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Not linked to 9/11, Iran has to pay billions: US judge

Press TV – May 2, 2018

A federal judge in New York has ordered Iran to pay $6 billion to the alleged families of 9/11 attacks even though a state investigation has found no link between Tehran and those who carried out the bombings.

The judgement, issued by Manhattan federal judge George Daniels on Tuesday, is also hollow because Iran has never responded to the lawsuit and is unlikely to ever pay.

The lawsuit claims that Iran provided technical assistance, training and planning to the al-Qaeda operatives that conducted the attacks.

However, the official investigation on the attacks, known as the 9/11 Commission Report, said that Iran did not play a direct role.

Nevertheless, Daniels insisted that the country was liable to more than 1,000 “parents, spouses, siblings and children” involved in the lawsuit. He signed off on a pro forma default order against “the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran” after they refused to respond to the suit.

The lawsuit is not linked to a case filed against Saudi Arabia, which families of 9/11 victims say provided direct support for the attackers. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

Last April, a federal judge in New York ordered Tehran to pay $11 billion in compensation to victim families of the 9/11 attacks while Saudi Arabia was cleared, prompting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to denounce the ruling.

“I have lost every respect for US justice. The judgment by the Supreme Court and the other, even more absurd judgment by a New York circuit court deciding that Iran should pay damages for 9/11 are the height of absurdity,” he said.

“How would you explain Iran being held accountable for the damages to the victims of 9/11—and others being absolved of any responsibility, those who were actually responsible for it?” he said apparently referring to Saudi Arabia.

The judge order on Tuesday does make the families eligible to collect from a small fund of seized Iranian assets.

Iran’s assets held in foreign banks have been subject to a witch hunt by the Americans who have used Washington’s animosity toward the Islamic Republic to easily win lawsuits against the country in US courts.

In February, a set of “plaintiffs” sought to seize priceless Persian artifacts held at a Chicago museum to satisfy a $71.5 million court judgment against Iran but their bid was blocked on appeal by the Iranian government and University of Chicago.

Iran has denounced US seizures of its frozen assets as “highway robbery” and pledged to haul the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague.

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is suing a subsidiary of German stock-exchange operator Deutsche Borse for holding $4.9 billion of Iranian assets.

The assets reportedly include about $1.9 billion which Clearstream has turned over to the US to “compensate” around 1,000 Americans claiming damage from Iran over a 1983 bombing in Beirut and another attack in 1996 in Saudi Arabia.

May 2, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

South Carolina’s New Hate Speech Law Outlaws Criticism of the Israeli Occupation

Discussing the military occupation of the West Bank, a reality recognized even by Israel’s Supreme Court, would be considered anti-Semitic under the new South Carolina law.

By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | May 1, 2018

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — The state of South Carolina will become the first state in the nation to legislate a definition of anti-Semitism that considers certain criticisms of the Israeli government to be hate speech. The language, which was inserted into the state’s recently passed $8 billion budget, offers a much more vague definition of anti-Semitism that some suggest specifically targets the presence of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, movement on state college campuses. The law requires that all state institutions, including state universities, apply the revised definition when deciding whether an act violates anti-discrimination policies.

Once it is reconciled with an appropriations bill previously passed by the state House, the measure will become law and take effect this July. However, the law will last only until the next budget is passed, meaning that the new legal definition of anti-Semitism must be renewed on a yearly basis unless new legislation making the language permanent is passed in the future.

The new definition uses the State Department’s current definition of anti-Semitism as its template — defining speech that “demonizes” or applies “double standards” to Israel “by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as anti-Semitic.

However, the State Department’s definition was never intended to be used as an enforcement tool, and concern has subsequently been raised that South Carolina colleges may now move to criminalize conventional and factual criticism of Israel under the new, vague definition of anti-Semitism.

Such concern is well-founded, in part because the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R-Myrtle Beach), previously called the pro-Israel lobby J-Street “anti-Semitic” for referring to Israel’s presence in Palestine’s West Bank as an “occupation.” Thus, in Clemmons’ view, discussing the military occupation of the West Bank, a reality recognized even by Israel’s Supreme Court, would be considered anti-Semitic under the new South Carolina law.

Clemmons, a Mormon who has previously hosted state delegations to Israel, also considers the non-violent Palestinian rights movement Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) to be motivated by anti-Semitism and has been called “Israel’s biggest supporter in a U.S. state legislature.”

In addition to the views of the bill’s sponsor, Kenneth Stern, the author of the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism upon which the new South Carolina law is based, has vehemently opposed codifying into law the definition he wrote, asserting that applying that definition to colleges “is a direct affront to academic freedom” as well as “unconstitutional and unwise.”

In regards to the South Carolina Law, Stern stated that it “is really an attempt to create a speech code about Israel,” adding that it is also “an unnecessary law that will hurt Jewish students and the academy.”

Other groups, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, have raised similar concerns, stating that “this vague and overbroad re-definition conflates political criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, infringing on constitutionally protected speech.”

Pro-Israel groups, in contrast, praised the law’s wording. The Brandeis Center, for instance, stated:

This bill gives South Carolina the tools to protect Jewish students’ and all South Carolina students’ right to a learning environment free of unlawful discrimination. We are hoping this momentous step will result in another national wave to, once and for all, begin defeating rising anti-Semitism.”

First clashes in a coming national battle?

The Brandeis Center’s allusion to a “national wave” aimed at legally conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism may be closer to reality than previously thought. Indeed, if Kenneth Marcus, Trump’s nominee to serve as the next Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, is confirmed in the coming months, the newly passed South Carolina law is likely to be repeated across the country.

Marcus, who once boasted of instilling “fear” into BDS activists and considers any demonstration of solidarity with Palestine as anti-Semitic, has long desired the post, as he sees it as a way to shut down BDS at the national level. As Marcus himself has noted, changing the legal definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of the Israeli state is a critical part of silencing BDS groups on U.S. college campuses.

Ultimately, the bill comes at a critical time for pro-Israel partisans seeking to curb the recent success of BDS at universities across the U.S. Indeed, just a week after the new South Carolina law was passed, the students at one of the country’s most Jewish colleges – Barnard College in New York – overwhelmingly supported a referendum asking its school’s administration to boycott, divest and sanction Israel for its violations of international law in Palestine. Such victories are apparently considered so dangerous by Israel’s right-wing and its U.S. equivalents that they have sought to restrict freedom of speech on college campuses nationwide in order to prevent them in the future.

In 2015, South Carolina became the first of at least 22 states to prohibit state agencies or institutions from contracting with any vendor participating in a boycott of Israel. A hub of the slaveholding South in the U.S., South Carolina is a deeply conservative state with strong ties to Christian evangelicals, but a relatively small Jewish population of roughly 20,000 — dwarfed by a state like Illinois with more than 300,000 Jews.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

May 1, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gazan Gandhis: Gaza bleeds alone as ‘Liberals’ and ‘Progressives’ go mute

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | May 1, 2018

Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border.

Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing – nearly 45 dead and over 5,500 wounded – the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long chastised Palestinians for using armed resistance against the Israeli occupation are nowhere to be found, while children, journalists, women and men are all targeted by hundreds of Israeli snipers who dot the Gaza border.

Israeli officials are adamant. The likes of Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, perceives his war against the unarmed protesters as a war on terrorists. He believes that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” While the Israeli mindset is not in the least surprising, it is emboldened by the lack of meaningful action, or outright international silence to the atrocities taking place at the border.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), aside from frequent statements laced with ambiguous legal jargon, has been quite useless thus far. Its Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, derided Israel’s killings in a recent statement, but also distorted facts in her attempt at ‘even-handed language’, to the delight of Israeli media.

“Violence against civilians – in a situation such as the one prevailing in Gaza – could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court … as could the use of civilian presence for the purpose of shielding military activities,” she said.

Encouraged by Bensouda’s statement, Israel is exploiting the opportunity to deflect from its own crimes. On April 25, an Israeli law group, Shurat Hadin, is seeking to indict three Hamas leaders at the ICC, accusing Hamas of using children as human shields at the border protests.

It is tragic that many still find it difficult to grasp the notion that the Palestinian people are capable of mobilizing, resisting and making decisions independent from Palestinian factions.

Indeed, for the nearly decade-long Hamas-Fatah feud, the Israeli siege on Gaza and throughout the various destructive wars, Gazans have been sidelined, often seen as hapless victims of war and factionalism, and lacking any human agency.

Shurat Hadin, like Bensouda, are all feeding into that dehumanizing discourse.

By insisting that Palestinians are not capable of operating outside the confines of political factions, few feel the sense of political responsibility or moral accountability to come to the aid of the Palestinians.

This is reminiscent of former US President Barack Obama’s unsolicited lecture to Palestinians during his Cairo speech to the Muslim world in 2009.

“Palestinians must abandon violence,” he said. “Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.”

He then offered his own questionable version of history of how all nations, including ‘black people in America’, the nations of South Africa, South East Asia, Eastern Europe and Indonesia fought and won their freedom by peaceful means only.

This demeaning approach – of comparing supposed Palestinian failures to others’ successes – is always meant to highlight that Palestinians are different, lesser beings who are incapable of being like the rest of humanity. Interestingly, this is very much the core of the Zionist narrative about the Palestinians.

That very notion is often presented in the question “where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” The inquiry, often asked by so-called liberals and progressives, is not an inquiry at all, but is a judgement – and an unfair one at that.

Addressing the question soon after the last Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, Jeff Stein wrote in Newsweek, “The answer has been blown away in the smoke and rubble of Gaza, where the idea of non-violent protest seems as quaint as Peter, Paul and Mary. The Palestinians who preached non-violence and led peaceful marches, boycotts, mass sit-downs and the like are mostly dead, in jail, marginalized or in exile.”

Yet, astonishingly, it is being resurrected again, despite the numerous odds, the unfathomable anger and unrelenting pain.

Tens of thousands of protesters, raising Palestinian flags continue to hold their massive rallies across the Gaza border. Despite the high death toll and the thousands maimed, they return everyday with the same commitment to popular resistance that is predicated on collective unity, beyond factionalism and politics.

But why are they still being largely ignored?

Why isn’t Obama tweeting in solidarity with Gazans? Why isn’t Hillary Clinton taking the podium to address the unremitting Israeli violence?

It is politically convenient to criticize Palestinians as a matter of course, and utterly inconvenient to credit them, even when they display such courage, prowess and commitment to peaceful change.

The likes of famed author, J.K. Rowling, had much to stay in criticism of the peaceful Palestinian boycott movement, which aims at holding Israel accountable for its military occupation and violations of human rights. But she became mute when Israeli snipers killed children in Gaza, while cheering whenever a child falls.

The singer Bono of the band U2 dedicated a song to the late Israeli President Shimon Peres, accused of numerous war crimes, but his voice seems to have grown hoarse as the Gaza boy, Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub, 15 was shot by an Israeli sniper while protesting peacefully at the border.

However, there is a lesson in all of this. The Palestinian people should have no expectations of those who have constantly failed them. Chastising Palestinians for failing at this or that is an old habit, meant to simply hold Palestinians responsible for their own suffering, and to absolve Israel from any wrong doing. Not even Israel’s ‘incremental genocide‘ in Gaza will change that paradigm.

Instead, Palestinians must continue to count on themselves; to stay focused on formulating a proper strategy that will serve their own interests in the long run, the kind of strategy that transcends factionalism and offer all Palestinians a true roadmap to the coveted freedom.

The popular resistance in Gaza is just the beginning; it must serve as a foundation for a new outlook, a vision that will ensure that the blood of Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub is not spilled in vain.

May 1, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Neocon Bret Stephens Wants Syria’s Assad Assassinated

By Michael S. Rozeff | Lew Rockwell | May 1, 2018

Bret Stephens is a political commentator who works for The New York Times and NBC News. Stephens was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post between 2002 and 2004.

His Jewish identity is mentioned hand-in-hand with his political orientation by The Times of Israel : “In criticizing Trump even after his electoral victory, Stephens joins other leading Jewish conservative voices, including Brooks, Jennifer Rubin and William Kristol.” His Jewish identity is pertinent because he is known as a neocon and a strong supporter of Israel. The one seems to reinforce the other. Furthermore, his position on Iraq was criminal and disastrous and now he’s advocating a position on Syria that would also be criminal and disastrous. We should be extremely skeptical of the objectivity of someone like him who comes across as a shill for Israel and the Empire all-in-one.

Strong criticism of his position on Syria appears in an article by Robert Rabil dated yesterday that quotes him as follows: “U.S. should target Assad and his senior lieutenants directly in a decapitation strike, just as the U.S. attempted in Iraq in 2003, and against Osama bin Laden in 2011… if we [Americans] are serious about confronting Iran, Syria remains the most important battlefield.” What may result from such an aggression and war crime as decapitating Syria? I quote the article:

“It is mind boggling that someone as astute as Stephens would call for the decapitation of the regime in the same way U.S. had done in Iraq without providing an alternative to the regime. No less significant, does ‘our’ seriousness about confronting Iran require decapitating the Syrian regime? Is punishing the Syrian regime a pretext to confront Iran? This is a dangerous and flawed logic divorced from the harsh reality of the Levant. How could anyone invoke what the U.S. attempted in Iraq without admitting and internalizing the staggering human and financial cost the U.S. has paid? Has the notion of what may happen the day after the decapitation strike and confronting Iran crossed Stephens’ mind, or of those echoing him?

“Undoubtedly, Syria will further descend into anarchy and wretchedness, leading up to regional and international strife. A decapitating strike against the Syrian regime and/or an open confrontation with Iran in Syria would most likely put Moscow and Washington on a path of armed conflict. Russia made its position clear that it will respond to any game changing attack on Syria…

“Most importantly, is it in the national interest of Washington to risk a war over Syria, and by extension Iran, with Moscow after what United States has gone through in Iraq and Afghanistan with little to show for the enormous sacrifices Americans have made?”

Stephens was born in New York City in 1973. Stephens is said to be “brilliant”. He has several awards, indicating he’s a smart fellow, but being smart doesn’t make you wise, right or someone whose ideas should be followed. He strongly endorsed the war on Iraq:

“Stephens was a ‘prominent voice’ among the media advocates for the start of the 2003 Iraq War, for instance writing in a 2002 column that, unless checked, Iraq was likely to become the first nuclear power in the Arab world. Although the weapons of mass destruction used as a casus belli were never shown to exist, Stephens continued to insist as late as 2013 that the Bush administration had ‘solid evidence’ for going to war. Stephens has also argued strongly against the Iran nuclear deal and its preliminary agreements, arguing that they were a worse bargain even than the 1938 Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany.”

Stephens’ advice on Syria is easily as criminal as his advice on Iraq. Keeping the covenant with Iran is productive of peace. Breaking it is productive of war.

The neocon world view fails to recognize the the tremendous injuries the U.S. is inflicting on peoples in other lands. It fails to recognize either their property rights or rights to self-determination. The neocons fail to recognize the long-term ill-will and retaliation that the U.S. is producing. The neocons naively and wrongly think that democracy is a wonderful institution, that the U.S. has a right to overthrow regimes and set up democratic governments. They wrongly think that they are capable of building states when they are not. The neocons fail to recognize the military capabilities, including the nuclear weapons, of other powers. The neocons overestimate the efficacy of the U.S. military. The Jewish neocons are influenced strongly by Israeli right-wingers, and they are not of a mind to devise peaceful solutions to the nagging problems associated with Israel. The neocons do not comprehend that the world can progress peacefully and without a dominant superpower attempting to impose its standards and form of government. The neocons fail to recognize the faults of the U.S. government. The neocons ignore the inflation of the domestic police state as a feature of the Empire, just as they ignore the mounting U.S. debt. The neocons fail to see or appreciate other peoples as persons, instead viewing them as pieces they can move on a world chess board.

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.

May 1, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dumb Moves Have Consequences

The nuclear agreement with Iran is worth preserving

Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • May 1, 2018

The analysis of the recent exchanges between French President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump suggest that Washington is most likely about to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran that was signed by the U.S. and five other governments in July 2015. The decision will likely be made public before the deadline on re-ratifying the agreement, which is May 12th. As one informed observer has noted, “a train wreck is probably coming, with very damaging consequences that are hard to predict.”

Macron was polite, both in his meeting with Trump and during his speech before Congress, not hammering on the unimaginable awfulness of the White House decision while also offering an alternative, i.e. cooperation with the United States to improve the nuclear agreement while also supporting the principle that it is worth saving. Whether that subtle nudge, coupled with a pledge that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon, will be enough to change minds either in Congress or the White House is questionable as the unfortunate truth is that going to war with Iran is popular among the policy makers and media for the usual reason: it is a major foreign policy objective of the Israeli government and its powerful U.S. lobby.

Iran has been vilified for decades in the American media and it rarely gets a fair hearing anywhere, even when its behavior has not been particularly objectionable. Currently, it is regularly demonized by the Israelis and their supporters over its apparent plan to create an arc of Shi’a states extending through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, a so-called “land bridge” to the Mediterranean Sea. What that would accomplish exactly has never really been made clear and it assumes that the Syrians and Iraqis would happily surrender their sovereignty to further the project.

The Iranians for their part have made it clear that no modification of the agreement is possible. They note, correctly, that the JCPOA was not a bilateral commitment made between Tehran and Washington. It also included as signatories Russia, China, France, Britain and the European Union and was ratified by the United Nations (P5+1). They and others also have noted that U.S. exit from the agreement will mean that other nations will negotiate with Washington with the understanding that a legal commitment entered into by the President of the United States cannot be trusted after he is out of office.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years, Iran will only enrich uranium up to non-weapons level of 3.67%. Iran also pledged not to build any new heavy-water facilities and to limit uranium-enrichment activities for research and medical purposes to a plant using old technology centrifuges for a period of 10 years. To guarantee compliance with the agreement, Iran accepted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposal that it have highly intrusive access by a team of unannounced inspectors of all the country’s nuclear facilities. In return, Iran was to receive relief from U.S., European Union, and United Nations Security Council sanctions, an aspect of the agreement that the United States has never fully complied with.

Trump’s objection to the agreement is that it is a “bad deal” that virtually guarantees that Iran will have a nuclear weapon somewhere down the road. There is, however, no factual basis for that claim and that it is being made at all is largely reflective of Israeli and Israel Lobby propaganda. It is, on the contrary, an American interest not to have another nuclear proliferator in the Middle East in addition to Israel, which Washington has never dared to confront on the issue. The JCPOA agreement guarantees that Iran will not work to develop a weapon for at least ten years which is a considerable benefit considering that Tehran, if it had chosen to initiate such a program, could easily have had breakout capability in one year.

The U.S. and Israel are also expressing concern about Iranian ballistic missile capability. Again, ballistic missiles would appear to be a weapon that Israel alone seeks to monopolize in its neighborhood because it seeks to regard itself as uniquely threatened, that is, always the victim. It is an argument that sells well in the U.S. Congress and in the media, which has apparently also obtained traction in the White House. It is nevertheless a fake argument contrived by the Israelis. The missiles under development do not in any way threaten the United States and they were not in any event part of the agreement and should not be considered a deal breaker.

Ironically, the JCPOA is approved of by most Americans because it prevents the development of yet another potentially hostile nuclear armed power in a volatile part of the world. American Jews, in fact, support it more than other Americans, according to opinion polls. Even the generals in the Pentagon favor continuing it as do U.S. close allies Germany, France and Britain. The ability of Israel and its Lobby to dominate U.S. foreign policy formulation in certain areas is thereby exposed for what it is: sheer manipulation of our system of government by a small group dedicated to the interests of a foreign government using money and the political access that money buys to achieve that objective.

Those who argue that the withdrawal of the U.S. from JCPOA will be countered by the continued cooperation of the other signatories to the agreement are, one might unfortunately note, somewhat delusional. The U.S. has tremendous leverage in financial markets. If it chooses to sanction Iran over its missiles while also re-introducing the old sanctions relating to the nuclear developments, it would be a brave European or Asian banker who would risk being blocked out of the American market by lending money or selling certain prohibited goods to the Iranians. The United States could force the entire JCPOA quid pro quo agreement to collapse, and that might be precisely what the White House intends to do.

Add into the equation the clearly expressed and oft-times repeated Israeli intention to begin a war with Iran, starting in Syria, sooner rather than later, a disaster for American foreign policy is developing that might well make Iraq and Afghanistan look like cake walks. Iran will surely strike back in response either to the termination of the JCPOA or to Israeli bombing of its militiamen and surrogates in Syria. America forces in the region will surely be sucked into the conflict by Israel and will wind up taking the fall. Someone should tell Donald Trump that there are real world consequences for breaking agreements and rattling sabers. But who will tell him? Will it be John Bolton or Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo? I doubt it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. inform@cnionline.org.

May 1, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Only IAEA can assess any claim on Iranian nuclear program: Mogherini

Press TV – May 1, 2018

The EU foreign policy chief says what the Israeli premier tried to present as documents on Iran’s “secret” nuclear work fails to question Tehran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, and that any such claims should solely be assessed by the UN nuclear watchdog.

“What I have seen from the first reports is that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not put into question Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) commitments, meaning post-2015 nuclear commitments,” Federica Mogherini said Monday.

The remarks came hours after Netanyahu unveiled what he claimed to be “conclusive proof of the secret” Iranian nuclear program during a televised address from Israel’s ministry for military affairs.

Standing in front of a big screen and using large visual aids, the prime minister claimed that “Iran is brazenly lying” about its nuclear activities, presenting 55,000 pages of documents and 55,000 files on CDs as alleged evidence.

Netanyahu’s new anti-Iran show comes just ahead of a May 12 deadline for US President Donald Trump to decide whether Washington would keep its side of the multilateral deal with Iran. Trump has given the European parties to the JCPOA until that date to fix the so-called “flaws” in the accord or face a US exit.

The Israeli leader’s fresh claims contradict numerous reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying Iran’s full commitment to its side of the bargain.

Mogherini further said the JCPOA “is not based on assumptions of good faith or trust – it is based on concrete commitments, verification mechanisms and a very strict monitoring of facts, done by the IAEA. The IAEA has published 10 reports, certifying that Iran has fully complied with its commitments.”

“And in any case, if any party and if any country has information of non-compliance, of any kind, it can and should address and channel this information to the proper, legitimate, recognized mechanisms, the IAEA and the Joint Commission [of the JCPOA] for the monitoring of the nuclear deal that I chair and that I convened just a couple of months ago. We have mechanisms in place to address eventual concerns,” she said.

“IAEA is the only impartial international organisation in charge of monitoring Iran’s nuclear commitments. If any country has information of non-compliance of any kind should address this information to the proper legitimate and recognised mechanism”

The top EU diplomat further reiterated that she had not seen from “Netanyahu arguments for the moment on non-compliance, meaning violation by Iran of its nuclear commitments under the deal.”

France says Netanyahu claims strengthen Iran deal

France’s Foreign Ministry said that the Israeli data underscored the need to ensure that the Iran nuclear deal and UN inspections remained.

“This information should be studied and evaluated in detail,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said in a statement.

“The new information presented by Israel could also confirm the need for longer-term assurances on the Iranian program, as the president has proposed,” the statement added.

The statement further said “it is essential that the IAEA can continue to verify Iran’s respect for JCPOA and the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”

All sides must abide by JCPOA: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with the Israeli premier on the phone, reaffirming Moscow’s support for the Iran deal.

“Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia’s position that the JCPOA, which has a paramount importance in terms of international stability and security, must be strictly observed by all its signatories,” the Kremlin press service quoted the Russian president as saying.

UK, Germany defend Iran deal

A British government spokesman also defended the Iran nuclear pact, saying the IAEA inspection regime “is one of the most extensive and robust in the history of international nuclear accords.”

“It remains a vitally important way of independently verifying that Iran is adhering to the deal and that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful,” he said in a statement.

Furthermore, a German government spokesman said Berlin will analyze the Israeli documents on Iran’s nuclear program, but independent inspections must be maintained.

He emphasized that “the nuclear accord was signed in 2015, including the implementation of an unprecedented, thorough and robust surveillance system by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

Israeli data ‘mostly recycled material’

Meanwhile, a former deputy director for sanctions at the US State Department said he had not seen anything in Netanyahu’s presentation that would change the accord, BBC reported.

“I think, frankly, this was a political statement meant to try to influence President Trump’s decision on whether to pull out of the deal,” John Hughes said, noting, “I think it’s mostly recycled material.”

May 1, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel revokes residency of 4 Jerusalemite officials

Palestine Information Center – April 30, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Palestinian human rights sources said that Israel decided on Sunday to strip four Jerusalemite officials of their permanent residency under the pretext of not being loyal to Israel.

Lawyer Fadi al-Qawasmi said that Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri decided to revoke the residency of MPs Mohammed Abu Tir, Ahmad Attoun, and Mohammed Toutah as well as former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Khaled Abu Arafa.

Al-Qawasmi said in press statements that the decision came after the Knesset approved a new bill earlier in March that allows the Interior Minister to strip any Jerusalemite of his residency rights if he is involved in “terrorism” or “anti-Israel acts”.

According to al-Qawasmi, the Israeli Supreme Court in mid-September 2017 overturned a decision to revoke the residency of the Jerusalemite MPs. However, it decided to give the Israeli government a time limit to enact a law that gives the Interior Ministry the authority to strip any Jerusalemite of his residency.

The Palestinian lawyer described the bill as “unfair” and “illegal”, saying that it was applied retroactively. He affirmed that he will return to Israeli courts to oppose the decision.

The Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the Druze in the Syrian Golan Heights are considered residents not citizens by the Israeli authorities. Revoking their residency, according to the new bill, means expelling them permanently from these territories.

In 2006 the Israeli authorities confiscated the ID cards of the four Jerusalemite MPs after arresting them following their participation in a protest in Occupied Jerusalem. They spent several months in Israeli jails before they were deported to the West Bank.

April 30, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Corbyn should learn his lesson: compromise with the devil is not an option

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | April 30, 2018

There are two kinds of compromise: the strong compromise, and the weak.

The former is where you cede an interest to uphold a principle, the latter when you ignore your principles to further your interests.

The first is an important tool in all aspects of life, the second should almost always be avoided. Jeremy Corbyn should learn that lesson.

Twice in recent weeks Corbyn’s leadership has faced an opportunity to cede a point of principle in order to further – as they apparently see it – the interests of their party. Both times they have done so, both times were a huge mistake.

Antisemitism

The first question is: What does “Antisemitism in the Labour party” actually mean?

Let’s start by acknowledging what it isn’t. Criticising the government of Israel is not antisemitic. Supporting Palestine in its struggle for emancipation and justice is not antisemitic. Opposing George Soros’s neoliberal crusade through his various NGOs is not antisemitic. Accusing a Blairite MP (who happens to be Jewish) of working hand in hand with the right-wing press to undermine Corbyn is not antisemitic. Claiming Hitler was a “Zionist” may or may not be accurate, but it is not antisemitic. Even supporting the freedom of expression for a painter who makes a mural about the 1% that some third parties allege might appear to represent unflattering images of Jewish people (even though the artist denies it completely) is not antisemitic, unless specific intents can be established.

When we remove all these non-antisemitic incidents from the list of alleged “antisemitism” in the Labour Party, how much real antisemitism remains?

Very little to none would seem to be the answer. You might even argue there is less antisemitism within the Labour party than within the general population. Certainly there’s little evidence of any more. Ken Livingstone shows no signs of being antisemitic. Nor does the latest victim of the latest purge – Marc Wadsworth.

Wadsworth – a veteran anti-racism campaigner – has been expelled from the party for notionally being racist (it was actually “bringing the party into disrepute”, the evidence of racism was so little they couldn’t even officially call it that). He has been effectively sacrificed to appease the state-sponsored and state-supporting media in the UK.

This is a terrible mistake. By conceding this point of principle in order to gain a perceived strategic advantage Corbyn’s team have in fact conceded both principle and strategy to a force that has no interest in compromising with them and simply wants them gone. The result is this:

1. Labour’s right-wing, (who DO, demonstrably, work “hand in hand” with the anti-Corbyn press), have been allowed to define what “antisemitism” means, and they are going to take full advantage of this. From now on, any Labour MP or even grassroots member who criticises Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians – or who simply disagrees with another Labour member who happens to be Jewish – can look forward to being shamed and expelled. How does Corbyn see this as furthering the cause of freedom and democracy?

2. They have accepted the lie as truth. A man has been expelled for antisemitism. Even though the grounds are spurious, it will in future be cited as evidence that the left does indeed have a problem with antisemitism.

Corbyn’s team decided to play soft and weak, in the hopes that letting a little blood would sate the thirst of the media. But you don’t abate a feeding frenzy by chumming the water. You don’t compromise with the devil by selling a piece of your soul. They have made it immeasurably worse. Livingstone and Walker will follow, and slowly Corbyn’s allies in the party will be chipped away.

Russia

The same exact process is playing out with the “Russian interference” situation. When the first accusations of being “soft on Putin” were thrown around, the strong principled position to take would be to dismiss the smears as racist and stupid. Argue the issues, ignore the white noise of smear and innuendo.

Corbyn’s principles, and those of the Labour party, dictate that they should stand against prejudice, abuse, censorship and summary justice.

They COULD have made statements that RT is just as valid a medium to be interviewed on as the BBC or CNN. They could have pointed out that Russian money in London is fleeing Putin’s crackdown on the oligarchs. They could have stood by the truth, and to hell with what the press say.

Instead Corbyn’s camp saw a chance to score some easy points in the media. McDonnell decided to publicly denounce RT, whilst the “leftwing” press tried to attack the Tories for their “dirty” Russian donors. Instead of saying “this campaign of demonising Russians is degraded & offensive”, they said effectively “Yes, Russians are demons, but they like the Tories more than us!”

This is potentially a more egregious mistake than the antisemitism issue. Firstly, it endorses the quasi-racist idea that all things Russian are inherently tainted with evil. Secondly, it undermines RT, an important voice for alternative politicians in the UK. And it opens the gates to this:

Headline in the Sunday Times, April 29 2018

This is the most predictable headline I have ever seen. It’s more predictable than sunrise or the tides or the waning moon. It was destined from the moment of his first leadership victory. And Corbyn has no one to blame but himself.

By allowing the “Russiagate” hysteria to blossom without challenge, by allowing the memes of “dirty Russian money” in London, and the “Russian influence” of the Brexit vote to go unchecked, Corbyn has encouraged the climate where people can be “denounced” in true McCarthyite fashion. And now he is paying the price.

Corbyn seems to think a few little compromises will get him accepted in the mainstream media. It pains me to say it, but this is fundamentally untrue. You can’t compromise with someone who wants nothing but your total destruction. Hopefully Corbyn has learned this lesson by now.

And truth in politics is important, it has power, not simply through its rarity. Corbyn’s power came from telling truths we all knew and no one else was saying, and he has undermined it by allowing convenient lies to stand.

You can’t build a greater truth on a foundation of small, convenient lies. When a person tells a lie, it is an act of weakness to allow it to stand. Responding “Yes, but”, does nothing but reinforce the initial dishonesty.

You cannot allow the deep state to use their tools in the media to set the narrative. You cannot try to meet them in the middle, because they’ll just use that leverage to pull you further over to their side. A half-truth is just a lie that lacks conviction, and by letting them slide you allow the media to set the width of the Overton window.

Jeremy Corbyn is a good man, his entire career – apparently his entire outlook on life – is built around principle. It’s those principles that got him elected leader and made him so popular. He should not compromise them now, in order to appease people who will never be appeased.

April 30, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces kidnap Lebanese woman in Shebaa Farms

Press TV – April 29, 2018

Israeli forces have kidnapped a Lebanese woman in the Tel Aviv-occupied Lebanese territory, the Lebanese army says.

The incident happened in Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms on Saturday and the abductee was identified as Nohad Dali.

“On April 28 at 8.30 p.m., an Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali from the town of Shebaa and took her into occupied Palestinian territory,” said an army statement.

Lebanon has raised the seizure of Dali with the United Nations peacekeeping force, which is stationed on Lebanon’s border with the occupied territories. The Israeli military said it briefly held the Lebanese woman before releasing her.

Tel Aviv has been occupying Shebaa Farms since 1967, when it seized the territory from Lebanon during a full-scale war against Arab nations. Lebanon and Israel are technically at war as a result of the continued occupation.

Israel launched two wars on Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, in both of which the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah inflicted heavy losses on the regime’s military.

In January, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri called Israel the greatest threat to Lebanon’s stability. “The only threat I see is Israel taking some kind of action against Lebanon, out of a miscalculation,” Hariri told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Israel also takes great exception to Hezbollah’s assisting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in its battle against Takfiri terrorism and militancy.

The Israeli air force has repeatedly violated Lebanon’s airspace to strike Syria-based targets belonging to Hezbollah since the group started helping out the Syrian army.

April 29, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Paraguay to move its embassy in Israel to Occupied Jerusalem

Palestine Information Center – April 29, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel Hayom newspaper on Sunday said that the Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes has pledged to transfer his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Cartes said that he would like the move to take place before he leaves office in June.

Cartes said during a ceremony held in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Israel that his decision stems from both political and personal commitment.

Paraguay is the fourth country to decide to move its embassy to Occupied Jerusalem joining the Czech Republic, Guatemala and Honduras who followed the lead of the US.

Both the US and Guatemala have decided to transfer their embassies to Jerusalem in mid-May, while Honduras and the Czech Republic have not set a date yet.

On 6th December 2017 the US president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city stirring worldwide condemnation.

April 29, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas condemns Bundestag’s support for ‘Israel’ to be a Jewish state

Palestine Information Center – April 29, 2018

GAZA – Hamas strongly condemned the German Bundestag’s call for the German government to support recognizing the Israeli occupation as a Jewish state over the land of historic Palestine.

In a statement on Sunday, Hamas said “At the time the Palestinians expected a strong support from the Federal Republic of Germany on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the Bundestag did not mention the seven-decade long aggression of the Israeli occupation on our people, and it did not denounce the Israeli racist and fascist policies”.

Today, the Israeli occupation as an occupying power, continues usurping Palestinian land in favor of illegal settlements, arrests thousands without trial, many of them are children, women and patients, Judaizes Jerusalem and forcefully deports Jerusalemites from their homes and imposes an unjust siege on more than two million Palestinians in Gaza.

The siege on Gaza is considered by all international institutions and international laws as a collective punishment that amounts to a crime against humanity.

You, the Bundestag, described the Israeli occupation as a “state that embraces western European values.” Do these values accept, for example, the killing of dozens and wounding of thousands of peaceful demonstrators, most of them children, who demand their right to a decent life and return to their homes?

This decision destabilizes the region and the world, as well as it gives the occupation a green light to continue its aggression against our people, violation of international law and encourages the displacement of the rest of our people.

Hamas is wondering whether accepting a Jewish state is in line with the democratic values on which Germany was founded after WWII, which basically do not consider differences between citizens on the basis of race, color or religion.

Therefore, we demand that the Bundestag cancel this decision and take positions that achieve justice for our people after decades of suffering, which Europe, and foremost Germany, is a major cause of it.

April 29, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chomsky Among “Progressives” Calling for US Military Involvement in Syria

By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | April 26, 2018

On Monday, the New York Review of Books published an open letter and petition aimed at securing Western support for putting pressure on Turkey to end its occupation of Afrin, opposing further Turkish incursions into Syria, and backing autonomy for Rojava — the region of Northern Syria that has functioned autonomously since 2012 after its administration was taken over by U.S-allied Kurdish factions. Authored by the Emergency Committee for Rojava, it has since been signed by well-known progressive figures such as Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler in its bid to organize efforts for the fulfillment of the group’s demands.

Those demands are entirely focused on U.S. government policy. The petition asks the government to “impose economic and political sanctions on Turkey’s leadership, . . . embargo sales and delivery of weapons from NATO countries to Turkey, . . . insist upon Rojava’s representation in Syrian peace negotiations,” and – most paradoxically of all — “continue military support for the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces],” the Kurdish-majority group that has acted as a U.S. proxy and has been accused of ethnic cleansing in its bid to construct a Kurdish ethnostate in Northern Syria.

The group’s first three demands are reasonable, in the sense of seeking to punish Turkey for its illegal invasion of Syrian territory. However, they are also rather fanciful, in the sense that the U.S. government is highly unlikely to stop weapons sales or to sanction Turkey, which it needs to court in order to prevent Ankara from pivoting towards Russia. Indeed, the U.S. — by refusing to support the Kurds during the battle for Afrin – made it clear that its “alliance” with Syrian Kurds is opportunistic and very much secondary to the U.S.’ relationship with Turkey.

The third demand is equally unlikely to come about, as Turkey has previously called the involvement of Syrian Kurds in peace talks unacceptable and has essentially issued an “it’s either us or them” ultimatum. In addition, past attempts to invite the Kurds to participate in the peace talks have been rejected by Western nations, including the United States, in order to please Turkey.

More recently, Kurds themselves refused to attend peace talks earlier this year over the Turkish occupation of Afrin in light of the lack of international response to that event. However, even prior to the occupation of Afrin, Syrian Kurds had declared they were “not bound” by any decisions made during Syrian peace talks, thereby weakening the peace process.

Yet, beyond the impractical nature of the petition’s first three demands, the final demand – that the U.S. continue military support for the Syrian Democratic Forces – is by far the most unusual, in the sense that well-known progressive figures, in signing this petition, are asking for the continued U.S. occupation of Syria and for increased military and financial support for the U.S. proxy forces, the SDF.

While most progressive figures, likely including those who signed the petition, would never publicly call for extending a U.S.-led military occupation, this petition shows that the war propaganda in Syria – particularly as it relates to the Kurds – has been highly effective in subverting the progressive anti-war left as it relates to the Syrian conflict.

Indeed, the Kurds in Syria have long been romanticized by Western media for having built “the world’s most progressive democracy” and for being trailblazers for gender equality and gay rights. While the Kurds have incorporated some progressive policies, the realities on the ground are more nuanced. Furthermore, the U.S.’ “support” for Rojava, which the petition seeks to extend, is hardly helping progressive or even Kurdish causes.

Distinguishing the Kurds and the SDF

Since the rise of Daesh (ISIS) in the Syrian conflict, Western media has placed the Kurds on a pedestal and has long treated them as the only “effective” fighters against the terrorist group. However, praising the local Kurdish militias for their fighting prowess has since given way to praising the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), even though the two could not be more different.

While the SDF does boast a significant portion of Kurds among its ranks, it is not expressly Kurdish and is an umbrella group of several militias. Though this itself is not concerning, the identities of many of its Arab fighters do give cause for concern. For instance, one of the groups operating under the SDF’s banner is the Deir Ezzor Military Council (DMC) — a group whose fighters were former members of Daesh and al-Nusra (Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate), who were “retrained” by U.S. forces in Northern Syria after surrendering to the SDF and U.S.-backed forces in Raqqa. In addition, tribes that were formerly allied with Daesh have joined forces with the SDF over the past year.

The loosely-knit coalition of Syrian rebel groups, including Kurdish factions, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are armed, trained and backed by the U.S. (SDF Photo)

In addition to hosting former members of Daesh and other terror organizations among its ranks, the SDF also regularly collaborates with Daesh in Northeastern Syria in targeting Syrian and Russian forces. Though the Kurds and Daesh are ostensible “enemies,” they have been shown to move amongst each other like allies, and Kurds have even worked alongside Daesh in coordination with U.S. special forces. Perhaps, then, it is little surprise that the SDF allowed Daesh terrorists to leave Raqqa peacefully last June as they took the city.

This collaboration with groups like Daesh, which the SDF has been praised in the West for fighting, has led to major defections of Kurds from the SDF — including SDF’s former spokesman Talal Silo, who accused the group of making secret deals with terrorists.

Along with their troubling ties and collaboration with Daesh, the SDF have participated in war crimes in Syria, in tandem with U.S. forces, and have been accused of ethnic cleansing in order to justify the establishment of a Kurdish ethnostate in Arab-majority areas of Northern Syria.

For instance, in the battle for Raqqa, the SDF — along with the U.S.-led coalition — committed war crimes, such as using chemical weapons and cutting off water supplies to Raqqa, which is still without water nearly a year after its “liberation.” The SDF also played a key role in the operation that left, by some estimates, as many as 8,000 dead and 160,000 more driven from their homes. The operation also left 80 percent of the city completely uninhabitable, and as many as 6,000 bodies are still believed to be buried in the rubble six months after the joint U.S-led coalition/SDF operation concluded.

Some journalists, such as Andrew Korybko, asserted that Raqqa’s civilian population was directly targeted because it was highly unlikely that any Arab, or non-Kurd for that matter, living in Arab-majority Raqqa would freely choose to live in a “Kurdish-dominated statelet” as a second-class citizen instead of choosing to have equal standing within the Syrian Arab Republic. In other words, the operation was, in part, targeting civilians who could resist Raqqa’s annexation by the U.S.-backed Kurds instead of Daesh forces, who were allowed to escape and were later re-assimilated into the SDF. The UN, however, has claimed that the SDF’s removal of Arab populations from Raqqa was done out of “military necessity” and thus did not constitute “ethnic cleansing.”

Have progressives thought through what they’re asking for?

Aside from the SDF, asking the U.S. to maintain its support of the group also means asking the U.S. to continue its illegal occupation of Syria. As MintPress has previously reported, the U.S.’ occupation of Syria is aimed at partitioning the country and preventing Syria’s Northeast from again coming under the control of the Syrian government.

Though partition has also been a goal of some U.S.-allied Kurdish nationalists, who have sought to use the division of Syria as a launching pad for an independent “Kurdistan,” the U.S. in recent months has made it clear that the partition of Northeastern Syria will not benefit the Kurds as much as Wahhabi Sunnis whose ideology is virtually indistinguishable from that of Daesh.

Early last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s new National Security Advisor John Bolton was working with U.S.-allied Middle Eastern nations to form an “Islamic coalition” that would replace the U.S. troops currently present in Northeastern Syria with an army composed of soldiers from nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt. This coalition would be a permanent military “stabilizing force” in the region.

In addition to pushing for foreign Arab soldiers to police Rojava, the Trump administration has also sought Saudi commitment to funding the reconstruction of the region. Saudi Arabia — known for its deplorable treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, and funding terror groups like Daesh — and its Gulf allies are highly unlikely to support the Kurds’ nationalist aims as well as their “progressive” direct democracy and promotion of gender equality and gay rights. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is the complete opposite of the Western progressive view of the Kurds, as it is a dictatorial monarchy well known for its repression of women and minorities and execution of members of the LGBT community. However, it is also the country that the U.S. is seeking to give the leading role in governing the area of Syria it currently occupies.

In effect, by asking for the continuation of U.S. military presence in Syria in order to aid the SDF, the Emergency Committee for Rojava is actually undermining the “progressive” Kurds they seek to support — and aiding yet another U.S. government attempt at nation-building, which is likely to result in a Wahhabist enclave that would differ little from a Daesh-led “caliphate.”

The Emergency Committee for Rojava’s efforts come amid major attempts aimed at defending and extending the U.S.’ illegal involvement in Syria. However, this petition is aimed at Western progressives, the group that has historically opposed illegal U.S. military occupations and wars in the past. Given how it has enticed well-known members of the progressive community, the petition shows that the push for Western “humanitarian” intervention in Syria is stronger than ever.

April 29, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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