Israel’s machinery of dispossession has crushed the hopes of an inspirational family
The struggle of Jawad Siyam perfectly illustrates the relentless oppression faced by all Palestinians
By Jonathon Cook | The National | July 14, 2019
Israeli police forced out the Siyam family from their home in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem last week, the final chapter in their 25-year legal battle against a powerful settler organisation.
The family’s defeat represented much more than just another eviction. It was intended to land a crushing blow against the hopes of some 20,000 Palestinians living in the shadow of the Old City walls and Al Aqsa mosque.
Dozens of families in the Silwan neighbourhood have endured the same fate as the Siyams, and the Israeli courts have approved the imminent eviction of many hundreds more Palestinians from the area.
But, unlike those families, the Siyams’ predicament briefly caught public attention. That was because one of them, Jawad Siyam, has become a figurehead of Silwan’s resistance efforts.
Mr Siyam, a social worker, has led the fight against Elad, a wealthy settler group that since the early 1990s has been slowly erasing Silwan’s Palestinian identity, in order to remake it as the City of David archeological park.
Mr Siyam has served as a spokesman, drawing attention to Silwan’s plight. He has also helped to organise the community, setting up youth and cultural centres to fortify Silwan’s identity and sense of purpose in the face of Israel’s relentless oppression.
However, the settlers of Elad want Silwan dismembered, not strengthened.
Elad’s mission is to strip away the Palestinian community to reveal crumbling relics beneath, which it claims are proof that King David founded his Israelite kingdom there 3,000 years ago.
The history and archeological rationalisations may be murky, but the political vision is clear. The Palestinians of Silwan are to be forced out like unwelcome squatters.
An Israeli human rights group, Peace Now, refers to plans for the City of David as “the transformation of Silwan into a Disneyland of the messianic extreme right wing”.
It is the most unequal fight imaginable – a story of David and Goliath, in which the giant fools the world into believing he is the underdog.
It has pitted Mr Siyam and other residents against not only the settlers, but the US and Israeli governments, the police and courts, archaeologists, planning authorities, national parks officials and unwitting tourists.
And, adding to their woes, Silwan’s residents are being forced to fight both above and below ground at the same time.
The walls and foundations of dozens of houses are cracking and sinking because the Israeli authorities have licensed Elad to flout normal safety regulations and excavate immediately below the community’s homes. Several families have had to be evacuated.
Late last month Elad flexed its muscles again, this time as it put the finishing touches to its latest touristic project: a tunnel under Silwan that reaches to the foot of Al Aqsa.
On Elad’s behalf, the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, wielded a sledgehammer to smash down a symbolic wall inaugurating the tunnel, which has been renamed the Pilgrimage Road.
Elad claims – though many archaeologists doubt it – that in Roman times the tunnel was a street used by Jews to ascend to a temple on the site where today stands the Islamic holy site of Al Aqsa.
The participation of the two US envoys in the ceremony offered further proof that Washington is tearing up the peacemaking rulebook, destroying any hope the Palestinians might once have had of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Mr Friedman called the City of David complex – at the core of occupied Palestinian Jerusalem – “an essential component of the national heritage of the State of Israel”. Ending the occupation there would be “akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty”.
While Israel, backed by the US, smashes Silwan’s foundations, it is also dominating the sky above it.
Last month Israel’s highest planning body approved a cable car from Israeli territory in West Jerusalem into the centre of Silwan.
It will connect with the City of David and a network of boardwalks, coffee shops and touristic tunnels, such as like the Pilgrimage Road, all run by Elad settlers, to slice apart Silwan.
And to signal how the neighbourhood is being reinvented, the Israeli municipality enforcing the occupation in East Jerusalem recently named several of Silwan’s main streets after famous Jewish rabbis.
Former mayor Nir Barkat has said the goal of all this development is to bring 10 million tourists a year to Silwan, so that they “understand who is really the landlord in this city”.
Few outsiders appear to object. This month, the tourism website TripAdvisor was taken to task by Amnesty International for recommending the City of David as a top attraction in Jerusalem.
And now, Elad has felled the family of Jawad Siyam in a bid to crush the community’s spirits and remaining sense of defiance.
As it has with so many of Silwan’s homeowners, Elad waged a decades-long legal battle against the family to drain them of funds and stamina.
The Siyams’ fate was finally sealed last month when the Israeli courts extended the use of a 70-year-old, draconian piece of legislation, the Absentee Property Law, to Silwan.
The law was crafted specifically to steal the lands and homes of 750,000 Palestinian refugees expelled in 1948 by the new state of Israel.
Ownership of the Siyams’ home is shared between Jawad’s uncles and aunts, some of them classified by Israel as “absentees” because they now live abroad.
As a result, an Israeli official with the title Custodian of Absentee Property claimed ownership of sections of the house belonging to these relatives, and then, in violation of his obligations under international law, sold them on to Elad. Police strong-armed the family out last week.
To add insult to injury, the court also approved Elad seizing money raised via crowdfunding by more than 200 Israeli peace activists, with the aim of helping the Siyams with their legal costs.
Palestinians such as Jawad Siyam exist all over the occupied territories – men and women who have given Palestinians a sense of hope, commitment and steadfastness in the face of Israel’s machinery of dispossession.
When Israel targets Jawad Siyam, crushes his spirits, it sends an unmistakeable message not only to other Palestinians, but to the international community itself, that peace is not on its agenda.
Why The BBC acts as a Propaganda Outlet for Israel– An Insider View
By Gilad Atzmom | July 14, 2019
The BBC’s Panorama channel ‘investigation’ into Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ was so blatantly one sided its broadcast as ‘news’ demanded an explanation. In an attempt to grasp why the British national broadcaster fails to fulfil its core mission to report the news in as unbiased a manner as possible, I interviewed a former senior editor for the BBC. The editor, a 35 year veteran of the BBC, reveals the culture that has steered the BBC into its present position as a Zionist mouthpiece.
In acting as a whistle blower, the former editor risks severe consequences. In Britain leading journalists have been locked behind bars and under threat of extradition for reporting information whose truthfulness has not even been challenged.
Sadly, this danger is heightened under the present toxic political atmosphere in Britain, as demonstrated by its purging of a major political party and its tolerance for abuse of its judicial system to deter and punish anyone who dares to question the Zionist narrative.
Q: When did the BBC become openly biased?
A: The BBC has always been biased towards Israel, and its bias has been well documented. The reasons for this bias have long been the subject of serious academic studies, the best known of which is Greg Philo’s and Mike Berry’s More Bad News from Israel. In fact, in 2006 an independent report commissioned by the BBC’s own governing body concluded that the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “does not consistently constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture.”
Q: Who and what drove this cultural and political direction within the corporation?
A: There are a number of drivers behind this biased BBC culture. The most important is the fact that a small number of hardline Zionists occupy key positions at the top and middle levels of the corporation, as well as at the shop-floor level, by which I mean the people who select what to publish or broadcast on a daily basis and who provide editorial steer to journalists. This has been widely publicised and has been in the public domain for some time — see, for example, this http://tinyurl.com/ydhjzeek, these (a) http://tinyurl.com/y7mjtkc6, (b) http://tinyurl.com/y7k39vsh, and (c) http://tinyurl.com/y3x9nktl. Also see this http://tinyurl.com/y6ne4apn and this http://tinyurl.com/y7l88zwl.
Q: What about political impartiality, supposedly a core BBC value?
A: Unfortunately, there are many examples of such pro- Israel hype, some blatant and others who slant the news by use of emphasis and/or omission. For instance, there was Sarah Montague’s interview with Israel’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, in March 2015, Head of Statistics’ Anthony Reuben’s reflection on fatalities in Gaza (http://tinyurl.com/ycc9p8d4), and the utilization of Gil Hoffman, an Israeli army reservist and chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post to write for the BBC News website (http://tinyurl.com/yanppk93) to mention but a few.
Q: Does the broadcaster have the means or inclination to fix itself ?
A: In my opinion, the chances of the BBC fixing itself is about zero. Apart from what I have said above, it is a cowardly, spineless organisation. Not only does it always pursue the path of least resistance by selecting to broadcast what is least likely to upset the Zionist lobby, but it is also deadly afraid of what the Daily Mail might say about its output. Very often, and by that I mean almost on a daily basis, one would hear senior managers ask at the morning agenda-setting editorial meetings, “What would the Daily Mail say about that?” Invariably, they would choose what is least likely to be picked up and criticised by the Daily Mail. Please remember, this is a public broadcaster that is funded by taxpayers (yes, the License Fee is a tax) and is supposed to “Educate, Inform and Entertain”, not propagandise on behalf of Israel.
Q: Some of the so-called Labour ‘Whistleblowers’ were exposed by Al Jazeera as Israeli Lobby assets. Is it possible that the BBC was so bold as to interview these characters hoping that no one would notice or was it simply a matter of a clumsy decision making? Can the BBC match the journalistic dedication of organisations such as RT or Al Jazeera?
A: There is no chance whatsoever that the BBC would do anything approximating Al Jazeera TV’s programme on Israeli infiltration of the Labour Party (http://tinyurl.com/yad6fslm). The BBC is institutionally pro-Zionist and institutionally spineless.
Q: You worked in the corporation for 35 years, did you notice a deterioration in the quality of people hired? Was there a change in employees’ attitudes and their willingness to express themselves freely and critically?
A: I worked for the BBC’s English-language outlets as an editor and senior editor for 35 years. Since the early 1990s there has been growing intolerance of criticism of editorial management decisions, even in internal forums which internal BBC propaganda claims are meant for staff to speak freely. This applies across the board on all matters. But certainly with regard to Israel and Zionism, any questioning of BBC impartiality would attract accusations of anti-Semitism and would certainly spell the end of one’s career, no matter how privately and confidentially such criticism is conveyed.
Cuba should be careful not to normalise Israel’s colonisation of Palestine
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | July 13, 2019
In 1947, Cuba was one of the few countries opposing the UN Partition Plan, which laid the groundwork for Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. At the time, the Cuban envoy to the UN Dr Ernesto Dihigo spoke out against Zionist settler colonialism and, with clarity, pointed out the UN’s incompetence and refusal to implement its rhetoric regarding the free determination of people.
Decades later, and at a time when Palestinians are risking the loss of what remains of their land, Cuba must rethink its strategy which runs the risk of normalising Israeli colonialism and human rights violations committed against the Palestinian population.
Israeli media has reported that Doron Markel, chief scientist at the Jewish National Fund (JNF), was invited to an international environmental conference held in Havana, Cuba. Needless to say, Israel was given a golden opportunity to present itself as a model to emulate by lauding its scientific expertise, while eliminating the violent narrative of land and water theft to achieve its goals.
There are no formal diplomatic ties between Cuba and Israel. However, inviting a representative of the JNF to Cuba, an organisation which has been at the helm of displacing the Palestinian people, is tantamount to a tacit decision to normalise the violence upon which Israel has been able to build a prosperous image. For every Israeli achievement, there are hidden Palestinian victims.
The forestation which Markel spoke about must be perceived within the context of destroying Palestine’s own environmental heritage. Likewise, Israel’s water strategy requires mentioning how its theft deprives Palestinians of adequate access to water. Markel’s statement that “science can serve as a bridge” between two countries that have not yet established formal diplomatic relations is a demand for Cuba to normalise Israel’s violations against the Palestinian people. Inviting a JNF representative already points towards such a route.
In one of his memorable speeches to the UN, revolutionary leader Fidel Castro stated: “Colonies do not speak. Colonies are not known unless they have the opportunity to express themselves.”
By inviting an Israeli representative, Cuba has departed from this truthful observation by Fidel and experienced by the Cubans themselves before their liberation.
Cuban support for Palestine is rooted in the shared experience of anti-colonial struggle. The country should be leading by example, rather than accommodating Israeli narratives that speak about achievements at the expense of the Palestinian population. This normalisation of Israeli violations and its neoliberal endeavours is contrary to the Cuban revolutionary struggle and fails to uphold the internationalist principles upon which Cuba was able to impart support to oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians.
While not representative of people’s sentiment, the Cuban government has made its politics ambiguous as a result of this invitation. It is therefore pertinent to ask where Cuba is heading in terms of its own commitment to supporting the anti-colonial struggle of other oppressed people internationally. The US, the EU and the UN have all normalised Israel. Will Cuba rekindle its commitment to its principles or follow the trend that has discarded the Palestinian people’s legitimate political demands?
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Israel’s Barak, US sex trafficking suspect Epstein ties exposed
MEMO | July 12, 2019
Former Israeli Prime Minister and election candidate Ehud Barak held a multi-million-dollar business partnership with Jeffrey Epstein, the US billionaire who was this week arrested for sex trafficking underage girls.
According to an exposé yesterday by Israeli daily Haaretz, Barak – who served as Israel’s Prime Minister between 1999 and 2001 and recently announced his formation of a new party, Democratic Israel, ahead of the country’s general election in September – held business ties with Epstein as recently as 2015.
Epstein is a US billionaire who made his fortune on Wall Street and is known to have close relationships with influential political figures, including former US President Bill Clinton and current US President Donald Trump.
In 2008 Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting underage girls for prostitution, paying dozens of 14 and 15-year olds to perform sex acts over a period of six years. He spent 13 months in county jail, but was given lenient terms under which he was allowed to leave prison six days per week to go to work.
On Saturday, Epstein was arrested on fresh charges of sexually exploiting underage girls at his New York and Florida mansions, as well as “recruiting” other teenagers to carry out sex acts. He pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and conspiracy to sex traffic minors.
Now Haaretz has exposed that Barak had close ties with Epstein as recently as 2015. It was previously known that the pair held connections, with an Israeli journalist last year reporting that, in 2004, Epstein gave Barak $2.3 million for “research”. The details of this research were never exposed, with Barak refusing to comment on his work as a “private citizen”.
The Israeli daily explained that, “in 2015, Barak set up a limited partnership [called Sum (E.B.)], in which he is the sole shareholder. That company invested in Reporty Homeland Security, established in 2014, becoming a major shareholder.” Last year Reporty, which provides geolocation technology for the emergency services, changed its name to Carbyne.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak [Ynhockey/Wikipedia]
“Barak is [and remains] the chairman of Carbyne and, according to reports by business media outlets, his personal investment in the company totals millions of dollars,” Haaretz explained, adding that it “has learned that Epstein financed a considerable part of the investment, thus becoming a partner in the project”. This means that a large part of the money used by Sum to buy Reporty/Carbyne stock was supplied by Epstein.
In a statement to the newspaper, Barak said that “since these are private investments, it wouldn’t be proper or right for me to expose the investors’ details”, but conceded that “a small number of people I know invest in [the company]”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been quick to jump on the revelations in a bid to hamper Barak’s prospects of success in the upcoming election.
Netanyahu took to Facebook yesterday to demand: “Investigate Ehud Barak immediately.” However, as the Times of Israel points out, “the prime minister did not say what behavior on Barak’s part could be the subject of a criminal probe, as no action described in the report appeared illegal”.
For his part, Barak responded to Netanyahu’s calls for an investigation by pointing out the prime minister’s own legal woes, saying that Netanyahu, like Epstein, is “now neck-deep in criminality”. Netanyahu is slated to appear in court in October charged with fraud, bribery and breach of trust in connection with three corruption cases. If found guilty, he could face up to ten years in prison.
This political mudslinging has been seen as an attempt by Netanyahu to “go on the attack,” rather than the defence against the myriad corruption allegations against him. Netanyahu is famous for attacking his political rivals to boost his own popularity, labelling head of the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) alliance Benny Gantz “mentally unstable” ahead of the last Israeli election in April.
Netanyahu and Barak have a long history of rivalry. Barak was Netanyahu’s commander in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit of the Israeli army, and as such is reportedly one of the few people Netanyahu both respects and fears. It is this history that has likely prompted Netanyahu’s attack on Barak over his connections to Epstein, as opposed to a belief that Barak is a serious electoral opponent – the latest election polls put Barak’s Democratic Israel party at only four seats, the minimum needed to sit in the Knesset, compared to the Likud party’s 33 seats.
Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work for Mossad?
* Left photo: Jeffrey Epstein and partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, with Donald and Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2000. Right photo: Ghislaine Maxwell at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.
By Philip Giraldi • American Herald Tribune • July 11, 2019
The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media. The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.
Last week I wrote about how Israeli spies operating more-or-less freely in the U.S. are rarely interfered with, much less arrested and prosecuted, because there is an unwillingness on the part of upper echelons of government to do so. I cited the case of Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood movie producer who had a secret life that included stealing restricted technology in the United States to enable development of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, something that was very much against U.S. interests. Milchan was involved in a number of other thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state, so much so that his work as a movie producer was actually reported to be less lucrative than his work as a spy and black-market arms merchant, for which he operated on a commission basis.
That Milchan has never been arrested by the United States government or even questioned about his illegal activity, which was well known to the authorities, is just one more manifestation of the effectiveness of Jewish power in Washington, but a far more compelling case involving possible espionage with major political manifestations has just re-surfaced. I am referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Wall Street “financier” who has been arrested and charged with operating a “vast” network of underage girls for sex, operating out of his mansions in New York City and Florida as well as his private island in the Caribbean, referred to by visitors as “Orgy Island.” Among other high-value associates, it is claimed that Epstein was particularly close to Bill Clinton, who flew dozens of times on Epstein’s private 727.
* Alex Acosta (L) Jeffrey Epstein (R)
Epstein was arrested on July 8th after indictment by a federal grand jury in New York. It was more than a decade after Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who is now President Trump’s secretary of labor, accepted a plea bargain involving similar allegations regarding pedophilia that was not shared with the accusers prior to being finalized in court. There were reportedly hundreds of victims, some 35 of whom were identified, but Acosta deliberately denied the two actual plaintiffs their day in court to testify before sentencing.
Acosta’s intervention meant that Epstein avoided both a public trial and a possible federal prison sentence, instead serving only 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the almost-no-security Palm Beach County Jail on charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida. While in custody, he was permitted to leave jail for sixteen hours six days a week to work in his office.
Epstein’s crimes were carried out in his $56 million Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls, many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as “massages” for money. Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the “Lolita Express.”
The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea bargain that ended the Epstein court case. Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew on the “Lolita Express” at least 26 times, could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior. On one lengthy trip to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily clad “employees” identified only as “massage.” Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010.
With an election year coming up, the Democrats would hardly want the public to be reminded of Bill’s exploits, but one has to wonder where and how deep the investigation might go. There is also a possible Donald Trump angle. Though Donald may not have been a frequent flyer on the “Lolita Express,” he certainly moved in the same circles as the Clintons and Epstein in New York and Palm Beach, plus he is by his own words roughly as amoral as Bill Clinton. In June 2016, one Katie Johnson filed lawsuit in New York claiming she had been repeatedly raped by Trump at an Epstein gathering in 1993 when she was 13 years old. In a 2002 New York Magazine interview Trump said “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Selective inquiries into wrongdoing to include intense finger pointing are the name of the game in Washington, and the affaire Epstein also has all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel. Unless Epstein is an extremely sick pedophile who enjoys watching films of other men screwing twelve-year-old girls the whole filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures. Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal. It is called recruiting “agents of influence.” That is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do.
That Epstein was perceived as being intelligence-linked was made clear in Acosta’s comments when being cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”
Questions about Epstein’s wealth also suggest a connection with a secretive government agency with deep pockets. The New York Times reports that “Exactly what his money management operation did was cloaked in secrecy, as were most of the names of whomever he did it for. He claimed to work for a number of billionaires, but the only known major client was Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of several retail chains, including The Limited.”
But whose intelligence service? CIA and the Russian FSB services are obvious candidates, but they would have no particular motive to acquire an agent like Epstein. That leaves Israel, which would have been eager to have a stable of high-level agents of influence in Europe and the United States. Epstein’s contact with the Israeli intelligence service may have plausibly come through his associations with Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said”
* Trump (left) with Robert Maxwell (right) at an event.
Epstein kept a black book identifying many of his social contacts, which is now in the hands of investigators. It included fourteen personal phone numbers belonging to Donald Trump, including ex-wife Ivana, daughter Ivanka and current wife Melania. It also included Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, Jon Huntsman, Senator Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, David Koch, Ehud Barak, Alan Dershowitz, John Kerry, George Mitchell, David Rockefeller, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomfield, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Elizabeth, Saudi King Salman and Edward de Rothschild.
Mossad would have exploited Epstein’s contacts, arranging their cooperation by having Epstein wining and dining them while flying them off to exotic locations, providing them with women and entertainment. If they refused to cooperate, it would be time for blackmail, photos and videos of the sex with underage women.
It will be very interesting to see just how far and how deep the investigation into Epstein and his activities goes. One can expect that efforts will be made to protect top politicians like Clinton and Trump and to avoid any examination of a possible Israeli role. That is the normal practice, witness the 9/11 Report and the Mueller investigation, both of which eschewed any inquiry into what Israel might have been up to. But this time, if it was indeed an Israeli operation, it might prove difficult to cover up the story since the pedophile aspect of it has unleashed considerable public anger from all across the political spectrum. Senator Chuck Schumer, self-described as Israel’s “protector” in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns out that Israel is a major part of the story.
* Credit: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images
Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Garbage Trucks, Detain Drivers
IMEMC News – July 10, 2019
A group of Israeli soldiers on Wednesday detained Palestinian municipal employees in the village of Beit Fourik, in the northern West Bank, and seized several vehicles used for trash collection.
According to local sources, the vehicles that were seized include a garbage truck, a tractor used for hauling garbage and a third vehicle used in trash collection.
The vehicles were loaded with garbage and were headed to a landfill site east of the village, located near Nablus in the northern West Bank, when they were detained by Israeli soldiers in military vehicles.
The soldiers approached with weapons drawn and ordered the municipal employees out of their vehicles, then held them for several hours in the hot sun, and took the vehicles away to an unknown location.
The Palestinian Wafa News Agency spoke with Ata Samara, a health inspector with the Beit Fourik village council, who told them that this trash collection by the municipality is a daily collection, and this is the first time they have been harassed by Israeli occupation forces.
Samara added that the trash dump is located in Area B of the West Bank, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority but falls under Israeli military rule, adding that the village council was not informed by the army that it would no longer be allowed to dump there. He said the seizure of the truck and car is part of an effort by the Israeli army to make life difficult for the Palestinians in that village.
Without a trash truck or a place to put garbage, the Palestinians of the village will be forced to fend for themselves, which will likely result in a buildup of trash at homes in the village, and unsanitary conditions will result.
Israeli authorities have created multiple landfill sites for Israeli garbage on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, and frequently haul and dump Israeli garbage onto Palestinian village land. However, in recent years the Israeli authorities have made it harder and harder for Palestinians in the West Bank to dump their garbage, instead closing off the Palestinian landfills and dumps or putting roadblocks to prevent the Palestinians from reaching them.
Israeli forces have targeted the village of Beit Fourik for collective punishment, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, since March, when an Israeli settler was killed in a settlement nearby.
The Obama Wars
By David Swanson | War Is A Crime | July 10, 2019
By “the Obama wars” I don’t mean some overgrown infants on television screaming racist insults or pretending that opposing racism requires cheering for Obama.
I mean: the widespread indiscriminate murder of human beings with missiles — many of them from robot airplanes — let loose to threaten any non-white country on earth by Obama and expanded by Trump. I mean the catastrophic destruction of Libya — still continued by Trump. I mean the war on Afghanistan, the vast bulk of which was overseen by Obama, though Bush and Trump have had minor roles. I mean the assault on Yemen, begun by Obama and escalated by Trump. I mean the war on Iraq and Syria escalated first by Obama and then by Trump (following the de-escalation locked in place by Bush though Obama fought it tooth-and-nail).
I mean the conflict with Iran, heightened by Obama and then dramatically again by Trump. I mean the expansion of conflict-producing troops and bases across Africa and Asia. I mean the creation of the new cold war with Russia. I mean the build up in nuclear weapons and the delusional rhetoric about “usable” nuclear weapons. I mean the support for Israel’s wars on Palestinians. I mean the coups in Ukraine and Honduras. I mean the threats to Venezuela. I mean the normalization of fantastical excuses for the gravest crimes. I mean the practice of campaigning on ending wars, never ending any of them, and never having anyone really care. I mean the constant shattering of past records in military spending.
Obama’s legacy, despite all sorts of variations, many of them superficial, and despite its role in defeating Hillary Clinton at the ballot box, has largely been maintained, advanced, and imitated by bipartisan consensus and by Donald Trump.
If you want to review what Obama did in that quirky little area of his job to which some 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted, and which puts us all at risk of nuclear disaster, pick up a copy of Jeremy Kuzmarov’s book Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State. Kuzmarov places Obama in historical context and outlines his parallels with Woodrow Wilson, another extreme militarist generally understood as a peace visionary. Kuzmarov reviews — and adds information that many of us probably never knew to — the story of Obama’s rise to power and the story of all of his many wars.
We tend to forget that right up through the presidency of George W. Bush wars were thought of as temporary things that had endings. Now they’re hardly thought of at all, but they’re understood to be permanent. And they’re thought of in partisan terms. We sometimes forget that candidate Obama, like candidate Trump, promised a larger military. Candidate Obama promised a larger war on Afghanistan. And when it came time for Obama’s re-election to a second term, he reached out to the New York Times and asked that paper to write an article about how good he was at killing people, about how he carefully studied a list of men, women, and children and picked out the ones in whose name he would send missiles into clusters of unidentified victims. Obama’s claim, in his own words, was “I’m really good at killing people.” Nobody who liked Obama and didn’t like murder allowed themselves to become aware of this aspect of Obama’s re-election campaign; and they never will become aware of it.
The reason it matters is that over 20 Democrats are now campaigning for president, some of whom are promoting the same sort of militarism, some of whom are opposing it to some degree, and some of whom have revealed little or nothing about their positions on such matters. One of them, Joe Biden, was part of Obama’s wars. Biden is the guy who claimed of the mass-slaughter of people in Libya “We didn’t lose a single life.” Kamala Harris is the woman who will never ever question whether by “life” he meant “non-African life.” She’s too busy worrying that peace might break out in Korea. The stupidity of tokenism will plague us until we at least have the decency to regret having fallen for it before. The stupidity of militarism will plague us until we stop glorifying and excusing it and start supporting efforts to create peace.
A Child Under Administrative Detention
Defence for Children Palestine | July 9, 2019
On September 20, 2017, Laith K., 17, was arrested by Israeli forces. He was held in administrative detention for nearly 46 weeks. Administrative detention is a form of imprisonment without charge or trial. Learn more: https://nwttac.dci-palestine.org/
The Only Strategic Rationale for America’s Involvement in Syria Finally Revealed
By Elias Samo | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 6, 2019
“Washington lacks a clear strategy in Syria “; those were the recent words of Robert Ford, the last American ambassador to Syria who served prior to and during the first few years of the Syrian uprising from 2010 to 2014. A man of Ford’s intricate knowledge of the Syrian/American political dynamic is surly knowledgeable enough to assess America’s policy towards Syria. He goes on to say, “It is hard to explain the fundamental American mission in Syria… Is it to fight Daesh? Or is it to help promote a Kurdish autonomous district in Northeastern Syria… Or is it to resist Iranian encouragement?” It is partially all three; however, oddly enough, Mr. Ford avoids the obvious top priority and strategic rationale for America’s involvement in Syria: The Protection of Israel.
To alleviate this dereliction by the executive branch for not presenting a clear strategy in Syria, as the former ambassador asserts, the Congress took it upon itself to identify American strategic interests in Syria and make recommendations to Trump. However, it is legitimate to ask: what do American congressmen know about Syria to qualify them to determine American strategic interests in the country? It is very unlikely for American congressmen to know much about Syria; they are dictated the Israeli narrative and that is all they need to know.
Irrespective of who or what motivated the congressmen to seek information to develop a framework for American strategic interests in Syria and eventually send a letter signed by nearly four hundred congressmen- roughly seventy five percent of the total number of congressmen from both chambers and both parties- to the president about their findings and their recommendations, the congressmen called upon United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to establish a Syria Study Group (SSG) to provide them information about Syria to comprehend the situation and formulate recommendations to Trump.
The SSG was established in February 2019 and gave its interim report to Congress May 1, 2019; the report consists of detailed seven single-spaced typewritten pages.
Subsequent to the SSG submitting of its interim report to Congress on May 1, the four hundred congressmen Letter was sent to the president on May 20. It would be natural to assume that the Letter is a condensed reflection of what the interim report contained and recommended; that was not the case. The elaborate and detailed interim report dealt with a multitude of issues centered around American national security. Ironically, the Letter to the President focused on the sources of threats to Israeli security: terrorism, Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iran, Turkey and Russia. Just a note regarding the difference in emphasis in the two documents. In the seven – page single spaced interim report Israel is mentioned nine times, it is mentioned twenty one times in the two page Letter.
The first paragraph of the Letter states “[…] we recommend several specific steps to advance our regional security priorities, including assisting our ally, Israel, in defending itself in the face of growing threats, including on its northern border.” The reference to northern border is Syria and Lebanon. As for Syria, it suffices to note that Israel occupied the Syrian Golan for fifty two years and annexed it recently with Trump’s blessings. Syria has not fired a shot at Israel in decades while Israel has fired hundreds of shots at Syria just recently; there are no Syrian boots on the ground in Israel, while there are Israeli boots on the ground in Syria. So much for the threat to Israel emanating from Syria. As for the Lebanese scenario, it is similar to that of Syria, albeit on a smaller scale, with one addition: Hezbollah which Israel views as a source of imminent threat. However, it suffices to note that it is Israel which has been the source of violent onslaughts against Hezbollah. The Letter, in the succeeding paragraphs, elaborates further on the acquisition by Syria and Hezbollah of large and more threatening sophisticated weapons to threaten the security of the regional, nuclear super power: Israel. Need one point out the ridicule?
In the third paragraph, the Letter asserts: “While our nation has encouraged more stable and inclusive political systems in the Middle East, the regime in Tehran has spread its influence and destabilized its neighbors for its own gain.” To say this is an outrageous distortion of the truth would be an understatement. There is not a sane Iraqi, Syrian, Lybian, Yemeni and most Muslim Arabs who would vouch to such a distortion. In fact, internationally, the US and Israel are viewed as sources of threat to international peace and security; both have boots on foreign ground but no foreign boots on their ground.
Russia receives a jab at the fourth paragraph for its role “[…] to ensure the survival of the Assad regime.” It adds “Furthermore, in providing Damascus with advanced weapons like the S-300 anti-aircraft, Moscow is complicating Israel’s ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria.”
The last part of the Letter contains three recommendations which are interrelated and converge on the core of the Letter; the security of Israel:
- Underscore Israel’s right to self-defense.
- Increase pressure on Iran and Russia with respect to activities in Syria.
- Increase pressure on Hezbollah.
Beyond any conceivable doubts, the Letter was dictated by Israelis or their advocates in Washington, signed and submitted by the 400 congressmen to Trump; the height of hypocrisy. What is dismaying is that hardly any voices of protest were raised in American society at large or the political or intellectual segments about the fact that four hundred congressmen, who are elected by Americans to serve American interests, at a time when the US is bogged down in the Arab region, sign and submit a letter to the US President concerned almost exclusively with Israel’s Security.
These congressmen had an opportunity to make a coherent recommendation on US policy in the Arab region in the interest of American National Interest, but instead chose to make recommendations to safeguard the wellbeing and security of a foreign state: Israel.
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