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Undercover Israeli forces detain 2 students from Birzeit University

Ma’an – February 2, 2017

undercover_abduct-e1486045796143RAMALLAH – Israeli special forces disguised themselves as Palestinians and “kidnapped” two Palestinian students at the entrance of Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank district of Ramallah on Thursday afternoon, according to a statement released by the university.

The two students were identified as Tawfiq Abu Arqub, a coordinator for the Hamas-affiliated Islamic student bloc at the university, and Basel Falaneh, the secretary of specialities committee of the student council. They were studying computer science and business, respectively.

Birzeit University released a statement after the incident, saying that the two students were detained at the western gate of the university by “a number of [Israeli] soldiers.” Locals also told Ma’an that the students were forced into a vehicle “at gunpoint,” while also pointing guns at other students in the area.

The head of the university’s security, Muhammad Rimawi, stated that Israeli forces had “intercepted” a car that Abu Arqub and Falaneh were riding in, according to the statement, when “a number of undercover occupying forces took the students out of the car and kidnapped them.”

“This is neither new nor unprecedented given the ongoing colonial aggression against the people and institutions of Palestine,” the statement said.

The statement called the incident an “outrageous act of violence,” and part of a larger Israeli campaign resulting in the “rapid arrests” of students.

“This violation of our students’ right to learn is a part of a systematic attack on the right of education and freedom of expression,” the statement added.

The university’s Dean of Student Affairs Muhammad al-Ahmad also said in the statement that Israel’s “repressive measures” against all Palestinians and specifically students “shall only strengthen international efforts in support of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.”

“The University condemns these outrageous acts in the strongest possible terms and calls upon all international and human rights organizations to speak this truth loudly in the face of these violations immediately and without reserve and to stand in solidarity with our struggle,” the statement concluded.

Birzeit University, ranked the top university in Palestine and among the highest-ranking universities in the Arab world, has been the focus of an Israeli military crackdown in recent months, which increased after the Hamas-affiliated Islamic bloc won student elections at Birzeit last year for the second consecutive year.

In December, more than 20 Israeli military vehicles raided the campus before dawn, forced campus security guards to stand against walls, and proceeded to raid several buildings, including the university’s administration building, the student council’s headquarters, Kamal Nasir Hall, and the Faculty of Science.

Another incident occurred in July, when at least 11 Palestinian youths were injured after Israeli undercover forces and soldiers opened live fire on the campus amid clashes sparked by an Israeli raid to detain a former member of the Islamic bloc.

At the start of 2016, Israeli military forces also raided Birzeit, destroying and confiscating university equipment. It was reported at the time that Israeli forces had detained more than 80 students between Oct. 2015 and the start of 2016.

Rights groups have widely condemned the concerted detention of Islamic bloc members at the university since their initial victory in 2015.

The Hamas movement is deemed illegal by the Israeli government — along with the majority of Palestinian political factions and movements — making students involved with the Islamic bloc vulnerable to raids and arbitrary detentions. Members have also been targeted by Palestinian security forces.

February 2, 2017 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Police lied to me over Umm al-Hiran deaths

By Jonathon Cook | February 2, 2017

Speaking to me for my report last month on the killing by police of Yacoub Abu al-Qiyan during the demolition of his home in Umm al-Hiran, in the Negev, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld made three allegations against Abu al-Qiyan that he said proved he was a terrorist. All of them have now been shown to be entirely unfounded.

A fourth claim, made against Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List and the most senior politician among Israel’s 1.7 million Palestinian citizens, has also proved to be untrue.

The Israeli police appear to have been caught out as serial liars. Rosenfeld himself may have not known that he was peddling lies. He may have been simply reading from a script. But others surely knew. Not only did they wilfully mislead journalists, but they dangerously incited against Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

(This would be far from the first time. Only recently, the police, as well as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Palestinian citizens of waging an “arson intifada” against Israel in November, when hundreds of fires broke out due to exceptional weather conditions. All of the dozens of Palestinians arrested over the fires were subsequently released, but no apology or retraction has been issued.)

First, Rosenfeld told me Abu al-Qiyan had carried out a deliberate “car-ramming terror attack” on police, which killed one officer. But a police aerial video of the incident shows that police opened fire on the car while Abu al-Qiyan was driving slowly and cautiously to leave his home before the demolition crew began work.

Further, leaks of an autopsy report show that Abu al-Qiyan was shot twice, in the torso and the knee, strongly suggesting that he lost control of the car as he tried to navigate carefully down a steep dirt track. If anyone is responsible for the death of the police officer, Erez Levy, it is his colleagues who opened fire without provocation.

Of equal concern should be the fact that Abu al-Qiyan was left for up to half an hour to bleed to death, while police denied an ambulance access to his village.

Second, Rosenfeld told me that Abu al-Qiyan’s terrorist intent was discernible because, even though the incident occurred before dawn, he had turned off his headlights to avoid detection. But a new video shows his car lights were on, just as one would have expected.

Third, Rosenfeld told me police had definitive proof that Abu al-Qiyan was a supporter of ISIS, and that the evidence would soon be divulged. But two weeks later Israel’s domestic intelligence service, the Shin Bet, have provided no evidence of such a link. All his family deny that he supported ISIS, or even that he held strong political views.

And fourth, Rosenfeld denied Knesset member Ayman Odeh’s claim that police fired a potentially lethal sponge-tipped bullet at his head. Rosenfeld said instead that the Knesset member’s injuries had been caused by stones thrown by the inhabitants of Umm al-Hiran opposing the dozen or so demolitions police were carrying out. Another police spokesperson told the Israeli Maariv newspaper that the police did not even have sponge-tipped bullets in their armoury.

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There were multiple problems with that account. Witnesses say there was no stone-throwing at the time Odeh was injured. And the Knesset member is photographed (above) holding the bullet in Umm al-Hiran, after he was shot. There is also a picture (below) of a huge bruise across his back, where he was shot a second time. It is hard to imagine how that injury was caused apart from by an impact with some form of rubber bullet.

odeh-back-e1484846957383

And, whatever the police claim, there are well-documented instances of Israeli police using sponge-tipped bullets before, especially in East Jerusalem, but also in the Negev. The shocking thing in this case is that they used these bullets against a Palestinian Knesset member.

Interestingly, when challenged by another journalist, Mairav Zonszein, Rosenfeld denied that he had said Odeh was hit by stones, only that: “During the incident stones were thrown.” Well, my notes from our conversation show him clearly stating that Odeh’s head injury was caused by a stone.

It is past time for the police and the government ministers who for two weeks have incited against Abu al-Qiyan, against the inhabitants of Umm al-Hiran and more generally against Israel’s Palestinian citizens to issue an apology for their serial lies and distortions.

It is also essential that the government set up an independent, judicial-led inquiry to assess what really happened in Umm al-Hiran on the morning of January 18.

February 2, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Britain and the ‘Yemeni threat’

By Dan Glazebrook | CounterPunch | February 1, 2017

Britain is backing a Saudi invasion of Yemen that has cost thousands of innocent lives. It is providing advanced weaponry to the Saudis, training their military, and has soldiers embedded with the Saudis helping with targeting; and there is suspicion that British soldiers may even be involved in flying sorties themselves.

This is true of today. But it also describes exactly what was happening in the 1960s, in a shameful episode which Britain has, like so much of its colonial past, effectively whitewashed out of history.

In 1962, following the death of Yemeni King Ahmad, Arab nationalist army officers led by Colonel Abdullah Al-Sallal seized power and declared a Republic. The Royalists launched an insurgency to reclaim power, backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Britain, whilst Nasser’s Egypt sent troops to support the fledgling republican government.

In his book ‘Unpeople’, historian Mark Curtis pieces together Britain’s ‘dirty war’ in Yemen between 1962 and 1969 using declassified files which – despite their public availability and the incendiary nature of their revelations – have only ever been examined by one other British historian. British involvement spanned both Conservative and Labour governments, and implicated leading members of the British government in war crimes.

Just as today, the side under attack from Britain clearly had popular support – as British officials were well aware. Christopher Gandy – Britain’s top official in Yemen’s cultural capital, Taiz – noted that the previous regime was “unpopular with large elements and those in many ways the best”, describing it as “an arbitrary autocracy”. Another British official, in the Prime Minister’s office, wrote that Nasser had been “able to capture most of the dynamic and modern forces in the area whilst we have been left, by our own choice, backing the forces which are not merely reactionary (that would not matter so much) but shifty, unreliable and treacherous” Even Prime Minister Harold Macmillan admitted it was “repugnant to political equality and prudence alike that we should so often appear to be supporting out of date and despotic regimes and to be opposing the growth of modern and more democratic forms of government”. Thus, wrote Curtis, “Britain decided to engage in a covert campaign to promote those forces recognised [by Britain itself] as ‘shifty’, ‘treacherous’ and ‘despotic’ to undermine those recognised as ‘popular’ and ‘democratic’”.

At the request of Mossad, MI6 appointed Conservative MP Neil MacLean to run a guerrilla war against the new Republican government. At first Britain’s role was primarily to support and equip Jordan’s involvement in the war; just as today, it was British fighter jets carrying out airstrikes on Yemen, with British military advisors embedded with their allies at the most senior level. This involvement stepped up a gear in March 1963, however, when Britain began covertly supplying weapons to the Royalist forces themselves via their Gulf allies. The following month, says MI6 biographer Stephen Dorrill, millions of pounds worth of light weapons were shipped from an RAF station in Wilstshire to the insurgents, including 50,000 rifles. At the same time, a decision was taken by Britain’s foreign minister (shortly to become Prime Minister) Alec Douglas-Home, MI6 chief Dick White and SAS founder David Stirling to send a British force to work directly with the insurgents. But to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and public accountability, this force would be comprised of mercenaries, rather than serving soldiers. SAS soldiers and paratroopers were given temporary leave to join this new force on a salary of £10,000 per year, paid by the Saudi Prince Sultan. An MI6 task force was also set up, to facilitate weapons and personnel supplies, and authorisation was given for British mercenaries to lay mines. The same time as these decisions were taken, Douglas-Home told parliament “our policy in Yemen is one of non-intervention in the affairs of that country. It is not therefore our policy to supply arms to the Royalists in the Yemen”. Foreign minister Rab Butler was more uneasy with such barefaced lying, especially when evidence began circulating of exactly what Britain was up to; a memo he sent to the PM in 1964 complained that his job of rebuffing UN claims that Britain was supplying the Royalists was made slightly more difficult “since we know that this is in fact true”.

British officials also knew that their insurgency had no chance of winning. But this was not the point. As Prime Minister Macmillan told President Kennedy at the time, “I quite realise that the Loyalists will probably not win in Yemen in the end but it would not suit us too badly if the new Yemeni regime were occupied with their own internal affairs during the next few years”. What Britain wanted, he added, was “a weak government in Yemen not able to make trouble”. Nor was this only Macmillan’s personal opinion; his foreign policy advisor Philip de Zulueta wrote that “All departments appear to be agreed that the present stalemate in the Yemen, with the Republicans and Royalists fighting each other and therefore having no time or energy left over to make trouble for us in Aden, suits our own interests very well…our interest is surely to have the maximum confusion in the tribal areas on the Aden frontier” with Yemen.

Labour came to power in the autumn of 1964, but the policy stayed the same; indeed, direct (but covert) RAF bombing of Yemen began soon after. In addition, another private British military company Airwork Services, signed a $26million contract to provide personnel for training Saudi pilots and ground crew involved in the war. This agreement later evolved into British pilots actually carrying out bombing missions themselves, with a foreign office memo dated March 1967 noting that “we have raised no objection to their being employed in operations, though we made it clear to the Saudis that we could not publicly acquiesce in any such arrangements”. By the time the war ended – with its inevitable Republican victory – an estimated 200,000 people had been killed.

At the same time as Britain was running the insurgency in North Yemen, it was fighting a vicious counter-insurgency campaign in South Yemen – then a colonial protectorate known as the Federation of Southern Arabia. This federation comprised the port city of Aden, under the direct colonial rule of the UK, and a series of sheikhdoms in the pay of the UK in the neighbouring hinterland. Its inhabitants were desperately poor, with one British commander noting that “there is barely enough subsistence to support the population”. These were the conditions behind a major revolt against British rule that broke out in the district of Radfan in April 1964 and would not be quelled for 7 months. The methods used to do so were typically brutal, with the British High Commissioner of Aden, Sir Kennedy Trevaskis suggesting that soldiers be sent to “put the fear of death into the villages”. If this didn’t work, he said “it would be necessary to deliver some gun attacks on livestock or men outside the villages”, adding that “we might be able to claim that our aircraft were shooting back of [sic] men who had fired at us from the ground”. The British use of airstrikes against the risen peasants was massive: historian John Newsinger writes that in just 3 months in 1964, British jets fired 2508 rockets and 200,000 cannon rounds, whilst British bombers dropped 3504 20-pound bombs and 14 1000-pound bombs and fired 20,000 cannon rounds. The government took Trevaskis’ advice and targeted crops in what Newsinger correctly described as a “deliberate, calculated attempt to terrorise and starve them into surrender.” Although the Radfan rebellion was eventually crushed, the British lost control of the hinterland to the National Liberation forces less than three years later, swiftly followed by Aden itself.

The 1960s was not the first time Britain had aided and abetted a Saudi war against the Yemenis, however. In 1934, Ibn Saud invaded and annexed Asir – “a Yemeni province by all historical accounts” in the words of the academic and Yemen specialist Elham Manea – and forced Yemen to sign a treaty deferring their claims to the territory for 20 years. It has never been returned to Yemen and remains occupied by the Saudis to this day. Britain’s role in facilitating this carve up was significant. As Manea explains, “During this period, the real power was Great Britain. Its role was crucial in either exacerbating or containing regional conflicts….[and] in the Yemeni-Saudi war they intensified the conflict to the detriment of Yemen”. When Ibn Saud claimed sovereignty over Asir in 1930, the British, who had been neutral towards disputes between the Peninsula’s various rulers hitherto, “shifted their position, perceiving Asir as ‘part of Saudi Arabia’… This was a terrible setback for [Yemeni leader] Yihia and drove him into an agreement with the British in 1934 which ultimately sealed his total defeat.” The agreement forced Yihia to recognise British sovereignty of Aden – Yemen’s major port – for 40 years. Britain then provided military vehicles for the Saudi suppression of the Asiri revolt and subsequent occupation that followed.

So the current British-Saudi war against Yemen is in fact the third in a century. But why is Britain so seemingly determined to see the country dismembered and its development sabotaged? Strange as it may seem, the answer is that Britain is scared of Yemen. For Yemen is the sole country on the Arab peninsula with the potential power to challenge the colonial stitch-up reached between Britain and the Gulf monarchies it placed in power in the nineteenth century, and who continue to rule to this day. As Palestinian author Said Aburish has noted, the very “nature of the Yemen was a challenge to the Saudis: it was a populous country with more than half the population of the whole Arabian peninsula, had a solid urban history and was more advanced than its new neighbour. It also represented a thorn in the side of British colonialism, a possible springboard for action against their control of Saudi Arabia and all the makeshift tributary sheikhdoms and emirates of the Gulf. In particular, the Yemen represented a threat to the British colonisation of Aden, a territory which considered itself part of a greater Yemen which had been dismembered by colonialism”. The potential power of a united, peaceful, Yemen was also highlighted by Aden’s High Commissioner Kennedy Trevaskis, who noted that, if the Yemenis took Aden, “it would for the first time provide the Yemen with a large modern town and a port of international consequence” and “economically, it would offer the greatest advantages to so poor and ill developed a country”. A peaceful, united Yemen – with over half the peninsula’s population – would threaten Saudi-British-US hegemony of the entire region. That is why Britain has, for over 80 years, sought to keep it divided and warring.

February 1, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Under pressure, Canadian school lifts ban on Israeli students

isba_homepage-e1485978700502

MEMO | February 1, 2017

A Canadian school has been forced to reverse its decision not to accept an Israeli student based on his nationality, reports have said.

The Island School of Building Arts (ISBA), a trade school, denied Israeli Stav Doron admission on the basis that he is Israeli.

The Jewish organisation, B’nai Brith Canada, said the student was told the institution is “not accepting applications from Israel” due to “the conflict and illegal settlement in the region”.

However, after the school was inundated with complaints and inquiries regarding the matter, including from Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the institution retracted its decision.

On its website it said: “After significant thought and listening to all interested parties, ISBA has decided to rescind any restriction placed on accepting students from Israel and apologize for any impact or inconvenience. ISBA remains acceptant to all and will continue to do so without restrictions.”

The school, which is based on Gabriola Island in Canada’s British Columbia province, specialises in the design and construction of timber structures.

February 1, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Video: Schumer Eventually Calls Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal a “Fact”, Cuts off Further Questioning

By Sam Husseini | February 28, 2017

A day before President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer spoke at the National Press Club Newsmaker on February 27, 2016.

Sam Husseini questioned Chuck Schumer about Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal:

Full exchange here.

Sam Husseini: You voted for the 2002 Iraq War Resolution, claiming Iraq was vigorously pursuing nuclear weapons. Do you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons?[another question directed at Nancy Pelosi] …

SH: Senator Schumer — on Israel’s nukes — do you acknowledge —

Chuck Schumer: I didn’t get your question.

SH: Do you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir?

CS: I’m not — you can — go read the newspapers about that. [walks away from podium]

SH: You can’t acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir?

CS: It is a well known fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, but the Israeli government doesn’t officially talk about what kinds of weapons and where, etc.

SH: Should the U.S. government be forthright?

CS: Ok, that’s it.

Jeff Ballou (National Press Club President, news editor at Al Jazeera): Ok, we’ll move on.

—-

There are a number of problems with Schumer’s response.

Roger Mattson, author of Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel notes: “First Schumer tried to duck the question, then, trying to be forthright, he went further than anyone of his stature has gone before, at least to my knowledge. Too bad the moderator did not realize you were plowing new ground, or maybe he did realize that and cut [it] off intentionally.”

Another is that Israel does not simply not “officially talk about what kinds of weapons and where” — it refuses to acknowledge that they exist at all. This has been echoed by U.S. administration after U.S. administration which have refused to acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal. See: The Absurd U.S. Stance on Israel’s Nukes: A Video Sampling of Denial.”

Grant Smith of Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy has noted: “DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities’ forbids stating what 63.9 percent of Americans already know — that Israel has a nuclear arsenal.” See: “Israel Silently Lapping Field in “Mideast Nuclear Arms Race”

Smith suggests: “So a final question would be: ‘Since aid to non-NNPT countries is subject to the Arms Export Control Act sanctions, why do you keep passing it?'”

More coming on this issue.

February 1, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

#Match the fine for Palestine: Celtic fans crowdfund £176K to pay UEFA fine

RT | January 31, 2017

Supporters of Celtic FC, known as the Green Brigade, have donated £176,000 (US$220,000) to two Palestinian charities. The donation was crowdfunded in reaction to a UEFA fine over Celtic fans flying Palestinian flags at a match.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

The Hill Publishes Islamophobic Fake News on Venezuela

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim | Venezuelanalysis | January 30, 2017

ta630rg24Love it or hate it, The Hill can be a pretty useful source of information on the goings on around DC, but its latest article on Venezuela comes from some disturbing places.

In a recent article, titled “Meet Venezuela’s new VP, fan of Iran and Hezbollah”, The Hill’s Emanuele Ottolenghi profiled the South American country’s new second in command, Tareck El Aissami.

Although El Aissami was appointed vice-president just a few weeks ago, he’s hardly a new face to anyone who has followed Venezuelan politics for a while. He previously served as Aragua’s governor, and also had a stint as interior minister a few years back.

So what’s so special about El Aissami? A lot, according to Ottolenghi, whose piece reads much like the biography of a minor goon from a Schwarzenegger flick, replete with semi-comical claims with the credibility, sophistication and nuance of Ninja Terminator.

Here’s a few highlights:

“Despite the Baathist family background — his father headed the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath Party — and his Lebanese Druze origins, El Aissami seems to prefer the Islamist Shiite revolutionary Hezbollah and Iran over the Baath’s supposedly secular pan-Arabism.

…

Like his Islamic revolutionary role models, he used violence to advance his politics.

Opposition figures have accused both El Aissami and Nassereddine of recruiting young Arab-Venezuelan members of the ruling party to undergo paramilitary training in South Lebanon with Hezbollah.

…

As if this were not enough, El Aissami reportedly facilitated drug trafficking, a crime for which he is being investigated in the U.S.”

In other words, El Aissami is every boogyman and right-wing scapegoat wrapped up in one nice little package, at least based on Ottolenghi’s depiction. He’s a mish-mash of Baathism, Sunni radicalism and Shiite extremism; plus he smuggles coke.

The obvious question is whether any of this is true. For one, El Aissami is indeed one of many suspects in a US investigation into Venezuela’s narcotics trade. We could discuss the politics of this investigation until the cows come home, but what about the juicier claims? For instance, the claim that El Aissami has been accused of sending young Venezuelans to Lebanon to train with Hezbollah, and that he has colluded with “guerrilla movements”?

If we follow the hyperlinks provided by Ottolenghi, we find that these claims were sourced from the Centre for Security Policy (CSP). It sounds credible, but has been widely dismissed by journalists as basically a joke. According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the Centre for Security Policy is “known for its accusations that a shadowy ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ has infiltrated all levels of government and warnings that ‘creeping Shariah,’ or Islamic religious law, is a threat to American democracy”.

“For the past decade, CSP’s main focus has been on demonising Islam and Muslims under the guise of national security,” the Southern Poverty Law Centre stated.

A cursory glance at the CSP’s homepage features ads for books with colourful titles like “CAIR is HAMAS”, “Civilisation Jihad”, “ObamaBomb” and “See No Sharia”. At the time of writing, some of their latest articles included one describing Islam as a “supremacist totalitarian ideology”, and another claiming Iran might already secretly have a “nuclear weapon” (which it doesn’t).

Well, that got weird fast.

So basically, Ottolenghi gets his best material from a website that is so far off the deep end, it has even been banned from the Conservative Political Action Conference.

As a side note, Donald Trump cited a report from the CSP back in 2015, when he falsely claimed one in four Muslims support violence against the US. At the time, the CSP’s claims were widely dismissed as junk.

But hey, that’s just one source – perhaps I’m not giving Ottolenghi’s narrative enough of a chance. Frustratingly though, Ottolenghi’s piece is very light on sources, and he provides no other references for his two most eyebrow raising claims.

Luckily, Ottolenghi is far from the first English language pundit to express this particular point of view on El Aissami. A few years ago, the Gatestone Institute published a piece that reads eerily similar to Ottolenghi’s more recent article. For example, the older piece details how El Aissami supposedly loved Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Ignoring the fact these two political figures espoused totally different and utterly incompatible political ideologies, the Gatestone article did a somewhat better job than Ottolenghi in terms of providing sources for their claims.

This is where things take a turn for the outright bizarre.

So, where did the Gatestone’s critical intelligence on El Aissami originate? According to the reference list they provided, the answer to that question is: Wikipedia and this obscure blog. Following the breadcrumbs, the blogger also provided a reference list for their sources. This list is extremely short for supposedly groundbreaking investigative reporting, and only features four different names: Al Arabiya, MEMRI, Jihad Watch and another blogspot blog called The Jungle Hut.

…. Okey-dokey then.

The trail runs dry over at The Jungle Hut, where there’s nothing more than a dead link and a nice photo of a waterfall. It’s not quite what I was expecting to find, so let’s look at the other two sources. Al Arabiya is Saudi Arabia’s state media outlet, though don’t let that bother you too much; they’ve actually produced some decent stuff in the past. Unfortunately, there’s no links to specific articles, so again, the trail runs dry. The same problem arises when we head to MERMI. Finally, we get to the El Dorado of anti-Islam trash: Jihad Watch, a blog created by the notorious Islamophobe Robert Spencer. For anyone who doesn’t know, Spencer is perhaps best known for co-founding two prominent anti-Muslim lobby groups, Stop Islamisation of America (SIOA) and the American Freedom Defence Initiative (AFDI). Both have been listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. Spencer also garnered media attention in the wake of the 2011 Norwegian white supremacist terrorist attack carried out by Anders Behring Breivik. In his sprawling anti-Muslim manifesto, Breivik cited Spencer dozens of times.

This is where our journey down the rabbit hole ends; with an Islamophobe beloved by one of the worst white supremacist terrorists in recent years. I guess this is what I get for checking people’s sources: a browser history full of links to hate groups, anti-Islam garbage and one nice picture of a waterfall. I didn’t find much credible reporting, but I did learn that El Aissami is hated for one reason above all: he’s got a Muslim-ish sounding name.

That’s it.

You might think I’m being harsh on Ottolenghi.

And you’d be wrong.

Ottolenghi is a long time anti-Iran hardliner, and has authored books with names like “Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb”. According to a review of this book over at The Jewish Chronicle, “Ottolenghi’s view that Iran, as an exceptional case, merits exceptional treatment, is perhaps unrealistically rigid. His argument is not helped by the absence from his text of source references by which the reader could cross-check the many, selective quotes he adduces in support of it.”

In other words, making far fetched claims based on no real evidence is something of a modus operandi for Ottolenghi.

Along with having an obvious disdain for the notion of providing sources, Ottolenghi seems like just another pundit with a bone to pick with Islam, and anyone who sounds like they might be Arab, Persian or any other ethnic group he doesn’t like. Ottolenghi’s writings seem better suited to publishers like Jihad Watch, and his presence at The Hill is surprising to say the least.

Unfortunately though, this whole saga is symptomatic of a deeper problem in the media. The fact that an article for The Hill can get away with featuring links to the Islamophobic fake news CSP is emblematic of the dismal state of international corporate media. Islamophobic rants are treated like credible political analysis, and conspiracy crackpots are put on pedestals. It’s a grim state of affairs, but the real question is: how much further will we slide?

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why neoconservative support for Israel makes no sense

By Alistair Sloan | MEMO | January 31, 2017

The most prominent neoconservative in Britain, Conservative MP Michael Gove, was once interviewed by the New Statesman. It contained one of the best analyses of his foreign policy views, formed not in the cauldron of distant battlefields or the misery of refugee camps, but at his untidy little desk at the Times. “In print, the well-mannered, self-ironising young fellow was transformed into a Churchillian warrior,” his profiler wrote. “A self-proclaimed neoconservative, he was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war and an implacable foe of Islamic terrorism, about which he wrote a book, Celsius 7/7.” The New Statesman did not mention that this book, amongst other things, had called in great part for a strengthening of Britain’s relationship with Israel. Instead, we were told that, “His columns were stylish, if shallow, displaying a debater’s grasp of foreign policy, in which abstract nouns such as freedom, appeasement and resolve carried all before them.”

A debater’s grasp of foreign policy is what sums up neoconservative naiveté better than any phrase I have yet come across. It is the kind of naiveté that sounds great on the debating floor of a posh university but less good when you’re in the real world. Gove published Celsius 7/7 in 2006. It was issued to all new members of Conservative Friends of Israel and became a kind of go-to resource for British Conservative MPs as they thought about the Palestine problem.

I now understand that, amazingly, Gove had never visited Israel when he wrote the book. In fact, according to a close Tory friend of his, he only visited for the first time in 2013, roughly seven years later. “The Israeli embassy was actually so nervous about Michael visiting,” the source told me in a hushed discussion in a Westminster coffee shop, “that the trip was put off a couple of times.” The story goes that the Israeli public relations officers were worried that their greatest advocate in Westminster might see something he didn’t like, so perhaps it wasn’t even worth him going. “In the end it snowed when he went,” the anecdotist concluded. “Michael loved it.” He now returns with his family to spend most Christmases there.

How could a neoconservative write a book about strengthening Britain’s support for Israel despite having never visited the country? It is because, as a neoconservative, Gove had the debater’s grasp of the issue. For him, it was all about the abstract nouns that carried all before them; freedom, appeasement and resolve. It was about the principle of supporting the idea of “Israel”, not what Israel really was, or is.

Ground zero for neoconservative thinking was Winston Churchill’s position of assertive violence against Adolf Hitler versus Neville Chamberlain’s nervous appeasement. It was that dynamic of aggression-appeasement that has come to define the neoconservative position on foreign policy in the decades since, notably in two areas: the appeasement of terrorism and appeasement of autocracy. The neoconservative argument goes — and, again, I am sure it sounds great in that plush debating club — that if you appease a terrorist or an autocrat only once, you will embolden not just him, but all other terrorists and autocrats at that time and in the future. Appeasement is therefore positioned as one of the great sins of foreign policy.

Gove applied this thinking to the Irish Republican Army in a fascinating paper he wrote about Northern Ireland called “The Price of Peace”. He positioned the Good Friday Peace agreement as an act of appeasement, which caused him some embarrassment last year when he attempted briefly to become prime minister. Gove closed his introduction to the paper with reference to World War Two, as neoconservatives often do: “Those who warned of the consequences of appeasement in the Thirties were derided as glamour boys, renegades and war-mongers.” Then he talked about the “flawed assumption” that “armed terrorists can be converted to democracy by re-shaping democracy to suit the terrorist.” He concluded with: “The Belfast Agreement has, at its heart, an even greater wickedness. It is a capitulation to violence, a validation of terrorism which has led to ‘demilitarisation’ – the removal of the British Army from our sovereign territory… The moral stain of such a process will prove hard to efface. It is a humiliation of our Army, Police and Parliament.”

What would Gove have made of the debates surrounding his beloved Israel in the middle of the twentieth century? It is a fact that the British Army was forced to withdraw from the area because Jewish-Zionist terrorists were blowing up our diplomats, civilians and soldiers with abandon. In leaving Palestine, did the British government of the day capitulate to Jewish-Zionist terrorism, providing its “validation”? And what would Gove say to the then future Prime Minister of Israel, Menachim Begin, who was placed on the “Most Wanted” terrorist list by the British government for his murderous activities with the Irgun terror organisation; would it be a “flawed assumption”, as he said of Sinn Fein and the IRA, to assume that “armed terrorists can never be converted to democracy”?

Gove himself was President of the Oxford Union, the premier debating club in Britain. The problem with neoconservatives isn’t that they’re necessarily stupid, but that they are certainly excellent at winning debates. They then think that they are clever enough to translate the universal principles which seem so clear and easy in a debating chamber to any particular situation at any particular time.

If it was wrong to appease the Irish Republican Army, why was it so right to appease the Irgun and associated Jewish-Zionist terrorist groups? Would Michael Gove and the neoconservatives in America — from where this ugly radical virus has infected the British right in recent years — have supported the killing of British troops in Mandate Palestine by Jewish terrorists? I generously suspect not, but how, then, can a neoconservative like him reconcile his supposedly universal principle that “you must never negotiate with terrorists” with support for what one expert in radical Islamist terrorism has called “the original terrorist state”, his beloved Israel?

If I was a potential terrorist contemplating the bombing of Western targets in the Middle East, I might look for examples of where terrorists have succeeded in achieving their political aims. This is the exact concern that neoconservatives like Gove have about appeasing terror; you appease one terrorist, you encourage the rest. If I was in such a position — and I must stress, of course, that I am not — then I would look no further than the terrorists who played such a crucial part in founding the state of Israel. There was, and remains, an awful lot of appeasement surrounding “the original terrorist state”, but perhaps for Gove and his neoconservative ilk, some appeasements are better than others. Their support for Israel makes no sense whatsoever.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Zionist Theatre of the Absurd presents a double-bill farce starring Donny and Bibi

By Greg Felton | January 30, 2017

Upon entering public service, the need to sell oneself to the highest donors has a way of morphing politicians into private-interest puppets; therefore, few sights are as inspiring as a politician rediscovering his testicular fortitude at the end of his political career, free to do what he dared not do while his political career still mattered. President Barack Obama, in this instance at least, was one such politician. With only weeks to go before he left the White House, he managed to get his balls out of hock in time to deliver a stinging uppercut to Benjamin Netanyahu’s imperial glass jaw.

UNSC Resolution 2334 (2016)
Adopted by the Security Council at its 7853rd meeting, on 23 December 2016 (excerpt)1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;2. Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;3. Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations ….

As I have shown, the United States has long been a client state of Israel, which means that the U.S. veto for Israel in the UN Security Council is taken for granted. In one of his last acts as Israel’s governor, though, Obama chose not to do his imperial duty. He abstained on UNSC Resolution 2334, which condemned Israel’s continued colonization of Palestine as illegal. Doing the right thing in a zionist-dominated world is risky, but even a satrap can get pissed off if pushed too far.

The main reason for Obama’s decision was Emperor Netanyahu, himself, because of two acts of imperial hubris. The first came in March 2015 when Netanyahu was invited by Israel-firsters in Congress to come to speak against Obama’s Iran policy. The sight of a foreign politician receiving ovation after ovation from U.S. lawmakers for attacking U.S. policy was virtually treasonous and proof that the U.S. is owned by Israel.

The second act came last September. After the U.S. government announced a record $38 billion military “aid” package for Israel, Netanyahu quickly announced the construction of new illegal Jewish colonies (“settlements”) and made no secret that the “aid” money was being used for that purpose. The U.S. was forced to watch as its “aid” was openly used to bankroll a criminal act—the dispossession of Palestinians. It also showed that Israel’s military “aid” is just imperial tribute. The U.S. was played for a chump. UNSC Resolution 2334 gave Obama a rare chance to get back at the emperor and the treasonous Israel-firsters for their hubristic anti-Americanism.

Obama’s imperial defiance also was directly related to the U.S. election. He could not have acted as he did while the campaign was going on because to have placed U.S. policy over Israeli imperialism would have split the Democratic Party into pro-U.S. and pro-Israel factions, thus making Hillary Clinton’s chances of victory even slimmer than they already were. Even if Clinton had defeated Trump, though, Obama would still likely have abstained since he no longer had any reason to fear imperial retribution.

Finally, Obama wanted to give a parting kick to Donald Trump, who selected rabid settler apologist David Friedman to be his ambassador to Israel. Now, with the UN on recorded as refusing to normalize Israel’s illegal settlements, Trump will not have a free hand to involve the U.S. further in Israel’s criminality.

Abstention Dissension

Obama’s abstention should have been greeted with relief in the U.S. Since 1967, successive governments have had to pay at least lip service to the fiction of a two-state solution both to feign respect for Palestinian rights and to pretend to be in charge of foreign policy. Nevertheless, Israel-firsters inside and outside the U.S. government reached for their hysterical hasbara hymn books and intoned the ritualistic imprecations: Obama’s vote was a betrayal of the imperial homeland! The U.S. stabbed its friend in the back! Obama showed himself to be a Jew-hating anti-Semite! We must work to rebuild our alliance [sic!] with Israel!

Israel’s loyalists dutifully gave the anti-Obama/poor-wounded-Israel propaganda campaign wide dissemination, and leading the way has been Israel’s newly elected governor Donald Trump. It still has not dawned on His Donaldness that the UN vote was both consistent with U.S. policy and necessary under international law.

It would have been expedient, logical and patriotic for Trump, Congress and the media at least to feign respect for Obama’s abstention on Resolution 2334. Every time the U.S. runs interference for Israel in the UN Security Council—at least 41 times to date—it further isolates itself from civilization.

As a candidate who ran against the political establishment and its warmongering swamp critters, Trump sounded like a president who would finally put America’s interests first, but by regurgitating the stale “Israel is a friend and ally” schtick Trump is sending mixed signals:

Did he run a disingenuous campaign?
Was he forced to chug the Kosher Kool-Aid®?
Is his cheerleading for Israel a reflexive impulse that can be corrected?

Because Trump was never steeped in corporatist neo-fascism that permeates the political establishment he ran against, it is possible for him to be taught to distinguish right from Zionism. First, though, he has to be taught to act like a president. So far, the disconnect between Trump and reality is nearly total, and he acts less like a president than as the producer/writer/star of his own reality show in which reality is what he says it is.

Trump puts the ‘twit’ in Twitter

A president is supposed to make policy statements after proper consideration and analysis, especially in areas where he has little or no expertise. Trump the amateur, though, spouts whatever half-baked impulse crosses his mind on Twitter, essentially an unfiltered gossip medium. After the UN vote, he proceeded to put his impulsive vacuity on display for the whole world to see.

What did he mean, for example, when he tweeted: “As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20”? The U.S. will go back to sabotaging the will of the international community? The U.S. will go back to being an accomplice in the Zionist genocide of Palestine after committing one act of decency? On what rational basis could Trump object to the U.S. abstention on a resolution that demands Israel cease building illegal “settlements” on Palestinian land?

The next day, on Dec. 24, Trump posted this gem: “The big loss for Israel in the United Nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace. Too bad, but we’ll get it done anyway.”

Trump apparently believes that peace would be easier to negotiate if the U.S. had vetoed UNSC Resolution 2334. In other words, he believes that Israel’s creeping, violent theft of Palestine is a benefit to peaceful negotiations. What Trump claims is a “big loss for Israel” is really a great victory for the law and Palestinian rights. By reflexively pandering to Israel, Trump has begun his presidency by disgracing his country and declaring himself to be an outlaw.

Bibi Goes Bughouse!

The star of the other half of this farcical double-bill is Benjamin Netanyahu. As the mad emperor of Isramerica and other subject nations, he does not handle disobedience well. Emperors seldom do. When the Security Council voted its conscience, such as it is, Netanyahu threw a tantrum—there is no other word for it. It was a spectacular blend of hubris, petulance and impotence.

After the vote, the emperor summoned ambassadors from the 14 “offending” countries for an official rebuke. These even included Malaysia and Venezuela, which don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. Netanyahu also recalled its own ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal and even cut all aid to the African state. Despite the U.K.’s long history of abject Zionist subservience, Netanyahu cancelled a meeting with his governor in London, Theresa May, who reportedly was reduced to tears.

Writing in late December on mondoweiss, editor Phillip Weiss depicted how Netanyahu’s tantrum epitomized the waning influence and credibility of Israel:

[By abstaining on Resolution 2334, Obama] has nudged Israel, and the media, toward recognition of [Israel’s] new status, as a rogue state; he has split the Israel lobby right down the middle, or down the side anyway; and he has given huge impetus to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). That is why Israeli leaders are going crazy this weekend, flinging accusations against the president on the cable networks and national news too because what Obama did is so meaningful.

Israel’s supporters long claimed that Israel only makes progress if you embrace it and tell Israel you love it. (Dennis Ross says this all the time.) Obama heeded that advice for years and got nothing. Now he has made one gesture against Israel, and the progress in a few days is amazing.

The hysteria against the resolution from Israeli leaders is a reminder to even-moderately well-informed Americans of ideas that were once heresies but are now hardening into public attitudes here: We give these people tens of billions of dollars and they act like spoiled brats.

Asking for trouble

For a political entity built on a fraudulent history, drawing attention to the historical record is not recommended, but Isramerica’s hubris-intoxicated emperor was beyond thinking rationally. In the wake of the vote, he declared that Israel would re-evaluate its relationship with the UN. If he meant that as a threat, he was sorely mistaken.

Contrary to popular myth, Israel is not now, nor has it ever been, a legitimate member of the world body. It lied to gain conditional admission, but the world has lacked the courage to do anything about it. Now, Netanyahu has made Israel’s illegitimacy a topic political discussion. Nearly eight years ago on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s illegitimate admission, I ran “a speech” by former Secretary-General Ban Ki–Moon in which he called for Israel’s expulsion for this very reason:

Few people know that Israel is the only state to be given a conditional admission. Under General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted on the condition that it grant all Palestinians the right to return to their homes and receive compensation for lost or damaged property, according to General Assembly Resolution 194, paragraph 11. Suffice to say, Israel has never lived up to these terms, and never intended to. For 60 years Israel has violated its terms of admission, and for 60 years the UN has done nothing about it. It has watched as Israel heaped misery upon misery on Palestine, and violated international law with impunity.… Therefore, I will ask the General Assembly to meet in special session at the earliest possible time to strip Israel of its membership.

Regrettably, the Zionist interloper is still around, but now the world has the perfect opportunity to be rid of it, thanks to Netanyahu. As if his tantrum weren’t enough, he virtually asked to be expelled by spitting on the UN’s authority: “Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms.” Interestingly, this is not the first time a spokesman has declared Israel to be an outlaw nation. Within two weeks of the end of the 1967 War, Abba Eban said:

If the General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor of ‘Israel’ returning to the armistice lines [pre June 1967 borders] ‘Israel’ would refuse to comply with the decision.” (New York Times, June 19, 1967.)

If only one state demands that the General Assembly enforce the terms of UNGA Resolution 273, Netanyahu won’t have a relationship to re-evaluate.

Those who see nothing but doom and gloom from Trumpian America can take solace in one historical analogy. When he was elected in 1980, Ronald Reagan was a moralistic loose cannon with a profound ignorance of foreign policy and government in general. He was a staunch Cold Warrior who called the Soviet Union “the focus of evil in the modern world” and declared that anyone who did not believe in God and the afterlife could not be trusted. For this former actor who built his own reality, the presidency was just another role, and accordingly he treated speeches as ends in themselves. By the end of his second term, Reagan had put aside his prejudices to work with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to put and end to the Cold War.

Despite Trump’s early bouts of stupidity, he may also be forced to grow into his position. His nominee for defense secretary, Gen. James Mattis (Ret.), has reaffirmed that the capital of Israel is Tel Aviv, thereby contradicting Trump’s amateurish and unnecessary ambition to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

The world has spoken in unison that it will no longer tacitly accept Israeli cruelty and criminality in the name of Zionist determinism. Trump can either accept reality and join the civilized world in asserting an honourable, non-Zionist Middle East policy, or he can continue to isolate the U.S. by acting as Israel’s bitch.

Reagan was an inept president who managed to rise above his limitations on one crucial issue. Let’s hope Trump can overcome his prejudices to recognize Israel as an existential threat to the U.S.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas and Al-Sisi: A new page?

Al-Araby Al-Jadid | January 30, 2017

Spokespersons for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas — have given the impression that their movement’s relationship with Egypt is on the verge of dramatic shifts that will put an end to the tense relations between the two since the coup that deposed President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Hamas has indicated that the recent visit to Cairo by the Deputy Head of the movement’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, has paved the way to turning a new page in these relations. Hamas officials have attributed this “radical” change to a “strategic” shift in the position of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s government towards the movement. They believe that this shift will manifest itself in the improvement of the economic and living conditions in the Gaza Strip.

However, what the Hamas officials are promising contradicts with the voices in Cairo, as media mouthpieces linked to Al-Sisi’s government have attributed the rapprochement between Egypt and Hamas to a deal which stipulates that Hamas should take measures on the border that the Egyptian government view as necessary to improve its ability to deal with the growing security challenges in northern Sinai. This will be in exchange for Egypt reducing the impact of the blockade on the Gaza Strip as well as taking measures to improve the economic and living situation in the besieged territory.

It is clear that if the purpose of these measures is to restrict the ability of members of Salafist jihadi groups to move across the border separating Gaza and Sinai, then this would also serve Hamas’s interests, as it is the target of hostility from these groups, a number of which have “excommunicated” the movement. In addition, Hamas is facing the consequences of what was a catastrophic mistake in trying to combine government of the enclave with resistance to the occupation, which gave Israel, as well as regional and international parties, another justification for imposing the suffocating siege on Gaza. The Islamic movement is concerned about improving the economic situation in Gaza, which has deteriorated so much that there could be an explosion of public anger against it.

However, in the event that a positive change does occur in the Egyptian government’s position towards Gaza, the rationale for this transformation will go beyond all considerations regarding the security situation in Sinai. Important circles in the Egyptian security institution have acknowledged the failed strategy adopted by Cairo towards Hamas in the form of the siege, security measures aiming to dry out the sources of its military strength, political boycott, demonisation in the media, and delegitimising the movement by means of pushing the Egyptian judiciary to consider its military wing to be a terrorist entity. According to Palestinian figures who have visited Cairo recently, some officials from the security institution in Cairo are pushing for a new approach to be adopted that aims to contain Hamas by alleviating the siege and improving the economic situation, while using the shift in Egypt’s position to influence the balances of power within the movement. This is especially due to the fact that Hamas is on the verge of holding critical internal elections, and therefore Egypt may influence one side over the other.

We can’t imagine that Al-Sisi’s government would make any change in their policies towards Gaza without coordinating with Israel, since it relies on the extremist, right-wing Israeli government in Tel Aviv to continue to provide it with international legitimacy. The Israeli position on Hamas is also subject to its own interests, and it seems apparent from the recent internal discussions that Tel Aviv’s interests currently lie in improving the economic situation in Gaza out of fear that Hamas might engage in a military confrontation as a means of preventing a popular outburst due to the deteriorating economic situation. Such fears were clearly evident in the last meeting of the Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs, during which Intelligence Minster Yisrael Katz once again proposed the idea of establishing a floating harbour off the coast of Gaza.

Another motivation for the shift in Cairo’s position towards Gaza is Egypt’s angry reaction to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s rejection of the pressure from Al-Sisi to restore Mohammed Dahlan to Fatah’s ranks and allow him to play a leading role in Palestinian affairs.

In any case, contrary to what some Hamas officials believe, the promised shift in the Al-Sisi government’s position on Hamas and Gaza will be tactical and not strategic. This is due to the fact that working on accumulating international legitimacy by getting involved in the war on “Islamic terrorism” is at the top of the list of strategic constants for the current regime in Cairo. Al-Sisi’s delight at his recent phone call with US President Donald Trump and his boast that they are both on the same page in terms of the war on “terrorism” reflects the rooting of this strategy within the government as a means of security legitimacy.

As such, regardless of Hamas’s behaviour towards Egypt, Al-Sisi can turn against the movement very easily if he believes that the new resident of the White House would welcome such a move. If we take into account the general agreement between the Trump administration and the Israeli government, then we can understand that Al-Sisi’s sensitivity to the Israeli considerations, including those regarding Hamas, will grow. If Israel believes at some time in the future that it is in its best interest to wage a war on Gaza, then Al-Sisi would most likely adopt the same position that he did during the 2014 military offensive.

Gaza is eager to get rid of the unlawful blockade imposed on it, and so any shift in the Egyptian position that reduces the effects of the siege will be considered as a positive and important development. However, it is important to be aware of the environment surrounding this expected shift in Egypt’s position and not to rely too much upon it, just in case there is a painful disappointment.

Translated by MEMO

January 30, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Clinton Gang Push for War with Iran

By Craig Murray | January 30, 2017

So what are the Clinton gang doing while Trump introduces anti-Muslim immigration discrimination? Oh, they are pushing for war with Iran, which might give pause to some who think the world would have been less awful had Hillary won.

Here is the front page of the resolution introduced into the House of Representatives by Democrat Alcee L Hastings, an extremely close ally of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who had to resign in disgrace as chair of the Democratic National Committee after WikiLeaks published emails establishing her corrupt endeavours to fix the primary elections for Hillary against Bernie Sanders.

The Resolution reads “To authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces to achieve the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

There is in fact no evidence that Iran is continuing a covert programme to produce nuclear weapons. British, French and Russian intelligence all assess that Iran is sticking to its agreements and – here is a key point – so do the CIA. But when did politicians ever let facts stand in their way?

Trump’s mad visa ban, which excludes Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States which are the main financiers, armers, ideologues and exporters of Salafist terrorism, turns out to be imposed on the countries which were on Obama’s watchlist. As the Hastings resolution shows, the anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi madness is bipartisan. To include Iran but exclude Saudi Arabia is further evidence of the twisting of US foreign policy to serve the interests of Saudi Arabia and its ally Israel. […]

These are dangerous times. And with the Democrats vying for “dumb patriot” support and seeking to outflank Trump to the right by roaring him on to a military attack on Iran, and seeking to push through legislation to promote that, there appear few influential voices of reason in the USA at present. – Full article

January 30, 2017 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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