may trouble many pro-Palestinian elements within the party (recent developments should be added to the discussion, of course).

For those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but reluctant to openly challenge the party leadership, ask yourself these two questions:

Since polling reveals a higher percentage of Canadians support Palestinian rights than vote for the NDP federally, why won’t party officials allow a clear statement of support for Palestinian liberation?

Is there a point when explicitly antidemocratic behavior that contributes to Palestinian subjugation will no longer be tolerated in a party claiming the mantra of social justice?

It is time the NDP leadership listened to its membership.

July 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel businessman working with army has his eye on Syria oil

MEMO | July 17, 2019

An American-Israeli businessman has been granted permission to export oil extracted from Kurdish areas under the control of Syria’s pro-Washington Democratic Forces. Arab news sources have cited Moti Kahana as the person charged with facilitating the sale of crude oil produced in oil fields controlled by the Kurds in eastern Syria to Israel.

Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which published the story said its claim was based on leaked documents. Kahana however has swiftly came out to reject the story but admitted to Israel Hayom that he has in fact tried to end Syrian oil sales to Iran. On his Facebook page, Kahana wrote that he opposes the Iranian presence in Syria, which he says belongs to the Syrian people.

The leaked Al-Akhbar document contained a letter from the joint president of the Executive Committee of the so-called Democratic Syria Council which is said to have authorised Kahana to represent the Council on all matters related to the sale of Syrian oil in areas controlled by Kurdish militias.

The United States has given strong backing to the Kurdish groups in its fight against Daesh forces, angering Turkey, which considers these militias a terrorist group.

Explaining his presence in Syria, Kahana told Israel Hayom: “It’s important for me to explain that I do not serve any side in this story because I have one goal – for Syria to be democratic, free and live in good neighbourliness with Israel. I don’t serve Israel, I am an American citizen, but everyone can benefit from this.”

His remarks to the Israeli daily did however suggest that Kahana at least sees himself as having a vital role in the export of Syrian oil if he hasn’t been granted permission already. “The moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices, and to use it to build and defend democratic Syria, push Iran and ISIS [Daesh] out of the country and usher in progress and democracy,” said Kahana.

A profile of Kahana by the Israeli American Council describes him as “philanthropist who has donated considerable money and time providing support for the Syrian opposition.” It also says that he works in “tandem” with the Israeli army and in “recovering ancient Jewish artifacts, including Torah scrolls in danger of destruction, from synagogues in Syria.”

July 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

We all deserve an investigation into BBC Panorama’s propaganda

By Nasim Ahmed | MEMO | July 17, 2019

The British public were subjected to an hour of anti-Palestine propaganda by the BBC last week when it aired a Panorama programme on the “anti-Semitism” row within the Labour Party. The public service broadcaster appeared to be doing very little public service when it unleased what was, by any reasonable assessment, a media broadside taken straight from the disinformation rule book.

Received by the mainstream media as though it were the final say on the anti-Semitism row that has rocked the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015, the public have been duped into submitting to the dominant narrative. The political party that was born out of a desire to fight inequality and headed now by a leader whose record of fighting for social justice and equality is second to none is, we are led to believe, institutionally anti-Semitic.

The main characters used to “prove” this thesis in Panorama dominate the who’s who of people in the anti-Palestine lobby groups in Britain. Such basic information was omitted because it did not serve the presenter’s agenda. By failing to disclose the clearly relevant affiliations of the individuals involved in the programme, including the fabricated claims of anti-Semitism by one of the so called whistle-blowers, the BBC has basically admitted that their connections to the Israeli Embassy in London and anti-Palestine lobby groups like BICOM and Labour Friends of Israel completely discredits the “evidence” put forward.

The BBC producers also ignored the fact that there are dozens of Jewish Labour members and Jewish groups that totally reject allegations of the kind made in the programme. None were interviewed by Panorama veteran John Ware, who is developing a track record of being anti-Palestine and very pro-Israel; hardly the neutral journalism that one would expect from the BBC. Nor did Ware point out that there are Jews among the Labour Party members suspended or expelled for alleged anti-Semitism.

It has been claimed that the programme had such disregard for the truth that it resorted to doctoring quotes in an attempt to drive its point home. It presented an email by Labour’s director of communications Seumas Milne, for example, which gave the impression that senior Labour officials were interfering in the party’s disciplinary process. The BBC version of Milne’s email was, “Something’s going wrong, and we’re muddling up political disputes with racism… I think going forward we need to review where and how we’re drawing the line.” The Labour Party has released the full email, which shows that Milne was responding to a request from a former Labour staff member for a view on a complaint. He was talking specifically about Jewish people being accused of anti-Semitism and the unedited text of his email is this: “Having identified the subject of the complaint as a ‘Jewish activist, the son of a Holocaust survivor’… if we’re more than very occasionally using disciplinary action against Jewish members for anti-Semitism, something’s going wrong and we’re muddling up political disputes with racism.” This gives a very different meaning to the one put out on Panorama.

One has to wonder if the BBC, like the members of the Jewish Labour Movement interviewed in the programme as “whistle-blowers”, thinks that Jews supportive of Labour and refuting allegations of anti-Semitism are “the wrong type of Jew”. Is it just a coincidence that members of the Jewish community ignored by the BBC are very critical of Israel and its brutal occupation of Palestine and those given a voice by the public broadcaster are strongly anti-Palestinian?

Perhaps the BBC’s most glaring omission and disservice to the viewing public was its abject failure to give any background to the “whistle-blowers” who also featured prominently in the 2017 Al Jazeera documentary on the pro-Israel lobby. The two hour documentary detailed how the Israeli Embassy provided covert assistance to supposedly independent groups within the Labour Party; how jobs at the embassy were being offered to groom young Labour activists; and how concerned the embassy was with removing not just Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, but also Crispin Blunt MP, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (both of whom are Conservative MPs), as well as Labour leader Corbyn.

Anti-Palestinian activists were captured on camera boasting about “taking down” British ministers; how easy it is to get most Conservative MPs to do the bidding of pro-Israel activists; and giving details of how they would write prepared questions for MPs to ask the Prime Minister in parliament. “If you do everything for them,” they explained, “it’s harder for them to say, ‘I don’t have the time, I won’t do it’.”

The four-part Al Jazeera documentary along with its US version marked a watershed moment in exposing the workings of the anti-Palestinian lobbies on both sides of the Atlantic. The Lobby – USA was made by Al Jazeera’s investigations unit, but ironically it was never broadcast by the Qatari channel, after a massive censorship push by the anti-Palestine lobby.

Unsurprisingly, despite their questionable activities being exposed on camera, anti-Palestinian groups cried foul by accusing Al Jazeera of anti-Semitism. Their complaint was investigated by Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom. In its lengthy ruling, Ofcom noted that the complaints received “raised a range of issues about the programme including that they were anti-Semitic and were not duly impartial.” Other complaints “considered that the programme was materially misleading.”

The latter allegation was dismissed by Ofcom without further investigation, following information received from Al Jazeera. With respect to the other complaints, it found that Al Jazeera was not in breach of the obligation to have “due impartiality”, and similarly rejected claims of anti-Semitism. A second attack on the programme was inevitable, and it seems that Panorama’s “shock and awe” tactic has provided such an opportunity, generating the kind of social panic required to silence legitimate opinions and dismiss counter-narratives as anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories.

The Jewish Chronicle was attuned to the public paralysis and did exactly that, launching into a full-on attack on Al Jazeera’s documentary by labelling anyone who defended Labour using facts uncovered in the programme as “conspiracy theorists” which, let’s admit it, is another way of saying that they are anti-Semitic. Panorama’s broadcast was timed perfectly for the community newspaper which, along with anti-Palestinian groups, has been waiting for the opportunity to discredit The Lobby. If the sort of revelations contained therein were made by anyone connected to Russia, or any other state for that matter, there would be calls for investigations into such open foreign interference in Britain’s democracy. It is significant that no such calls have ever been made in political circles for any investigations into Israel’s efforts — captured on camera, remember — to disrupt the British democratic process.

Why did John Ware and Panorama ignore the findings of the Al Jazeera documentary, especially given that it was vindicated by Ofcom? That’s a mystery. Viewers should have been told about the “whistle-blowers” and their backgrounds as well as their connections to the State of Israel and the anti-Palestine lobby. And that the allegations made against them by Al Jazeera were noted by the media regulator not to have been “made on the grounds that any of the particular individuals concerned were Jewish” and that “no claims were made relating to their faith”. Ofcom went on to say that it did not “consider that the [Al Jazeera] programme portrayed any negative stereotypes of Jewish people as controlling or seeking to control the media or governments.”

Ofcom concluded further: “Rather, it was our view that these individuals featured in the [Al Jazeera] programme in the context of its investigation into the alleged activities of a foreign state [the State of Israel acting through its UK Embassy] and their association with it.”

One is not a “conspiracy theorist” for citing evidence from a serious documentary vindicated by the media regulator to expose falsehoods in a BBC programme that one suspects would not survive the level of scrutiny placed on non-mainstream media organisations, including Al Jazeera. At the very least, the British public whose licence fees pay for the BBC — including up to 600,000 Labour Party members —have a right to know if the Corporation is indeed serving the public or simply peddling propaganda in the best interests of a foreign state rather than impartial journalism.

July 17, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

2020 presidential candidates’ views on Israel – Montage

If Americans Knew | July 17, 2019

The New York Times videotaped 21 presidential candidates’ responses to the question: “Do you think Israel meets international standards of human rights?” This is a short montage of their answers.

For more information see https://iakn.us/2Ya0pGe

July 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Mossad-linked group seeks seizure of Iranian oil tanker

Press TV – July 17, 2019

An Israeli group with links to the regime’s secret service Mossad is seeking to seize an Iranian oil tanker and its cargo held by British troops off Gibraltar.

The supertanker tanker Grace I, capable of carrying two million barrels of oil, was seized on July 4 by a detachment of British Royal Marines, in what has been denounced as “piracy” by Iran.

Shurat Hadin, which wages “legal battles” on behalf of Israelis claiming victim to Palestinian attacks, is asking the supreme court of Gibraltar to grant an injunction to seize the vessel and its cargo, the UK’s Daily Express reported.

The group claims to be a “civil rights” organization, but its intimate links with Mossad were first exposed in 2013, when a US embassy cable was published by WikiLeaks.

In that classified document, the group’s director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told US embassy staff that the group “took direction” from Israeli spy agencies, including Mossad.

In 2017, Shurat Hadin won a $178.5 million US court judgment against Iran and Syria in 2017 over the death of an American in Jerusalem al-Quds.

Darshan-Leitner told AFP that the vessel’s sale would not raise more than a fraction of the court’s award, but it could pave the way for the seizure of other Iranian assets.

Those assets have already been subject to a witch hunt by the Americans who have used US animosity toward the Islamic Republic to easily win lawsuits against Tehran in courts.

In 2016, the US Supreme Court ruled that about $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks.

Iran has denounced US attempts to expropriate its frozen assets as “highway robbery”.

A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in London, quoted by the Express, denounced the latest attempt against Iran’s supertanker.

“The position is clear. The tanker has been seized illegally and should be released as soon as possible,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Tuesday Iran would respond to Britain’s “piracy” as he called on London to immediately release the oil tanker.

“The malicious Britain commits piracy and steals our ship. They perpetrate a crime and give it a legal appearance,” the Leader said.

“The Islamic Republic and faithful elements of the establishment will not leave this evil deed unanswered and will respond to them at an appropriate time and place,” he added.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Saturday that Britain would facilitate the release the ship if Iran provided guarantees the vessel would not go to Syria.

Iranian officials have repeatedly denied the vessel is bound for Syria.

July 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Teaching Holocaust

Don’t know much about history

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • July 16, 2019

A friend of mine recently commented that if the current trend to reduce the study of history in schools to easily digestible politically correct soundbites that are being successfully pushed by social justice warriors continues, we will soon be limited to discussing how horrible slavery was, the Stonewall Inn riots and the so-called holocaust. Indeed, it seems that those who complain the loudest are the only ones listened to and no one complains more often or at greater volume than American Jewish groups intent on preserving the benefits that are derived from always being able to claim their perpetual victimhood.

Recent media accounts from Florida detail how low pandering to Israeli and Jewish interests can go. A high school principal identified as Dr. Willian Latson was removed from his position after he revealed to a parent that he considered the holocaust to be a belief and not a demonstrated fact. According to statement made by the school district, the action was taken “out of an abundance of concern” for students and staff after Latson had “made a grave error in judgment.” It added that “In addition to being offensive, the principal’s statement is not supported by either the School District Administration or the School Board.”

The story took place in the School District of Palm Beach County. Latson, now the ex-principal of Spanish River High School in West Palm Beach, presided over his school in a heavily Jewish district that includes Boca Raton. Latson is currently being considered for reassignment by the school district though there are have also been recurring calls from county and state legislators to fire him, which will undoubtedly occur.

The tale is somewhat convoluted and there are some disagreements about what actually took place, but it goes basically like this: roughly one year ago a high school parent, unidentified but presumably Jewish, emailed Latson asking him to confirm that holocaust education was a top priority in Spanish River H.S. He responded by email that the school has a “variety of activities” for holocaust education but “Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened. And you have your thoughts, but we are a public school and not all of our parents have the same beliefs.” He added that an educator has “the role to be politically neutral but support all groups in the school… I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee.”

After the emails were revealed to school officials, presumably by the parent, a year-long investigation commenced in which Latson apologized for having caused offense, saying his emails “did not accurately reflect my professional and personal commitment to educating all students about the atrocities of the Holocaust.” The school board initially ruled that he had not done anything meriting disciplinary action or a reprimand, but the story did not end there. Simultaneously, an online petition which eventually included 6,000 signatures was initiated demanding Latson’s replacement and he was subsequently removed from his position. The school board officials justified their change of course by citing his apparent unwillingness to comply with instructions, stating that they previously had ordered him to “expand the Holocaust curriculum at Spanish River and ordered him to spend ‘several days at the United States Holocaust Museum to increase his personal knowledge.’”

Latson responded that his emails and comments were not “accurately relayed” to the media: “I have been reassigned to the district office due to a statement that was not accurately relayed to the newspaper by one of our parents. It is unfortunate that someone can make a false statement and do so anonymously and it holds credibility but that is the world we live in.”

His statement implicitly blaming a school parent generated new problems for Latson with two Palm Beach County state lawmakers and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) calling for his firing because he had not groveled sufficiently. ADL stated that “ADL had hoped his apology was sincere and Latson could learn from his mistakes. Given that he cannot take responsibility for his actions, Latson should resign, and if not we believe the district should end his employment.”

The two state officials, Senator Kevin Rader and Representative Tina Polsky issued a statement saying “By his latest email, Dr. Latson has shown no remorse for his actions and we call on the district to immediately terminate him.”

The publication of Latson’s comments also unleashed heavy criticism from a broad range of other Florida public officials. Governor Ron DeSantis, who calls himself the most pro-Israel governor in American, joined in with “Look, to act like the Holocaust is a matter of debate, I mean, is just absurd.”

Senator Rick Scott called Latson’s comments anti-Semitism and tweeted that the “fact that someone charged with educating children would be unable to speak unequivocally on the realities & horrors of the holocaust is incredibly concerning.” Jewish State Representative Randy Fine, who recently introduced legislation officially banning “anti-Semitism” in Florida public schools, said “the law does not allow a Holocaust-denier to serve as a public school principal.” In a published statement he expanded on that point, writing that “anti-Semitism by public employees in our K-20 public education system must be treated the same as racism.”

The controversy inadvertently revealed the extent to which state law now requires the holocaust to be taught in all Florida public schools. Ironically, Spanish River High has one of the country’s most rigorous holocaust education programs with the subject being taught both in ninth- and 10th-grade English classes as well as a component of both U.S. and world history. There is also an elective course as well regular holocaust assemblies for the entire school featuring keynote speakers. After the Latson controversy started, the school district required all 10th graders to read “Night” by Elie Wiesel. There are now plans to add multiple annual assemblies for students in every grade in the school district this year.

So, if you go to school in Florida your English and history courses will be about the holocaust and you will have to attend holocaust assemblies just in case some alleged atrocity has not been described extensively enough in class. Well, when does it end? When does the almost incessant pandering to Zionists and Jewish groups become too much for the deliberately kept-in-ignorance American public to tolerate?

The so-called holocaust was an historical event that took place in Europe seventy-five years ago. It has an established but very debatable narrative that pretty much has been contrived over the past fifty years for political reasons, see Professor Norman Finkelstein’s brilliant deconstruction of it in his book “The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.” Those inconsistencies in the holocaust story and its general lack of credibility may have been what Latson was referring to.

The imposed holocaust narrative is full of holes and contradictions in terms of who was killed and how, but it is impossible for genuine academics to critique it if they want to stay employed. Books like Wiesel’s “Night” are largely works of fiction. The narrative exists to perpetuate the belief in Jewish suffering, which brings with it a number of practical advantages. First, it is regularly deployed to excuse the horrific treatment of the Palestinian people by Israel – Jewish suffering means that the creation of a homeland is a debt that all the world owes to the Jews without regard to what has been done to the area’s other inhabitants. Second, guilt over the alleged holocaust means that reparations from countries involved must be continued indefinitely. Currently the Poles are resisting new Jewish claims while the Germans have been paying for years. It is now being asserted that the descendants of so-called holocaust survivors have been genetically psychologically damaged, in the womb as it were, so reparations will presumably continue forever.

Third, holocaust guilt is used in the United States to counter any criticism of what Israel and Jewish groups are up to, as they use their wealth and access to power to corrupt America’s institutions and drive the country to needless wars. One might well ask, when confronted by the taxpayer funded holocaust museums that appear to spring up like mushrooms, why so much interest in a possible crime that has nothing to do with the United States? Where are the museums and courses in Florida schools discussing the mass killing that happened on our own shores, the genocide of the native Americans?

Lest we forget, the holocaust industry operates everywhere in America, particularly in the education system. Eight states already have laws mandating holocaust education (California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Florida, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan) and there is considerable pressure to make it universal in the United States. An alarmed World Jewish Congress (WJC) is urging required holocaust education for everyone everywhere “citing statistics from a 2018 poll revealing half of millennials can’t name a single Nazi concentration camp.”

A currently circulating WJC petition in Congress expresses concern over the rise in anti-Semitism, with a warning that “the horrors of the Holocaust are fading from our collective memory…” A bill to brainwash students so they will not forget, ‘The Never Again Education Act’, is currently making the rounds in the House of Representatives. It would make holocaust study mandatory in public schools and set up a Department of Education program that would train teachers to properly instruct students about the story of Jewish suffering.

Yes, the “Never Again Education Act” will soon be sucking up taxpayer money like an enormous vacuum cleaner and creating lots of new jobs for holocaust instructors, who will, of course, all be Jewish. Public schools will be teaching the next generation about what a great place Israel is and how the holocaust justifies vigilant groups like AIPAC and ADL, though it will not mention how they have corrupted the U.S. government and turned America’s foreign policy into an Israeli wag-the-dog. But who’s complaining? It’s good for the Jews, isn’t it?

So Dr. William Latson will be unemployed and possibly unemployable because he spoke the truth, a lesson to all of us that one must never cross the red lines established by the wielders of Jewish power in America. One might reasonably currently expect that serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein will use the holocaust get-out-of-jail-free card in his defense, claiming that his recollection of the event has so traumatized him that he did bad things that he would not have otherwise considered. Poor Jeffrey. He has suffered so much.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org

July 15, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Latest ‘Security Problem’: Who’s to Blame for Gaza’s Environmental Crisis

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 15, 2019

Writing in The Jewish Journal under the title, “A Spillover Crisis: How Gaza’s Water Shortage Affects Israel”, Dominik Doehler explains the direct link between Gaza’s water problems and Israel.

Doehler offered a scientific explanation behind the besieged Strip’s water crisis, but when it was time to assign responsibility, something went wrong. Instead of recognising how Israel’s war and protracted siege destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, the writer blamed the “ongoing conflict between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority” for Gaza’s suffering.

“Today, those who pay the price of the conflict between the Palestinian factions are the two million people in Gaza,” Doehler writes, without any mention of Israel’s primary role in any of this.

The dishonesty of the writer should not be entirely surprising, considering the biased nature of the publication. This is particularly symptomatic of Israeli and pro-Israeli media which often shy away from acknowledging the facts, but deflect responsibility from Israel, and point the finger of blame on Palestinians only.

That said, it is interesting that Gaza’s growing humanitarian crisis is finally registering in Israel as a pressing problem requiring action. However, it is not the impact of the crisis on the population of Gaza that is sounding the alarm bells in Tel Aviv, but rather the potential environmental damage Gaza’s ongoing misery may cause Israel.

On June 3, researchers from Israel’s Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion universities presented a report commissioned by the environmental organization, EcoPeace Middle East, in which they warned that “the collapsing water, sewage and electricity infrastructure in the Gaza Strip pose a material danger to Israel’s groundwater, seawater, beaches and desalination plants”.

One would expect any report on the environmental situation in Gaza to focus on the fact that nearly two million Palestinians in the Strip are living in inhumane conditions due to a relentless 12-year Israeli blockade and repeated devastating military assaults which are rending the area “uninhabitable by 2020“.

Instead, the report has implied that the residents are solely responsible for the imminent environmental catastrophe in Gaza, which is threatening the security and well-being of Israeli citizens. The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which published a detailed report on the presentation, also spun the issue as a matter of national security.

But what Israel has now identified as a “national security problem” is indeed a disaster of its own making. The occupation, colonisation, dispossession and aggression against Palestine and the Palestinians have caused untold environmental damage to the extent that now, even the Israeli occupier is suffering.

The environmental situation in Gaza is indeed dire at the moment, but it is not the Palestinians who made it so. Neither the “rapid population growth”, nor neglect or ignorance of residents that are its root causes. Countless reports by the United Nations and other organisations have documented in detail how and why the main culprit is Israel, its violent assaults on Gaza and its merciless siege.

Israeli settlers flood Khan al Ahmar with wastewater [Twitter]

Take the problem of untreated sewage ending up in the sea, which is causing issues for Israeli beach-goers and water desalination plants. The reason why Gaza’s sewage is getting disposed of in this “irresponsible” way is that water treatment plants are not operational; they were targeted in the 2014 Israeli assault on the Strip and were never rebuilt because the Israeli siege does not allow for construction materials and spare parts to be brought in.

Untreated sewage is part of the larger water crisis in Gaza. As the report rightly points out, Gaza residents are overusing the aquifer under the Strip, which has become increasingly contaminated with seawater and chemicals and which constitutes the only source of freshwater for residents because of the involuntary separation with the West Bank.

The reason for Palestinians in Gaza being unable to establish a proper water management system is again Israel’s doing. Israel has repeatedly bombed its water infrastructure, including water pipes, wells and other facilities, and the debilitating Israeli siege has prevented the local authorities from fixing it and building a water desalination plant.

Gaza’s water problem is not only an annoyance for the Israelis but a potential source of an epidemic for the Palestinians. Already, diarrheal diseases have doubled, reaching epidemic levels, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, while salmonella and typhoid fever are also on the rise.

Then there is the problem with rubbish which Palestinians are burning, hence “polluting Israeli air”. As Cambridge University academic, Ramy Salemdeeb, has pointed out, Gaza has been unable to develop a proper waste management system because of economic restrictions due to the Israeli siege and a “limited land availability” because of its isolation from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Given that Israel is a settler-colonial project, the overexploitation of the colonised land to the detriment of the environment and the local population is naturally a part of its modus operandi.

Indeed, all the land Israel has taken and occupied has suffered from environmental degradation in one way or another, with its harmful effects being conveniently shifted towards Palestinians area, villages and cities.

If Israel continues to treat the issue as a “security problem” it will never get resolved because at the heart of it is the destructive logic of a colonial enterprise which seeks to exploit both land and people with no regard for nature and human wellbeing.

In other words, Israel will never achieve security – environmental or otherwise – as long as it continues to oppress the Palestinians, occupy their land and ravage the environment. Israeli air, water and the overall environment will never be immune from the Israeli-made disasters in occupied Palestine. 

July 15, 2019 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians lose $270m per year due to military checkpoints: Study

MEMO | July 15, 2019

Palestinians lose about 60 million work hours per year due to restrictions on movement in the occupied West Bank imposed by Israeli occupation forces, according to a study by the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ).

This loss is estimated at $270 million per year, as well as added fuel consumption of 80 million litres, costing up to an additional $135 million and leading to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions by 196,000 tonnes per year.

The study tracked the movement of citizens through 15 major Israeli military checkpoints between cities in the occupied West Bank as well as 11 crossing points into Jerusalem and Israeli territories. The data was collected from the beginning of January to the end of July 2018, using GPS tracking devices installed on Palestinian vehicles, including public transport and private vehicles. Each device monitored the location, time and speed of the vehicle every ten seconds, giving an accurate idea of the time spent at military checkpoints.

Israel maintains a system of checkpoints that can be closed at any time, preventing Palestinians from travelling to school, hospital or work, or to access their land.

In a July 2018 survey, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHAoPt) recorded that there are “705 permanent obstacles across the West Bank restricting or controlling Palestinian vehicular, and in some cases pedestrian, movement.”

Israel also runs a system of “flying checkpoints” which can disrupt travel at a moment’s notice. OCHAoPt notes that, “between January 2017 and the end of July 2018, Israeli forces employed an additional 4,924 ad-hoc ‘flying’ checkpoints, or nearly 60 a week. These involve the deployment of Israeli forces for several hours on a given road for the purpose of stopping and checking Palestinian drivers and vehicles, but without any permanent physical infrastructure on the ground.”

July 15, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel face-recognition start-up ‘secretly tracking Palestinians’

MEMO | July 15, 2019

A start-up known as “Israel’s most high-profile biometric recognition firm” is playing a key role in monitoring Palestinians at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, reported Haaretz.

According to the article, Anyvision Interactive Technologies “is taking part in two special projects in assisting the Israeli army in the West Bank”.

One project “involves a system that it has installed at army checkpoints that thousands of Palestinians pass through each day on their way to work from the West Bank.”

In a statement in February, the army said “27 biometric crossings” had been established in the West Bank, as part of a “wide-ranging” effort to “upgrade” the checkpoints in question.

The second project, however, “is much more confidential”, reported Haaretz, and “includes facial recognition technology elsewhere in the West Bank, not just at border crossings”, as “cameras deep inside the West Bank try to spot and monitor potential Palestinian assailants”.

Anyvision’s president, Amir Kain, is the former head of Malmab, the Defence Ministry’s security department, while one of the company’s advisers is Tamir Pardo, a former head of Mossad.

The company claims to operate in 43 countries and at more than 350 locations such as stadiums, airports and casinos, and recently raised $31 million from Microsoft’s M12 venture capital fund.

As reported by Haaretz, “Anyvision’s involvement in the West Bank is being revealed amid a lively debate around the world on the use of biometric technology, especially facial recognition.”

“About a month ago, San Francisco became the first American city to outlaw facial recognition technology. And camera maker Axon recently decided to eliminate its products’ facial recognition capacity, based on the recommendations of an ethics committee that it had formed.”

According to the paper, “the Israeli surveillance operation in the West Bank is undoubtedly among the largest of its kind in the world. It includes monitoring the media, social media and the population as a whole — and now it turns out also the biometric signature of West Bank Palestinians.”

July 15, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US mission in Baghdad serves as Mossad, Daesh headquarters: Iraqi MP

This file photo shows the US embassy building in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
Press TV | July 15, 2019

A senior Iraqi parliamentarian warns that the US embassy in Baghdad is involved in “suspicious activities,” saying agents of the Israeli spy agency Mossad and the Daesh terrorist group have been spotted regularly visiting the diplomatic mission.

“The US embassy in Baghdad has turned into a center for Israel’s Mossad and ISIS (Daesh) terrorists,” Hassan Salem was quoted as saying by the Iraqi Arabic-language al-Sumariya news website.

Salem said the US embassy is interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs by spying, spreading rumors and hatching plots.

“The US embassy’s violation of laws and forgetting its responsibilities based on the international laws mean that the center could not be called an embassy and therefore, its closure is legally necessary,” the Iraqi lawmaker said.

US giving Daesh head protection

Salem had earlier suggested that US forces in Ain al-Assad military base were protecting Daesh ringleader Ibrahim al-Samarrai, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in the western desert of Iraq’s Anbar province.

“Al-Baghdadi is using the Anbar desert as a safe haven, while the US forces provide him with all means of support from their station at the Ain al-Assad military base in Anbar province,” Salem said in February.

The Iraqi MP argued then that America’s support for al-Baghdadi “stems from Washington’s fear of a draft bill on expelling foreign troops from Iraq, which the parliament intends to vote on during the new legislative term.”

Also in February, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the first time divulged explosive secrets about how the United States supported Daesh and intentionally allowed the Takfiri terror outfit to gain power in Iraq so that Washington could creep back into the Arab country.

He said the administration of former US President Barack Obama had played a key role in the creation of Daesh by allowing the terrorist group to overrun Iraqi territories.

In March, an Iraqi security expert also revealed that the American embassy in Iraq was carrying out suspicious measures, describing the mission as a US-Israeli operations room that sought to destabilize the region.

Abbas al-Ardawi was quoted by the Arabic-language al-Ma’alomeh news website as saying that US administration was exerting pressures on Baghdad and killing time to prolong its deployment in Iraq.

He said the relocation of terrorists from the town of Baqouz in Eastern Syria to the US bases in Iraq was aimed to stir security tensions in the country and find a pretext for continued deployment of American forces.

Al-Ardawi said Iraqi lawmakers certainly want all US forces to be expelled from the country as soon as possible.

Another senior Iraqi expert had in January warned of Washington’s attempts to increase its influence in Iraq, saying Israeli spies and Daesh terrorists were present at across US bases in Iraq.

Hafez Al-e Basharah told al-Ma’aloumeh news website that the US was attempting to boost its presence in Iraq and the American forces had been stationed in the southern parts of Baghdad.

He went on to say that the US forces did not allow any Iraqis to enter their bases in the country in an attempt to conceal the realities from the public opinion.

Israeli intelligence agents were also operating from the bases, where Takfiri terrorists also received shelter and training, he added.

July 15, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment