UN Expert to Investigate Israel’s War on Human Rights Defenders
teleSUR | October 29, 2016
A United Nations expert said on Friday that Israel is attacking human rights organizations and trying to delegitimize their work and that he will launch an investigation into the problem.
Michael Lynk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, presented his first report to the UN General Assembly calling Israel to end the nearly 50 years of occupation, which he said “is entrenched, is dripping in human rights violations.”
“The fact that the Israeli government threatened to revoke the citizenship of the executive director of B’Tselem is a particularly worrying path for Israel to wind up taking,” Lynk said, referring to the rights groups’ appearance before the Security Council earlier this month.
He praised the recent intervention at the Security Council by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, which urged the UN to end the Israeli occupation in Israel and said he was especially troubled by the Israeli government’s reaction.
In a statement, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called Lynk’s comments offensive and said it “shows the immense damage done by Israeli organizations that defame us in front of the international community.”
Most of the international community has labeled the Israeli occupation as illegal because the territories in which half a million Israelis live in over 230 settlements, were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.
Conflict, terrorism in Mideast serving Israel: Larijani
Press TV – October 29, 2016
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says terrorists have created chaos in the Middle East, adding that the continuation of conflicts and acts of terror will serve the Israeli regime’s interests.
“The [critical] situation and chaos in the region has been created by a number of terrorists and the enemy does not want this chaos to end,” Larijani said on Saturday.
He added that all Muslim countries, including Syria, Yemen and Iraq, are entangled in conflicts and only the Israeli regime benefits from such a chaotic situation.
“Superpowers formed an anti-terror coalition in coordination with 60 countries but since they do not want to see the end of wars in the region and regard such an end as detrimental to the Zionist regime [of Israel], they are fanning the flames of tensions in the region,” Larijani said.
He noted that even American and Israeli experts and strategists have confirmed that the current conflicts in the Muslim world best serve the interests of the Zionists and that any success by Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, would be detrimental to them.
The top Iranian parliamentarian added that whenever promising prospects emerge for putting an end to the regional conflicts, the world powers rush to hold meetings and try to prolong the crises.
He said these powers have reinforced their links with terrorist groups operating in regional countries and are covertly providing them with weapons and military equipment.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. The Syrian military is engaged in an operation to rid the country of Daesh and other terrorist groups.
Over the past months, Syria has managed to recapture swathes of land from Daesh and other groups in the east and north of the country. The Syrian military has used the assistance of fighters from Hezbollah as well as advisory military support from Iran. Russia also helps Syria in the fight against terrorists through a series of coordinated airstrikes on their positions.
This is while Iraqi army troops, backed by fighters from allied Popular Mobilization Units, have been engaged in military operations to win back regions held by Daesh and have managed to liberate most of these areas.
The militants have been committing heinous crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in the northern and western parts of Iraq.
Video shows ‘Islamophobic’ outburst by Student Rights employee at UCL protest
MEMO | October 29, 2016
A video has emerged showing an employee of Student Rights, a so-called ‘counter-extremism’ organisation linked to the Henry Jackson Society, shouting ‘Islamophobic’ abuse during a controversial event at University College London (UCL) on Thursday night.
Elliot Miller, national organiser for Student Rights who has previously worked with the Israeli foreign ministry, had already been captured on video shoving a member of the public. The new footage is expected to add to the pressure on Student Rights to take action.
In the clip, Miller is seen shouting “You treat them like shit! You don’t respect women, you don’t respect gays… you’re all… It’s a violent religion, a violent religion!”
The event, organized by the Friends of Israel society at UCL with support from Israel advocacy group CAMERA, saw a former Israeli army officer, Hen Mazzig, come to campus in order to speak in favour of the Israeli government’s policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
A protest organised by Palestine solidarity activists against Mazzig’s presence on campus has been widely smeared as “violent” and “aggressive” by the likes of Conservative Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Miller himself claimed protesters were “aggressive and violent.”
UCL, however, in a statement published Friday, “stress[ed] that the protest was non-violent.”
The video footage of Miller and other Israel supporters, who abused the protesters as “vermin” and Nazis, will no doubt be important for the university’s inquiry into the events of Thursday evening, as well as the presence on campus of extremist pro-Israel groups and individuals.
Israel settlements legal, Trump aide says, playing anti-Iran video message on Mount Zion
Press TV – October 27, 2016
GOP nominee Donald Trump does not believe that settlements built by the Zionist regime of Israel in Palestine are illegal, his advisor on Israel says.
David Friedman, who was campaigning for the New York billionaire at a restaurant on Mount Zion (Jabel Sahyoun) in East Jerusalem al-Quds, made the comments to AFP after the Wednesday rally.
“I don’t think he believes that the settlements are illegal,” Friedman said.
He also said the former reality TV star is “tremendously skeptical” about the so-called two-state solution, promoted by the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama during his eight years in office, but to no avail.
The Obama administration has already voiced criticism over Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies, considered illegal by the international community.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.
All Israeli settlements are illegal under the international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Guaranteeing enmity with Tehran
Some 150 people, including extremist Israelis and evangelical Christians, took part in the Trump rally in on Wednesday.
Friedman echoed previous remarks by Trump, saying the real estate mogul would recognize East Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of Israel if he wins the White House in the US 2016 presidential election.
A short video message by Trump was also played at the event, in which he said, “Together we will stand up to the enemies like Iran, bent on destroying Israel and her people. Together we will make America and Israel safe again.”
According to leaked emails from March 2015 by former US secretary of state Colin Powell, the regime has pointed 200 nuclear weapons at the Iranian capital.
The Pathologization of Dissent
Photo by Jamelle Bouie | CC BY 2.0
By CJ Hopkins | CounterPunch | October 27, 2016
According to the mainstream media, in a recent speech in West Palm Beach, Donald Trump finally completely lost it. Sawing the air with his tiny hands in a unmistakeably Hitlerian manner, he spat out a series of undeniably hateful anti-Semitic code words … like “political establishment,” “global elites” and, yes, “international banks.” He even went so far as to claim that “corporations” and their (ahem) “lobbyists” have millions of dollars at stake in this election, and are trying to pass the TTP, not to benefit the American people, but simply to enrich themselves. He then went on to accuse the media of collaborating with “the Clinton machine,” presumably to benefit these “global elites” and “international banks” and “lobbyists.”
Now, a lot of folks didn’t immediately recognize the secret meanings of these fascistic code words, and so mistakenly assumed that “global elites” referred to the transnational capitalist ruling classes, and that “lobbyists” referred to actual lobbyists, and that “banks” meant … well … you know, banks. As it turned out, this was completely wrong. None of these words actually meant what they meant, not in anti-Semitic CodeSpeak. So the mainstream media translated for us. “Political establishment” meant “the Jews.” “Global elites” also meant “the Jews.” “Banks” meant “Jews.” “Lobbyists” meant “Jews.” Even “corporate media,” meant “Jews.” Apparently, Trump’s entire speech was a series of secret dog-whistle signals to his legions of neo-Nazi goons, who, immediately following Clinton’s victory, are going to storm out of their hidey holes, frontally attack the US military, overthrow the US government, and, yes, you guessed it … “kill the Jews.”
OK, maybe I’m exaggerating the mainstream media’s reaction just a little bit. Or maybe Trump’s speech really was that fascistic. Judge for yourself. Read the transcript. (NPR offers a complete version of it here.) Then compare the reactions of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Inquirer, The Guardian, and other leading broadsheets, and magazines and blogs like Mother Jones, Forward, Slate, Salon, Vox, Alternet, and a host of others, most of which rely on Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and former Special Assistant to the President, as their authoritative source on Trumpian cryptology. (Mr. Greenblatt, incidentally, should know better, given the treatment he has received from hard-line Zionist publications for refusing to demonize Black Lives Matter, and for “taking sides against” the State of Israel.)
Look, I’m not defending Donald Trump, who I consider a self-aggrandizing idiot and a soulless huckster of the lowest order, and whose supporters include a lot of real anti-Semites, and racists, and misogynists, and other such creeps. I’m simply trying to point out how the corporate media have, for months, been playing the same hysterical tune like an enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument, and how millions of Americans are singing along (as they were before the invasion of Iraq, which posed no threat to the USA , but which according to the media had WMDs), and how terribly fucking disturbing that is. In case you didn’t instantly recognize it, the name of the tune is “This guy is Hitler!” and it isn’t the short vulgarian fingers of Donald Trump that are tickling the ivories. And no, it isn’t “the Jews” either. It’s the corporate media, and the corporations that own them, and the rest of the global capitalist ruling classes … in other words, those “global elites.”
The thing I find particularly disturbing is how these rather mundane observations — i.e., (a) that a global ruling class exists, (b) that it’s primarily corporate in character, (c) that this class is pursuing its interests and not the interests of sovereign states — how such observations are being stigmatized as the ravings of unhinged anti-Semites. This stigmatization is not limited to Trumpists. Anyone to the left of Clinton is now, apparently, an anti-Semite. For example, Roger Cohen, in The New York Times, riding the tsunami of condemnation of the insidious verbiage of Trump’s West Palm speech, executed an extended smear-job on Jeremy Corbyn and his “Corbynistas” (they’re fond of coining these epithets, the media), denouncing their virulent “anti-Americanism,” “anti-Capitalism,” “anti-globalism,” and “anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.”
Which, let me hasten to add, and stress, and underscore, and repeatedly emphasize, is not to imply that the Labour Party, or the British Left, or the American Left, or any other Left, is anti-Semitism-free. Of course not. There are anti-Semites everywhere. That isn’t the point. Or it isn’t my point.
My point is that this stigmatization campaign is part of a much larger ideological project, one that has little to do with Trump, or Jeremy Corbyn, or their respective parties. Smearing one’s political opponents is nothing new, of course, it’s as old as the hills. But what we’re witnessing is more than smears. As I proposed in these pages back in July, political dissent is being gradually pathologized (i.e., stigmatized as aberrant or “abnormal” behavior, as opposed to a position meriting discussion). Consider the abnormalization of Sanders, back when he was talking about “banks,” “global elites,” and other things that matter, or the media’s portrayal of British voters as racists in the wake of the Brexit referendum. And, yes, the charges being leveled against Trump, much as we might despise the man. Anti-Semitism, inciting violence, paranoid conspiracy theorizing, insurrection, treason, et cetera — these are not legitimate arguments one needs to counter with superior arguments; they are symptoms of deviations from a norm, signs of criminality or pathology, which is increasingly how the corporate ruling classes are dismissing anyone who attempts to challenge them.
A line is being drawn in the ideological sand. On one side of it are the decent people, the normal people, in their business wear, with their university degrees, and prescriptions, and debts. On the other side are … well, the deplorables, the ignorant, racist, anti-Semitic, neo-nationalist, populist extremists. This line cuts through both the Left and the Right … supersedes both Left and Right, making bedfellows of supposed adversaries like Obama, Clinton, Kagan, Wolfowitz, Scowcroft, and their ilk on the Normal team, and a motley crew of Trumpists, Putinists, European populists, Corbynistas, Sandernistas, socialists, anarchists, Wikileakers, anti-Zionists, anti-capitalists, neo-Nazis, Black Lives Matterers, angry Greek pensioners, environmental activists, religious zealots, the Klu Klux Klan, David Graeber, most of the contributors to CounterPunch, and various other “extremist” types, many of whom detest each other, in the Deplorables’ current starting line-up.
The corporate media is sending a message … a message aimed at a much broader audience than undecided American voters (assuming such creatures really exist). The message is, “get with the fucking program, or get stigmatized as an anti-Semite, or a racist, or a Russian spy, or whatever.” The message is, “drop the populist rhetoric, shut the hell up about the Wall Street banks, and the corporations, and the ‘one percent,’ and … actually … forget about politics completely, except for identity politics, of course. Go ahead and knock yourself out with that.” The message is, “you’re either with us or against us … and it doesn’t matter why you’re against us, or what it is you think you’re for. Right, Left … who gives a shit? It’s one big Basket of Deplorables to us.”
This message, of course, displays many of the hallmarks of the classic authoritarian mentality, the need for nearly total conformity, mindless allegiance to one’s so-called superiors, delegitimization of all opposing viewpoints, and the infantile type of hero-worship figures like Obama and Clinton inspire … not the old-fashioned authoritarianism that would-be despots like Trump represent, but, rather, a more attractive version, a hopey, changey, lovey version, where there are no frightening Hitlerian leaders barking out anti-Semitic code words, and no one is exterminating thousands of people in faraway countries they want to destabilize in order to entirely dominate the region. No, this is the version where Obama sells the TPP on the Jimmy Fallon show, and wars of aggression are not wars of aggression, but “humanitarian interventions.” It’s also the version where universal healthcare is, regrettably, “unrealistic,” but $38 billion for the State of Israel so it can operate its Apartheid State, and weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, so they can bomb the shit out of farmers in Yemen, and cut off people’s heads for blasphemy, is somehow in “America’s vital interests.”
But what do I know? I’m just a satirist. I should probably leave all this complex stuff, like what is and isn’t in my interest, and what words really mean and all that, to the experts in the mainstream media. Since they did so well decoding Trump’s speech, maybe they could translate some of these other code words I’ve been having trouble with, like the ones I put in scare quotes above, or other such code words, like “enemy combatant,” “free trade agreement,” “security barrier,” “indefinite detention,” “targeted killing,” or “troubled asset relief program.”
I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t. Odds are, I’m already on the list of Putin-worshiping, anti-Semitic, racist, misogynist, neo-nationalist, non-standing up for the National Anthem, conspiracy theorizing America-haters. The last thing I need to do at this point is start jabbering about how the United States is an authoritarian corporatist dystopia ruled by a global capitalist elite that couldn’t give less of a shit about Americans (or any other actual people living in any other actual countries), where the corporate media can whip up mass fanatical support for wars of aggression, or corporate puppets, by pointing their fingers at yet another bogeyman and shouting “Hitler” at the top of their lungs. Next thing you know I’d be writing about “banks,” and “global corporations,” and “national sovereignty,” and we all know what that’s about, don’t we?
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (US). He can reached at his website, cjhopkins.com, or at consentfactory.org.
Jews ‘blamed for Holocaust’ at House of Lords event
RT | October 27, 2016
Israel has condemned a “shameful” event hosted by the British House of Lords in which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust and Israel was compared to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
The session marked the launch of the Balfour Apology Campaign ahead of the Balfour Declaration centenary. The 1917 declaration pledged British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy said the gathering “gave voice to racist tropes against Jews and Israelis alike.”
According to the Times, an audience member was applauded after suggesting Hitler only decided to kill Jews after being provoked by anti-German protests led by a rabbi, Stephen Wise, in New York.
“[He] made the boycott on Germany, the economic boycott… which antagonized Hitler, over the edge, to then want to systematically kill Jews wherever he could find them.”
The speaker also said Rabbi Wise told the New York Times in 1905 there were “6 million bleeding and suffering reasons to justify Zionism.” This quote is often used by Holocaust deniers to suggest the figure of 6 million Jews later killed by the Nazis was a myth.
The audience member – reportedly a member of the anti-Zionist strictly Orthodox Neturei Karta sect – also compared Israel to IS.
“Just as the so-called Jewish state in Palestine doesn’t come from Judaism. This Islamic State in Syria is nothing with Islam. It is a perversion of Islam just as Zionism is a perversion of Judaism.”
Another audience member said, to applause: “If anybody is anti-Semitic, it’s Israelis themselves.”
David Collier, a blogger who attended the session, says he “witnessed a Jew-hating festival at the heart of the British estate.”
The event run by Baroness Tonge, a former Liberal Democrat MP who sits as an independent, and the Palestinian Return Centre.
Tonge reportedly made no attempt to challenge the comments.
She has run into trouble for her own anti-Israeli outbursts and resigned as the Lib Dem whip after claiming the state of Israel was “not going to be there forever.”
The House of Lords event was also run by the Palestinian Return Centre.
Campaigners are calling on Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration and show remorse for its “past colonial crimes” in Palestine.
Israeli Border Guards Who Killed Pregnant Palestinian Mom & Her Brother Will Not Be Charged
IMEMC | October 27, 2016
In April 2016, a 16-year old boy and his 23-year old pregnant sister were shot and killed near the largest Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank, Qalandia. The two Israeli border guards who killed the two family members have faced no charges or discipline, and now, Israeli prosecutors have officially closed the case, and determined that no charges were warranted against the guards.
A gag order was placed on the case by Israeli officials, and only after reporters from the Israeli paper Ha’aretz asked for the removal of the gag order was it discovered that no charges will be filed against the two guards.
According to Israeli prosecutors, there is no proof that the two guards acted improperly when they killed the unarmed child and his older sister.
Maram Taha, 23, and Ibrahim Taha, 16, her brother, were walking near Qalandia checkpoint on April 27th, and were around 65 feet away from the checkpoint when the guards claim that they seemed to be acting suspiciously, and shot them both.
Their bodies were held by Israeli officials for over a month, preventing the family from carrying out burial rites.
Maram was five months pregnant, and a mother of two children; Sarah, 6, and Remas, 4.
While Israeli prosecutors claimed that surveillance video footage at the checkpoint showed Maram attempting to throw a knife, they have refused to make the alleged video public.
Initially, on the day that she was killed, Israeli officials told the media that Maram was wearing an explosive belt. But when this was clearly not the case, when it was shown that she was pregnant, they simply stopped repeating the claim. They never officially retracted that claim, but it was not mentioned when the case was submitted to the military court system for review.
Over the past year, Israeli soldiers have been witnessed planting knives on or next to Palestinians that they have killed. This has led to suspicions among Palestinians in the case of Maram and Ibrahim Taha, particularly since Israeli officials have refused to release the surveillance video of this killing.
The case against the two Israeli border guards who shot the young mother and her little brother was submitted to prosecutors with a recommendation that no charges be brought against the guards.
Israeli prosecutors apparently agreed with this assessment, and decided not to prosecute the two unnamed Israelis who killed Maram and Ibrahim.
The Taha family has no legal recourse to appeal this decision by the Israeli military authorities, which govern the Palestinian Territories with martial law.
“Palestinian Art Behind the Bars,” 1984 publication on Palestinian prisoners’ culture of liberation
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
The following historical booklet of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement was originally released in 1984 in English and Arabic by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Committee, based in Damascus, Syria, and is now being made available online for download and distribution by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
While focusing on depictions of Palestinian art created inside Israeli prisons – often on pillowcases, with smuggled and secreted materials, and removed covertly from the prison walls – the booklet also contains facts and descriptions about the situation faced by Palestinian prisoners in 1984.
Some of the art in this book was also featured in the Made In Palestine exhibition, which debuted in 2003 at the Station Museum in Houston, Texas. Its curator, James Harithas, was introduced to the broad spectrum of Palestinian art by featured artist Samia Halaby, whose new book of artwork commemorating the massacre of Kufr Qassem is soon to be released. (Some of the artists featured here are also included in Halaby’s work, Liberation Art of Palestine, which traces prisoners’ art as part of the overarching stream of liberation art produced by Palestinian artists in the movement.) Zuhdi al-Adawi, one of the artists featured in the booklet, traveled to New York City in 2006 for the opening of the exhibition. The film, Crayons of Askalan, also features some of these works and the story of Palestinian prisoner artists.
The booklet contains excerpts from the London Sunday Times’ 1977 investigation into torture in Israeli prisons, the same investigation that helped to bring the torture of Rasmea Odeh and Palestinian women prisoners to a Western audience. It includes an overview of the various prisons were Palestinian political prisoners were held at the time of publication in 1984, the forms of torture used under interrogation, living conditions in prisons, medical mistreatment and prisoners’ resistance. It ends with a call to people around the world to take action to support Palestinian prisoners, “form support committees everywhere,” and “unite all efforts to help secure the just demands of these prisoners and condemn the inhumane Zionist practices,” a call to action that remains just as critical today as it was 32 years ago.
The book is available for view and download below in PDF.
Download PDF (Palestinian Art Behind the Bars, 1984)
The War on UNESCO: Al-Aqsa Mosque is Palestinian and East Jerusalem is illegally occupied
By Ramzy Baroud | Ma’an | October 26, 2016
Did Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, actually read the full text of the UNESCO resolution on Palestine and Israel, before he raved with anger?
“I think this is a mistaken, inconceivable resolution,” he said.
“It is not possible to continue with these resolutions at the UN and UNESCO that aim to attack Israel. It is shocking and I have ordered that we stop taking this position (his country’s abstention) even if it means diverging from the position taken by the rest of Europe,” he added.
Renzi, who became Prime Minister in 2014 at the relatively young age of 39 knows exactly how the game is played. In order to win favor with Washington, he must first please Tel Aviv.
His country has abstained from the October 12 vote on a resolution that condemns Israel’s violations of the cultural and legal status of Occupied East Jerusalem. This decision has ignited the ire of Israeli Ambassador to Rome, Ofer Zaks, who riled up the Jewish community in Italy to protest the abstention. Renzi, in turn, was converted into a champion of the ‘Temple Mount’, the name Israel uses to describe the Palestinian Muslim holy site.
Renzi cravenly went on damage control mode without truly understanding the nature of the resolution, which merely condemned Israel’s obvious violations of international law, and only calls for Israel to respect the status of Palestinian culture in the occupied city.
None of procedures that led to the vote on the UNESCO’s resolution – voted by 24-6, with 26 abstentions – violated protocol, nor was any of the wording inconsistent with international law. In fact, UNESCO was merely doing its job: attempting to protect and preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the world.
Jerusalem is a sacred and a holy city to a majority of humanity, simply because it is significant to the spiritual wellbeing of the adherents of the three monotheistic religions. In fact, the resolution stated so:
“Affirming the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions …”
Renzi’s outburst is quite disappointing, to say the least, for the young, eager politician simply tried to score cheap political points with Israel – thus the United States – without a full, or even partial comprehension of what the UNESCO resolution resolved. Nor did he seem aware of the fact that such text is largely a repeat of what has been discussed by the world’s leading cultural organization in April, and repeatedly before that date.
“If anyone wants to say something about Israel, let them say it, but they should not use UNESCO… To say that the Jews have no links to Jerusalem is like saying the sun creates darkness,” he said, paraphrasing the sentiment displayed by the Israeli Prime Minister.
It would be rather sad if Renzi sees a mentor in Benjamin Netanyahu, for the latter is one of the least liked world leaders who has made a mockery of international forums and derided the United Nations itself as anti-Semitic and its process as ‘theater of the absurd’.
This is what Netanyahu had said in response to the resolution and shortly before he suspended his country’s membership in UNESCO. Using a language that is as amusing as his cartoon depiction of the Iranian nuclear bomb in his famous UN spectacle in 2012, he said:
“To say that Israel has no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is like saying that China has no connection to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the Pyramids.”
Other Israeli officials followed suit with a chorus of denunciations, included Israeli President, Reuven Rivilin, who described the decision as an “embarrassment” for UNESCO. Culture Minister, Miri Regev, cut to the chase, by labeling the resolution “shameful and anti-Semitic.”
In fact, it was neither.
In addition to Renzi’s odd reaction, the United States and other western governments reacted with exaggerated anger, again without even addressing the situation on the ground, which prompted the resolution – and numerous other UN resolutions in the past – in the first place.
Even the Czech parliament jumped on board, voting to condemn what they described as a “hateful, anti-Israel’ sentiment.”
I have read the resolution repeatedly to pinpoint the specific text that could possibly be understood by Israel’s friends as hateful, to no avail. The entirety of the text was based on past international conventions, resolutions, international law, and refers to Israel as the Occupying Power, as per the diktat of the Geneva Conventions.
The Italian, Czech, American anger is, of course, misdirected and is largely political theater.
But, of course, there is an important context that they refuse to address.
Israel is working diligently to appropriate Muslim and Christian heritage in East Jerusalem, a city that is designated by international law as illegally occupied.
The Israeli army and police have restricted the movement of Palestinian worshipers and is excavating under the foundation of the third holiest Muslim shrine, Haram al-Sharif, in search of a mythological Temple.
In the process of doing so, numerous Palestinians, trying to defend their Mosque from the attacks staged by Israeli occupation forces and extremist Jewish groups, have been killed.
How is UNESCO to react to this?
The resolution merely, ‘called on Israel’ to “allow for the restoration of the historic status quo that prevailed until September 2000, under which the Jordanian Awqaf (Religious Foundation) Department exercised exclusive authority on Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif.”
Moreover, it ‘stressed’, the “urgent need of the implementation of the UNESCO reactive monitoring mission to the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls.”
Where is the ‘hate’ and ‘Anti-Semitism’ in that?
Israel’s anger is, of course, fathomable. For nearly fifty years, following the illegal occupation and annexation of the Palestinian Arab city, Israel has done everything it could possibly do to strip the city of its universal appeal and Arab heritage, and make it exclusive to Jews only – thus the slogan of Jerusalem being Israel’s ‘eternal and undivided capital.’
Israel is angry because, after five decades of ceaseless efforts, neither UNESCO nor other UN institutions will accept Israel’s practices and designations. In 2011, following the admission of ‘Palestine’ as a member state, Israel ranted and raved as well, resulting in the US cutting off funding to UNESCO.
The latest resolution indicates that Israel and the US have utterly failed to coerce UNESCO.
What also caused much fury in Tel Aviv is that UNESCO used the Arabic references to Haram al-Sharif, Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim religious and heritage sites. The same way they would refer to Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza and China’s Great Wall by their actual names. Hardly anti-Semitic.
Since its establishment atop Palestinian towns and villages, Israel has been on a mission to rename everything Arabic with Hebrew alternatives. Recent years have seen a massive push towards the Judaization of Arab Christian and Muslim sites, streets and holy shrines, a campaign spear-headed by the Israeli right and ultranationalist groups.
To expect UNESCO to employ such language is what should strike as ‘absurd’.
Not only should the UNESCO resolution be respected, it should also be followed by practical mechanisms to implement its recommendations. Israel, an Occupying Power should not be given a free pass to besiege the holy shrines of two major world religions, restrict the movement and attack worshipers, annex occupied territories and destroy what is essential spiritual heritage that belongs to the whole world.
Featured Video
From Anthrax to Iraq
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Review
New paperback: Butchered by “Healthcare”
Lies are Unbekoming | October 20, 2026
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
“Screening Tests Are Useless”, on tests that find diseases that would never have hurt you. “The FDA Protects the Big Drug Companies”, on an agency funded by the companies it regulates. “The Journals’ Sins Are the Editors’ Sins”, on ghostwritten studies and captured peer review. “Opioids and ‘Pain Management’”, on how a generation was prescribed its way into addiction. “Prozac and Relatives” and “Antipsychotics Are Disastrous”, on what psychiatry does to adults and children. “Surgery: Money Before Patients”. “Failed Cancer Treatments”. “Futile CPR and Overprescribing”. “Billing Scams & Specialty Warfare”. “Hospitals Are Sharks”. Each with a Patient Tips section at the end on how to survive it.
If you have ever walked out of a doctor’s office with a prescription you didn’t ask for, or watched a parent put through a treatment that made them worse, this is the book you want on your shelf before the next appointment. … Full review
Butchered by “Healthcare” is available on Lulu now.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iraq shuts key border crossing with Iran under US pressure: Report
- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- EU sending ‘biased’ observers to interfere in Serbian election – president
- White House envoy declares kinetic action against Yemen ‘fruitless’
- Ukraine deployed thousands of microdrones in Iraqi Kurdistan: Tasnim
- Iran calls for emergency UNSC meeting over Trump’s ‘brazen’ bomb talk, Israeli threats
- Iranian sources reveal details of Russia-China Hormuz proposal
- Plan for more US-Israel integration puts our military tech at risk
- Another Round Against Iran Will Break What Is Left of the Gulf
- SVR Report on Ukraine’s Mexican Drug Gang Links Could Pressure Zelensky, Won’t Change US Policy
- If Americans Knew
- Christiane Amanpour exits CNN with a legacy shaped by the debate over Israel
- Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy
- Israel Denies Entry to French Journalist, U.S. Researcher Amid Rise in Entry Denials
- Gaza’s hospitals are running out of life-saving fuel – Daily Update
- Mysterious bot accounts reportedly spread fake ‘man on the street’ videos for Michigan Senate candidate
- Israeli Defense Minister Katz Says Over 60 Lebanon Villages Have Been Destroyed
- Why Is Israel Running TV Ads in Iowa Ahead of the Midterms?
- Hind Rajab’s Alleged Killer Is in the United States. HRF Demands His Arrest.
- US Officials Face Fresh Pressure After Another American ‘Brutalized’ by Israeli Settlers in West Bank
- Israel-Backed Palestinian Militias Terrorize Displaced Families in Gaza
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
