Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Israeli forces closed the al-Hareka neighbourhood putting up new roadblocks and completely closing off a whole neighbourhood in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).
The neighbourhood’s access to the main street has been blocked off with an iron gate for a long time already. Recently, a group of about twenty soldiers arrived to the neighbourhood to further limit the freedom of movement of the Palestinian residents.
One resident, a journalist documenting the soldiers putting the new roadblocks that completely barr any access to about 200-300 people living there, was detained by the soldiers for over an hour. Soldiers attempted to stop him from filming this measure of collective punishment, a clear infringement of freedom of the press. In order to reach the main road or leave their houses, people living behind the wall are now forced to walk all the way around and will thus need at least ten minutes more to reach the military gate that is already blocking their entrance.
Additionally, soldiers have commanded the roof of a private family home for military purposes and have erected a small military base there. A group of six soldiers is permanently stationed on the family home and “they slept on the roof”, as a school-boy explained.
The al-Hareka neighbourhood is bordering the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba, and thus is often the target of harassment and violence both from the Israeli forces as well as the settlers – often under the protection of the soldiers.
This is yet another measure to intensify the efforts to restrict – or completely stop – Palestinian freedom of movement. Such collective punishment measures have sky-rocketed in the recent weeks and months in occupied al-Khalil, and add to the increasing efforts to further exacerbate everyday life for Palestinians and eventually make them disappear completely.
December 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Hebron, Human rights, Israeli settlement, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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A top UN official has voiced concerns over Israel’s failure to bring to justice the culprits of an arson attack in late July that claimed the lives of three members of a Palestinian family.
“Four months have passed since the arson attack against the Dawabsheh family,” Nickolay Mladenov, the UN special coordinator for the so-called Middle East peace process, said in a statement released on Wednesday while expressing worries about “the slow progress” in the case.
The lack of charges was troubling, Mladenov further noted, urging the Israeli authorities “to move swiftly in bringing the perpetrators of this terrible crime to justice.”
On July 31, a large fire broke out after extremist Israeli settlers threw firebombs and Molotov cocktails into two Palestinian houses in the West Bank town of Duma.
Ali Dawabsheh, an 18-month-old Palestinian baby boy, burned to death as a result of the assault. Ali’s parents, Riham and Sa’ad, later succumbed to their severe burn injuries sustained in the incident.
The arson attack sparked angry reactions from Palestinians, including political as well as resistance groups, and led to widespread condemnation across the globe. However, no individual has been charged for the killings so far.
Over the past few days, Israeli media suggested a breakthrough in the case, but a gag order seems to have prevented details from being published.
Israeli settlers have in recent years carried out various attacks including arson and graffiti on Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank and al-Quds (Jerusalem) under the “price tag” slogan. The raids have often turned deadly.
Israel’s failure to make arrests in connection with the Dawabsheh case is reportedly among the causes for two months of violence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Tensions have dramatically escalated since the Israeli regime’s imposition of restrictions in August on the entry of Palestinian worshipers to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds.
Palestinians say Tel Aviv seeks to change the status quo of al-Aqsa. They are also angry with Israeli extremists who, escorted by army forces, have stepped up their raids on the sensitive site, which is Islam’s third holiest site after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.
More than 109 Palestinians and nearly 20 Israelis have been killed in the recent wave of clashes between Palestinians and Israelis since the start of October.
December 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Rasha Oweissi, 23, was a good 30 feet back from a West Bank checkpoint when she was shot and killed, clutching a knife and a bag with a suicide note. Hadeel Awwad, 16, waved a pair of scissors at a Jerusalem security guard and was brought down in a hail of bullets. Ashrakat Qattanani, 16, was killed as she lunged at a woman near a military post.
Their names appear in a New York Times story today, which informs us that some 20 percent of alleged attackers in the past two months have been women, a new and surprising turn of events in the annals of resistance to the Israeli occupation. The article goes on to examine why so many young women in the current Palestinian uprising are “wanting to be killers.”
But the story avoids the obvious question here: How is it that some Palestinians are now courting martyrdom by showing up at checkpoints armed with kitchen knives?
Diaa Hadid and Rami Nazzal skirt this issue throughout the article. There are quotes from Ashrakat’s father who proudly states that his daughter chose to be a martyr, and there is talk of the “romantic” aura of dying for the cause of Palestinian freedom, but nothing is said of the Israeli role here: the summary executions carried out under the thinnest pretexts.
The practice is well known to Palestinians, however, and B’Tselem, the Israeli monitoring group, recently wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding an end to a “horrific string” of unlawful killings. The letter states, “There can only be one outcome in cases that combine an individual with Arab appearance and a knife: execution on the street.”
As a result, any troubled young person looking for martyrdom knows she has only to hold a knife in hand and walk toward a checkpoint to achieve her goal. Thus, Rasha Oweissi could write her suicide note, confident that the executioners would do their job.
The real story here, so carefully avoided in the Times, is the presence of willing executioners at the checkpoints. This angle, however, does not fit into the narrative of Israeli victimhood, so we find this print headline on the article today: “Palestinian Women Assert Role in Uprising,” as if we are celebrating their emancipation as they take up arms.
But there is little to celebrate. The story reports that most of the would-be female attackers have been killed in the two months since the recent spate of knife and vehicular assaults began and that those who survived have been taken into custody. At the same time, not a single Israeli has died at their hands.
Readers do not learn, however, that several of these women died under disputed circumstances. Hadeel Hashlamoun, 18, was the first victim of the trigger-happy forces in this recent surge in violence. She was shot in late September at a checkpoint in Hebron, and although Israeli officials reported that she had a knife, eyewitnesses dispute this. B’Tselem noted the discrepancies and called her death an extrajudicial execution.
The Times story today, however, asserts that Hadeel “pulled out a knife,” ignoring the controversy surrounding her killing.
Hadid and Nazzal note that B’Tselem called the deaths of Hadeel Awwad and Ashrakat Qattanani “public, summary street executions,” but the full import of the B’Tselem charges are not to be found in the Times.
In fact, the organization asserts that the highest levels of the Israeli government are responsible for the series of unlawful killings. “Your government permits—and encourages—the transformation of police officers, and even of armed civilians, into judges and executioners,” B’Tselem writes in its open letter to Netanyahu.
The letter notes that senior members of the government have incited this violence through “inflammatory statements,” and it continues, “A new pseudo-normative reality has effectively emerged in which a ‘shoot to kill’ approach must always be adopted, no matter the circumstances, even when the suspect no longer presents any danger whatsoever.”
Thus reports show that Ashrakat Qattanani was killed after she had been run over by a car and that Nourhan Awwad was shot at close range after being beaten to the ground by a man wielding a chair. Likewise, Hadeel Hashlamoun stood behind a barrier and several feet from heavily armed officers when a hail of bullets ended her life.
A careful reader of the Times story might have noticed that security forces indulged in overkill, emptying rounds of bullets into the bodies of young women after they were already immobilized and lying wounded on the street, but the article avoids any close look at the behavior of police and soldiers, not to mention the provocative comments of government officials.
Once again the Times averts its gaze from the reality on the ground in Palestine. Here we had an opportunity to look at the tragic intersection of youthful romanticism and Israeli brutality, but the newspaper can provide only one side of this equation: Israel gets a pass, as usual, even when the evidence for its crimes is in plain sight.
Follow @TimesWarp on Twitter.
December 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Human rights, Israel, New York Times, Palestine, Zionism |
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Pakistan says its import of gas from Iran through a pipeline is the best option as the stalled project is given new impetus with anticipated lifting of sanctions on Tehran.
The energy crisis in Pakistan which suffers about 12 hours of power cuts a day has worsened in recent years amid 4,000 megawatts of electricity shortfall which the Iran gas pipeline is being fostered to cover.
Iran has completed its part of the project with more than $2 billion of investment but Pakistan has fallen behind the target to take gas deliveries in the winter of 2014.
Addressing a seminar on business opportunities in the clean energy sector in Washington Tuesday, Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Khaqan Abbasi said he hoped sanctions on Iran would be removed soon.
“The Iran gas line project is the best option for Pakistan. But as long US sanctions are there, we cannot buy gas from Iran,” the website of the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.
The remarks came as Turkmenistan’s leader last month ordered construction of a $10 billion rival pipeline to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan to begin despite questions about the project.
The US has long lobbied against the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, promoting Turkmen over Iranian natural gas even though the route requires the extra distance of more than 700 km across Afghanistan.
Western giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Total have held off on committing to the project all the more because of Afghanistan’s insecurity and the region’s complex geopolitics.
Contractually, Pakistan has to pay steep fines to Iran for failing to build and operate its section of the pipeline by the winter of 2014 but Abbasi shrugged off the postulation.
“Not our fault. We made several attempts in the last 18 months to complete the project on our side. But no investor, no builder came forward,” the minister claimed.
“Once the sanctions are lifted, we will work on this project. A pipeline is always more reliable than other options,” he added.
Besides the expected lifting of sanctions, the bolstered prospects of the Iran gas pipeline arise from China’s $46 billion investment project dubbed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Officials say up to $2 billion has been earmarked as part of the package for the Iran pipeline extension, running from Pakistan’s southern port of Gwadar to the Nawab Shah district.
The energy-starved country imports about 100 megawatts (MW) of Iranian electricity for to the areas near their border. The government has said it was in final stages of negotiations to increase electricity imports from Iran to 1,000 MW.
Trade between Iran and Pakistan plunged to $217 million in 2014 from its peak of more than $1.3 billion in 2009.
December 2, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Wars for Israel | Iran, Pakistan, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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In the wake of Turkey’s shoot down of the Russian Su-24, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the attack a planned provocation. He went further on to suggest the U.S. had given Turkey permission to shoot down the Jet. He explained that countries using US manufactured weapons must ask the U.S. for permission before using them in operations. The aircraft used to shoot down the Su-24 was a U.S.-made F-16. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that not only did the U.S. give Turkey permission, but that it was moving the strings behind the entire operation.
Two Russian aircraft were attacked that day, but the second was a far less publicized incident. A Russian helicopter was destroyed by the CIA backed FSA using U.S. provided Anti-Tank TOW missiles. The helicopter was on a rescue mission to find the missing Su-24 pilots and the attack resulted in the death of a Russian Marine. Since the U.S. backs the FSA and provided the TOW missiles which were used in the attack, they are at least indirectly responsible, if not outright complicit in it. But instead of apologizing to Russia, U.S. state department spokesman Mark Toner defended the actions of the FSA. He also defended the actions of the Turkmen insurgents who shot at the parachuting Russian pilots, a war crime under the first Geneva convention. Such an antagonistic position reveals that the U.S. was not displeased by the attacks on Russia.
In the months leading up to the attack, there were several indicators the U.S. knew it would take place. On September 3rd, the families of U.S. staff members were urged to evacuated out of Incirlik air base in Turkey and were given until October 1st to do so. On November 3rd, the US deployed F-15 fighter Jets to Turkey which are specifically designed for air-to-air combat. Since ISIS has no planes, the target could only have been Russian aircraft. Most significantly, on October 21st, the U.S. and Russia signed a deconfliction protocol, in order to ‘avoid clashes in Syria’s skies’. This entailed giving the US information about where and when Russia will conduct sorties. Russian president Putin suggested this information was passed on to Turkey by the U.S. and used to shoot down the Sukhoi-24.
During the months leading up to the attack, US War hawks were increasingly calling for a direct confrontation with Russia, an act that could lead to a third world War. Several US Presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, were effectively calling for a shoot down of a Russian Jet. Some of the more direct comments included,
Chris Christie: “My first phone call would be to Vladimir, and I’d say to him, listen, we’re enforcing this no-fly zone,” adding that he would shoot down Russian warplanes that violate the no-fly zone.
Jeb Bush: “We need to have no fly zones. The argument is, well we’ll get into the conflict with Russia, maybe Russia shouldn’t want to be in conflict with us. I mean, this is a place where American leadership is desperately needed.”
The spokesman for the Zionist Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, Senator John McCain, suggested arming Al Qaeda Linked Rebels with Anti-Aircraft weapons to shoot down a Russian Jet. An idea which he himself admits was “what we did in Afghanistan many years ago”. The policy which resulted in the birth of Al Qaeda and the rise of the Taliban. Indeed Qatar had been making an effort towards this end. Documents leaked by Russian hackers ‘Cyber Berkut”, revealed that Qatar was negotiating with Ukraine to purchase Anti-Air weapons to help ISIS shoot down a Russian Jet over Syria. It is likely Ukraine refused to sell these weapons, since arming assets which are difficult to control could backfire. After all, US Jets are also using those skies. Flooding the region with hand held Anti-Air weapons could pose a threat to them in future. Turkey is a far more reliable and controllable proxy which is capable of shooting down Russian Jets.
Perhaps one of the most significant War hawk statements comes from the Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. In an Op-ed for the Financial Times Brzezinski suggested that Obama should retaliate if Russia continues to attack U.S. assets in Syria, i.e the Al Qaeda linked rebels. Brzezinski, has experience using Al Qaeda as an asset, having been one of the masterminds behind its creation in Afghanistan. He maintains a great deal of influence and respect in US politics.
It is likely Brzezinski’s dangerous advice to attack Russia was taken on board by US decision makers. But instead of risking a direct conflict with two nuclear powers, Turkey was used as a proxy. Turkey has its own agenda in attacking Russian jets outside of the U.S.’s interests. Turkish president Erdogan has already committed himself to an anti-Assad position far beyond the point of no return. This was over a gas pipeline deal with Qatar that is now looking more like a pipe dream. Russia has been actively fighting not only ISIS, but Al Qaeda and its affiliates who are crucial for Turkey’s plans to overthrow the Syrian government. The Su-24 was bombing the Al Qaeda-linked Turkmen insurgents, before it was shot down.
On October 8, NATO made a statement that it would defend Turkey against Russia, after a Russian jet briefly passed through Turkish airspace on its way to bomb targets in Syria. Such statements may have encouraged Erdogan to take the exceptional risk of shooting down a Russian jet under the assumption that Turkey would be protected by NATO. On November 12th, EU countries committed to pay Turkey 3 billion dollars. Interestingly this is the same amount Turkey is estimated to lose, as a result of Russian sanctions put in place in the wake of the attack. This could have been Part of NATO’s assurance to Erdogan that he would lose nothing by going ahead with the attack.
Erdogan has become increasingly frustrated, even after four years of war, the Syrian state shows no sign of collapse. It might not have been too difficult for the U.S. to convince the desperate Turkish leader that attacking a super power was in his best interest.
Maram Susli also known as “Syrian Girl,” is an activist-journalist and social commentator covering Syria and the wider topic of geopolitics.
December 1, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | AIPAC, al-Qaeda, NATO, Qatar, Russia, Syria, Turkiye, United States, Zionism |
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We work so hard to establish ourselves and to get where we are and to have somebody (Jonathan Pollard) screw it up… and then have Jewish organizations line up behind this guy and try to make him out a hero of the Jewish people, it bothers the hell out of me…
— Admiral Sumner Shapiro, US Navy Rear Admiral who served as Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (1978-82), Washington Post, 6/16/2008
We … feel obligated to go on record with the facts regarding Pollard in order to dispel the myths that have arisen from the clever public relations campaign… aiming at transforming Pollard from greedy, arrogant betrayer of the American national trust into Pollard committed Israeli patriot.
— Sumner Shapiro, William Studeman, John Butts and Thomas Brooks, former Directors of Naval Intelligence cited in Ronald Olive, Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How one of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice, Annapolis Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 248.
Over two decades ago, Harvard political science professor, Samuel Huntington, argued that global politics would be defined by a ‘clash of civilizations’. His theories have found some of the most aggressive advocates among militant Zionists, inside Israel and abroad.
During the past month, the Israeli regime has been slaughtering and wounding thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. The Israeli state terrorists, who commit mass murder in Palestine, are part of a movement that sees an inevitable mortal final battle between Zionism and the Islamic and Western world.
Many Western democratic leaders have questioned Huntington’s prognosis and discreetly refuted the Zionist belief that different faiths and cultures cannot live and work together.
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, leading Western Zionist ideologues have argued that, while liberal values should be reaffirmed, the US and EU leaders must recognize ‘malign global Islamic trends’. Influential Western Zionist journalists and ideologues, who dominate the mass media, argue that ‘hardline Islamism’ is on the rise, even in previously moderate Muslim countries like Turkey, Malaysia and Bangladesh… These ideologues (for example Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times ) systematically avoid commenting on the rise of hardline Zionism in its most racist form in Israel and the conversion of formerly moderate Zionist organizations into willing accomplices of Israeli state terror against a captive people.
Together, these developments in Israel and among the major Zionist organizations in the US and the European Union have limited the space for critics of the ‘clash of civilizations’ dogma.
State terror assaults, such as those taking place daily in Palestine, incite tensions between Zionists and non-Zionists – and that is their intent. Larger structural and systemic forces are at work and are driving Zionist radicalization. One of the most pernicious is the way in which wealthy US and EU Zionist individuals and organizations, in particular the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations, have used their economic power to spread the most intolerant forms of Judaism into the rest of the Western World.
The effects are now visible in the major political institutions and media of the US, England and the Continent. Previously, France was held up as an example of a successful multi-cultural nation – a dubious assumption as any historian of colonial France can testify. But that image is rapidly changing. Influential Zionists have fomented widespread Islamophobia and authored legislation restricting free speech which has outlawed criticism of Israel as ‘anti-Semitism’.
French civil libertarians have noted that political and social space has increasingly narrowed for ‘non-Zionists’, especially for anyone critical of Israel’s state terrorism. In other words, there is immense pressure in France to ‘keep quiet’ or self-censor in the face of Zionist racist brutality – so much for Les Droits de L’Homme et Du Citoyen.
For over a decade, Zionist influence, especially from Israel’s far-right Netanyahu regime, has eroded the French version of ‘moderate Zionism’, replacing it with a more doctrinaire, exclusivist and authoritarian version. World-wide condemnation of Israel’s massacre of over 4,000 entrapped Palestinians in Gaza, the world largest prison camp, led the Netanyahu regime to resort to a virulent Zionist version of ‘identity politics’ to rally support for the slaughter – or enforce silence among the horrified. Israeli Cabinet ministers recently denounced US President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry as ‘anti-Semites’ for their administration’s negotiations over Iran. Numerous prestigious rabbis have blessed the killing of unarmed Palestinians. A prominent Israeli jurist, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked urged the killing of Arab women so they would not give birth to ‘little snakes’. Israeli-Jewish judges have exonerated Israeli soldiers, police, and settlers for killing Palestinian children – even unarmed teenage Arab girls hysterical over their brutal humiliation. And world public opinion is ordered to ‘move along, look away, nothing for you to see here…’
All the major overseas Jewish organizations have marched in step. In the United States, a country with a democratic constitution and centuries-old Bill of Rights, self-styled ‘mainstream Zionists’ have defended Israeli spies and criminals, as well as un-extraditable swindlers, and organized nation-wide networks of university, professional and business organizations to demand the firing of colleagues and to suppress free speech and free assembly of Israel’s critics.
First and foremost, major Zionist organizations and leaders have stoked the fire of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racist rhetoric, which has become commonplace in the mass media and among Republican candidates engaged in the current Presidential nomination campaign.
The convergence of these developments in Israel and among the Zionist power configuration in North America, Europe and the Middle East is fueling the idea of a ‘clash of civilizations’.
The ideological marriage of Herzl and Huntington is fast eroding the former reality of Jewish and non-Jewish integration and intermingling across the globe. The alternative to a plural civilization is more primitive and brutal injustice, violence and death.
Contemporary Manifestations of Zionist Power: The Release of the Most Damaging Spy-Traitor in US History
On November 20, 2015, former Naval Intelligence Analyst, Jonathan Pollard, the American-Jewish spy for Israel, was freed by the Obama regime under Zionist pressure after repeated refusals by three Republican and one Democratic President and over the objections of the heads of all 27 major US intelligence agencies. The significance of this release has to be viewed against the history of Pollard’s crimes.
Fabricating Lies to Justify Obama’s Release of Pollard
The mass media and the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (AIPAC, ADL, etc…), claim that 1) Pollard committed espionage against US security for ‘altruistic reasons’ — a deep concern for Israel’s security and because US intelligence agencies had refused to share crucial information with Israel’s intelligence counterparts (out of anti-Semitism), 2) the information Pollard handed over had no lasting harm and did not endanger US security, and 3) Pollard’s punishment was ‘excessive’, his ‘repentance’ was sincere and his example precluded any future Israeli espionage activity against the US. These assertions are completely false.
Pollard was a mercenary, spying against the US out of greed. He lived a decadent, expensive lifestyle and had demanded the Israelis pay him a total package of over $250,000 for his work. The Israeli Embassy was known to have paid Pollard, a US Naval Analyst, to spy against the United States government. Court records reveal that he collected over $50,000 for ‘expenses’ during his espionage career, including expensive jewelry, and a monthly stipend of $2500. Court records furthermore reveal that he offered to sell additional secret documents to Pakistan, Apartheid South Africa, Australia, Russia and some Middle East countries. He collected dozens of box-loads of confidential documents, many of which had nothing to do with the ‘security of Israel’, but were deemed essential to US global security, including a top secret ten volume set of National Security Agency high level codes exposing the most advanced means and methods of espionage and the main targets of intelligence collection. Some of his ‘vacuumed-up’ treasure trove included the identity of US intelligence operatives and assets in Warsaw pact countries and the Soviet Union. The 27 US intelligence agencies have consistently opposed Pollard’s release because his sale of this information to the Israelis led to the capture and execution of US operatives after Israel handed over this top-secret information to the Soviet Union in exchange for allowing Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel in massive numbers. Needless to say, this treason crippled US intelligence operations and led to deaths. US military and intelligence officials view Pollard as having ‘blood on his hands’. So much for the ‘altruistic American Zionist keen on helping insecure, little Israel.’ Years of Zionist propaganda and lobbying have obscured this aspect of Pollard’s crimes.
Excessive Punishment or Excessive Leniency?
Far right Israeli Cabinet Ministers and liberal American Jews, supporters and opponents of Pollard, pundits and editorialists argue that the life imprisonment given to Pollard was out of proportion to the crime of treason. They claim that, after 30 years, he was ‘overdue’ for release.
The severity of the punishment is determined by the crime and the damage caused. In case of treason and espionage committed by US officials, (especially for money), the sentence is always severe. The leaders of the John Anthony Walker Naval spy ring were given multiple life sentences in 1985 and there are many other similar cases.
Among the documents Pollard handed over to his Israeli handlers (operating out of the Israeli Embassy), was US intelligence on strategic installations in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. No doubt, this provided Israel with strategic coordinates to bomb major security facilities in those countries as well as facilitated their brutal invasion and occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s. Pollard’s treachery led to the death of thousands of civilian lives in Lebanon and facilitated the wars in Iraq and Syria. The damage to those countries and to innocent people would not have been considered by the judge in Pollard’s life sentence – but it must be considered here, in understanding the enormity of his crimes. Pollard has boasted that he was operating out of a ‘racial imperative’ to protect Israel.
Pollard did not serve a life sentence. In fact, while in prison he became an Israeli citizen, a salaried officer in the Israeli armed forces and, after divorcing his American wife (who had also engaged in espionage for pay and served several years in prison), he re-married a Canadian-Israeli woman. This sheds a different light on the ‘severity’ of a life sentence for treason.
Pollard did not serve this ‘life sentence’. He was paroled in November 2015 (to the cheers of his adoring Jewish-American fans) demonstrating the wealth and power of American Zionists and their ability to buy the support of US politicians, domestic and foreign notables and the entire Israeli-Jewish political spectrum-and push aside the objections of the heads of the three major US armed services and intelligence agencies.
Israeli public opinion overwhelmingly supports Pollard and regards him as a ‘role model’ for other US Zionists in official positions. Contrary to Israeli lies, several other major Israeli spy operations occurred in the US after Pollard, including the case involving AIPAC officials, Rosen and Weissman, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin during George W. Bush’s administration.
In stark contrast to the freeing of an Israeli spy responsible for endangering the security of thousands of US operatives abroad and millions of innocent civilians, two authentic American political prisoners, who have fought for the rights of minorities, rot in jail with no prospect of freedom. Leonard Peltier, a Native American leader has spent 38 years in the highest security prison and Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American leader from Philadelphia, whose 33 years in prison have been on death row or brutal solitary confinement. Both were framed by perjured evidence in a parody of justice, which has revolted millions around the world. Neither threatened US security. Over the years, numerous witnesses, legal authorities and academics have testified regarding the miscarriage of justice that characterized their ‘show trials’ and have pleaded for their humanitarian release.
Unlike Pollard, and despite decades of worldwide campaigns for their release, Peltier and Abu-Jamal will probably die entombed in prison. Unlike Pollard, their cases were never about treason, selling information and greed. They have worked hard for justice within their communities, hence earning the hatred of the police state. They fought to serve their oppressed American communities, rather than an oppressive and racist Israeli elite – determined to oppress and erase the native Palestinian population.
The decisive factor has been the political power of Pollard’s supporters, the US Zionist Power Configuration, which leads President Obama and 430 US members of Congress by the nose. Through their media connections, they can lie about Pollard’s case and his motives. They can minimize the consequences of his treason and twist the arms of obedient politicians to support a traitor. Despite the fact that scores of high-ranking US intelligence and military officials have repeatedly attested to the damage inflicted by Pollard on the US, campaign finance hungry politicians recite the Zionist line that Pollard’s treason did not warrant a harsh sentence!
Beyond the immediate shame of a US president caving in to Israeli pressure with regard to this spy, there is the issue of the flagrant double standard:
Why do Israeli spies (or American Zionist traitors) evoke the unconditional support of the entire US Zionist apparatus? Why do thousands of rabbis, hundreds of movie executives and media moguls and scores of billionaires (talk about the 0.01%!) campaign on behalf of this arrogant, greedy thief? Why does Pollard merit a totally different standard of justice, in stark contrast to the vast majority of American minorities – who can rot in dungeons even when clearly innocent? Why does a self-described Israeli (who renounced his US citizenship in jail), who sold vital national secrets to fund a decadent life-style and for what he described as a ‘race imperative’ merit such favors while hundreds of thousands of poor US citizens are routinely denied leniency – let alone mercy? Clearly, the interests of Israel, a foreign regime, carry much greater weight within the US judicial system than millions of American minorities…
Cyber Crimes of Our Times: Billionaire Israeli Swindlers and the Chinese Military
For over three years, the Obama administration, the NSA and the Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter have fed their media mouthpieces breathless denunciations against China for cyber-theft. Every week, there are lurid stories about the theft of confidential US industrial, military and political intelligence committed by the Chinese. The Obama regime has followed up his charges of ‘cybertheft” by threatening to confront China in the South China Sea, apply sanctions and raise the military ante in the Pacific against the world’s most dynamic economic superpower.
Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland (Nudelman-Kaplan) has claimed that Chinese cyber theft is a top national security threat requiring an immediate military-security response. US officials have provided no evidence that Chinese officials, at any level, are involved in espionage. Moreover, they have presented no proof that cyber theft is a policy of the Chinese government! There has been no evidence that these alleged thefts have damaged US companies or security interests. Nevertheless, US hostility toward China has been justified by unproven accusations and are used to increase the possibility of a major confrontation.
Contrasted with the ‘allegations’ against the Chinese, three ‘Israeli businessmen’ have been officially charged by US prosecutors with running a multi-billion dollar cyber-hacking scam within the US over the past five years. Dubbed the biggest financial hack in US history, the story hardly made headlines in the US media and was conveniently buried by subsequent ‘terror attacks’ in Europe.
The case is instructive. Three Israelis (one a US-Israeli dual citizen) hacked-attacked ten of the largest US financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase and Fidelity Investments, as well as the Wall Street Journal … downloading protected information on over 100 million Americans – the biggest hack-attack in US history. Gery Shalon, Ziv Orenstein and Joshua Samuel Aaron employed hundreds of employees in Israel and elsewhere running a mega-cybercriminal enterprise.
According to the Financial Times (11/11/2015, p1), “the hacks took place from 2012 to mid-2015 and were aimed at aiding stock market manipulation that generated tens of millions of dollars.” In addition to selling ‘pumped-up’ stocks to millions of customers of the companies they had hacked, Shalom et al. launched cyber attacks to launder millions (more likely billions) for illegal drug and counterfeit software dealers, malicious malware distributors, illegal online casinos and an illegal ‘bitcoin exchange’ known as ‘Coin.mx.’ Someone within the financial security apparatus of the US government (white collar crime unit) must have tipped them off. They are safe in Israel; the Netanyahu regime has yet to act on a US extradition order, although they are reportedly under ‘house arrest’ in their villas.
In contrast to the on-going bellicose rhetoric, which Washington has directed against China’s alleged hackers, Washington has been ‘very reluctant’ to press the issue of extraditing the cyber-thieves with its ‘special partner’ in Tel Aviv.
Israeli super-hackers launched virulent attacks against major US financial institutions and American investors with apparent impunity, following the practice of Israeli info-tech operatives who have raided US military, technology and industrial sites for years.
While the US sends air squadrons and an armada of warships to Chinese waters over a few sand-bars, and brays about arresting Chinese researchers (who it later released with no charges) for alleged cyber-theft, it cannot persuade its ‘closest strategic ally’, Israel, to hand over a trio of formally charged swindlers. Instead, the US increased its annual $3 billion in military aid and provides an open market for Israeli ‘security’ products based on stolen US technology!
The reason for the differential response is not the nature of the ‘crimes’ – it is who commits the crimes! Israeli dominance of US politics via the unconditional support of its US Zionist power configuration ensures impunity for Israeli citizens, including the ability to delay or postpone the extradition of notorious multi-billion cyber thieves! Washington feels free to accuse China, without proof of official Chinese complicity, despite overwhelming evidence, while it cannot persuade its close ‘friend’ Israel to extradite criminals. Netanyahu, backed by his Israeli-Jewish public will decide if, when and where to extradite. When it comes to shielding Israeli or American-Israeli criminals from American justice, Israel treats its ally in Washington like an enemy.
Zionist political clout is evident in Washington’s judicial leniency toward other mega-swindlers with ties to Israel. Michael Milken contributed millions of (swindled) dollars to Israeli and US Zionist programs and won a ‘get out of jail’ card despite his conviction for major financial scams. He served 2 years out of a 10-year sentence and was granted a ‘humanitarian release’ because he was ‘dying’ of extensive terminal metastatic prostate cancer. So far, Michael’s quarter century of miraculous remission from ‘terminal metastatic prostate cancer’ constitutes a first in the annals of urologic cancer! He has gone on to re-constitute his fortune and prominence, while welfare mothers who took a few extra dollars rot in jail.
Ivan Boesky, another uber-Zionist and mega-donor to Israel was a swindler of gargantuan proportions. He raked in hundreds of millions a year. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to a mere 42 months in prison. He was out in less than 24 months, thanks to the support of ….
Marc Rich, a mega- billionaire rogue trader who broke US sanctions against trading with enemies, was also a self-described agent for the Israeli Mossad. Despite having been convicted in absentia in US courts for fraud, (he had skipped bail for Switzerland), President ‘Bill’ Clinton pardoned the ‘absentee felon’ in absentia– a historical first for a criminal who had never spent a day in jail. Mrs. Rich’s $100,000 donation to the Hilary Clinton New York senatorial campaign probably did little to influence the President’s sense of mercy…..
However, ‘Bernie’ Madoff, a $50 billion dollar swindler’ who gave huge amounts of illicit earnings to Zionist charities and projects in Israel was convicted and sentenced to over 100 years in prison. Unlike the above mentioned ‘untouchables’, Madoff will never breathe free again because he made the unforgivable mistake of mostly swindling other Jews, ardent Zionists and even ripping off a number of pro-Israel foundations. His differential treatment stems from his poor choice of victims rather than the crimes… Otherwise he might now be enjoying a comfortable villa in Israel rather than a cold cell in Pennsylvania.
Conclusions
Israeli capacity to manipulate and influence the American judicial process is based on 52 powerful front organizations – organized in the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations. This situation has made a mockery of the American court system and feeds the cynicism and bitterness of the average American. Zionist officials and allies occupy strategic position within the White House and judiciary.
Through their influence in the mass media, they converted a grotesque mercenary spy, like Jonathan Pollard, into an altruistic, Israeli-Jewish patriot, celebrated throughout Israel and within US Zionist circles. Veteran American intelligence and military officials who opposed his release have been painted with the broad brush of ‘anti-Semite’. The formidable Zionist power configuration, nurtured and financed by mega-swindlers, successfully secured his release. Zionist dominance essentially guarantees that the US will treat an indicted Israeli cyber-thief with extreme tact, supplicating the Israeli government for their extradition, while going ballistic over an alleged Chinese hacker.
Few progressive web sites or even the micro-Marxist journals confront these issues, more out of moral cowardice (self-censorship) than ignorance. Instead they bleat general clichés and ‘radical rhetoric’ about ‘US imperialism’ and the ‘rise of the right’ without identifying the precise social and political identity of the forces who move national policy. In a word, the Zionist Power Configuration gets more than a ‘free ride’. Across the political spectrum it continues to campaign on behalf of Israeli spies and Zionist financial swindlers. This corruption of the American judicial system and the betrayal of American trust have far-reaching consequences and undermine efforts to effectively address major national problems.
November 30, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | AIPAC, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, European Union, France, Israel, Jonathan Pollard, Judaism, National Security Agency, Obama, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Deir Istyia, Occupied Palestine – Deir Istyia, in Salfit district, is a village of 4000 inhabitants who mostly live on agriculture. The Salfit district has 19 villages and 24 settlements. Land confiscation is ongoing in the area and many of the settlements are growing, as the road that connects them is widening.
The 3 families are now the only Palestinians living on the west side of the road.
Now three families, living in the outskirts of Deir Istyia (see photo), are under daily threats and harassment from the Israeli forces. They don’t know if the goal is to take over their land or just to try to make their lives so unbearable that they will themselves decide to move from the land on which they have been living peacefully for many generations.
It started in the beginning of October this year, where the soldiers started to come to the houses and harass the families, mainly at daytime. Often the women are alone with the children during the day while the men are working. Israeli forces have chosen this time to come to the houses and scare the families. One of the women explained to us that the soldiers hit her, told her that the house wasn’t hers and that she soon would have to move away. They also told her that she was a terrorist, and that the soldiers would soon come back and shoot her.
Over the last 4 days the Israeli forces have been there day and night, telling the families that they have permission to stay on the roof of one of the houses. One night, they stayed all night and slept on the roof. They claim to have to watch the road and the surroundings, because of stone throwers, even though there hasn’t been any stone throwing in that area. Last Saturday, when the soldiers were there, they took pictures of the house and the yard.
Now, the children are very insecure, and their mothers don’t leave the houses as they are afraid of leaving them alone, a situation that makes them feel, as they describe it, as in prison. They can hear the soldiers walking around outside their houses and standing on the olive hill behind them at night.
Volunteers from International Solidarity Movement and International Women’s Peace Service will follow up on the situation of these families.
November 30, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | International Solidarity Movement, Israeli settlement, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Two US senators are demanding that Washington deploy some 20,000 troops to Syria and Iraq.
Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham called on Sunday for Washington to nearly triple the US military force levels in Iraq to 10,000, and send an equal number of troops to Syria to ‘counter’ Daesh (ISIL) terrorists in both countries.
McCain and Graham also criticized President Barack Obama’s Daesh strategy, which relies on airstrikes and modest support to what Washington deems as ‘moderate’ militants in Syria, stressing the need for greater US [intervention] in the Middle East conflicts.
“The only way you can destroy the caliphate (Daesh) is with a ground component,” said Graham who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination. “The aerial campaign is not turning the tide of battle,” Reuters reported.
McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently proposed intervention in Syria by a European and Arab ground force backed by 10,000 US military advisers and trainers.
On Sunday, both senators told reporters during a visit to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, that US personnel could provide logistical and intelligence support to a proposed 100,000-strong force from countries like Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Last month, the US president ordered the deployment of dozens of special operations troops to northern Syria to “advise” what it calls ‘opposition forces’ in their fight against ISIL.
US counter-terrorism experts have warned that deploying ground troops risks backfiring.
The so-called US-led coalition, which has been bombing purported militant targets in Syria and Iraq for more than a year now, relies heavily on American resources despite including some 60 nations, according to Reuters.
The senators met earlier with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who they said had welcomed the idea of more US troops.
However, Iraqi government spokesman Saad Hadithi denied the claim, saying that the PM had not requested US combat troops on the ground but rather asked for more arms and advisers to increase air support for Iraqi forces.
Leading Iraqi politicians have repeatedly voiced opposition to a greater role for US forces, which withdrew in 2011 after a nearly nine-year war that left massive casualties.
November 30, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Iraq, Syria, United States, Zionism |
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US, Turkey, NATO Supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda – Supporting the Creation of Buffer Zones
Here is the situation in Syria as I see it : Russia is taking a long-range view and wants stability in post-ISIS Syria. France and the United States are taking the short-range view and really have no achievable plans for Syria’s future stability. Turkey appears to have given little thought to Syria’s future. Ankara may be willing to see indefinite chaos in Syria if it hurts the Assad regime on the one hand and the Kurds on the other.
Part I – Russia
The Russians may be the only party interested in the long-term political stability of Syria. There is certainly no doubt that President Putin is more determined than Western leaders to act on the fact that the various so-called moderate parties standing against the Assad regime cannot work together, and that this fault cannot be corrected by enticements from the United States. For the Russians, this fact makes the Damascus government the only source of future stability.
This understanding, and not Soviet-era nostalgia, has led Russia to support the Assad regime, which possesses a working government, a standing army, and the loyalty of every religious minority group in the country.
Some might object that both Assad and Putin are dictators and thugs (by the way, thugs in suits in the U.S. government are all too common). However, this cannot serve as a serious objection. The only alternative to Damascus’s victory is perennial civil war fragmenting the country into warlord zones. With the possible exception of Israel, this scenario is in no one’s interest, although it seems that the leaders of in Washington and Paris are too politically circumscribed to act on this fact.
Part II – U.S. and France
Thus, it would appear that neither the U.S. nor France really cares about Syria as a stable nation. Once the present military capacity of ISIS is eliminated, Washington and Paris may well clandestinely continue to support a low-level civil war against the Assad regime. In this effort they will have the help of Turkey, the Kurds and Israel. The result will be ongoing decimation of the Syrian population and fragmentation of its territory.
As if to justify U.S. strategy, President Obama, with French President Hollande by his side, recently boasted that the United States stood at the head of a “65-country coalition” fighting terrorism in Syria. However, this is a hollow claim. Most of these countries are coalition members in name only, and some of them, like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf state governments, play a double game. And then Obama dismissed Russia and Iran as “outliers” and “a coalition of two.” Yet those two countries are the Syrian nation’s best hope for future stability.
The fact is that U.S. policy in Syria has been a losing proposition from the beginning just because of its hostility to the Assad government. Despite its air campaign against ISIS, Washington has no ground component nor any answer to the political vacuum in Syria. Both missing parts are to be found in an alliance with Damascus.
Refusal to make that alliance has also opened Washington to building neoconservative political pressure to increase U.S. military presence in the area. However, American “boots on the ground” in Syria is both a dangerous option as well as an unnecessary one. Syrian government boots can do the job if they are properly supported. The support has come from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. It is the United States and its coalition who are the “outliers.”
Part III – Turkey
It is not easy to explain Turkey’s animosity toward Damascus. Prior to the civil war in Syria, the two countries had good relations. Then something changed. It may have been something as foolish as President Erdogan’s taking personal offense against President Assad because the latter chose to heed the advice of Iran rather than Turkey at the beginning of the war. Whatever happened, it sent Ankara off on an anti-Assad crusade.
That anti-Assad mindset is probably the backstory to the recent reckless Turkish decision to shoot down a Russian warplane operating in support of Syrian government troops close to the Turkish border.
The Turks say that the Russian jet strayed into Turkish airspace. The Russians deny this. The Turks claim that they tried to communicate with the Russian plane to warn it away. When it did not respond, they destroyed it. Of late the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has said that Ankara “didn’t know the nationality of the plane that was brought down … until Moscow announced it was Russian.” This statement is frankly unbelievable given that Davutoglu followed it up with an admission that Turkey had complained to Russian about military flights in this exact border area. He also asserted that both Russian and Syrian operations in this region of northern Syria should stop because ISIS has no presence there. This assertion makes no sense, since Damascus’s aim is to reassert government authority by the defeat of armed rebels regardless of their organizational affiliation.
It is hard to say whether the Turks are telling the truth about an incursion into their airspace. Most of their evidence, such as recorded Turkish warnings to the Russian plane, is easily fabricated. However, in the end it does not really matter if the plane crossed the border. There was no need to shoot it down.
If the Russian jet strayed into Turkish airspace, there would have been a range of options. The Turks could be very sure that the Russian plane had no hostile intention toward their country, and they should have assumed, for the sake of minimizing any consequences, that no provocation was meant on the part of the Russia. In other words, they should have acted as if the alleged overflight was a mistake. The Turks could have then shadowed the Russian plane in a way that coaxed it back into Syrian airspace and followed the incident up with a formal protest to Moscow. Instead they made the worst possible choice and shot the plane down. Now both Ankara and Washington are shouting about Turkey’s right to defend its territory despite the fact that the Russian plane never posed any threat.
Part IV – Conclusion
In all of the bloodshed, population displacement and terror that has accompanied the Syrian civil war, the least-considered party has been the Syrian people and their future. ISIS, or at least its present infrastructure, will ultimately be destroyed. However, while that destruction is necessary, it is an insufficient outcome because it fails to provide long-term stability. Right now that vital ingredient can only be supplied by the reimposition of order by Damascus. The folks in Washington, Paris and Ankara might not like that, but they are not the ones facing a future of anarchy. And indeed, the more they stand in the way of Damascus, the more chaos they will help create.
November 30, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Wars for Israel | al-Qaeda, France, ISIS, Israel, NATO, Obama, Russia, Turkiye, United States, Zionism |
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The Extraordinary Trial of Arthur Topham: Part 3
On November 7, Arthur Topham was convicted of inciting hatred against a racial group, the Jewish people. Mr. Topham maintains a website, Radical Free Press, in which he publishes and comments upon various documents. These documents include The Elders of the Protocols of Zion, various anti-Zionist texts, and a tract entitled Germany Must Perish, first published in 1941 and then satirized by Mr. Topham as Israel Must Perish.
Mr. Topham’s defense rested primarily on the theory that his writing was not directed at Jews as a race or religion, but rather at the politics espoused by a number of Jewish people. The best discussion of this topic is by Gilad Atzmon, contained in his book, The Wandering Who?. The basic take away for considering the implications of Mr. Topham’s criminal conviction is that some people conflate Judaism as a religion, an ethnic heritage AND with a political view, not always consistent, that generally favors Israel’s perceived benefit.
Canada has a lobby entitled Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) that lobbies the Canadian government on behalf of Israel. Mr. Rudner, who had lodged various complaints about Mr. Topham in the past and was the Crown’s expert in Mr. Topham’s case, has worked for CIJA or its predecessor for 15 years. So the Crown relied upon the testimony of a man who lobbies for Israel (clearly a political entity) for proof of anti Semitic content and potential harm to Jewish people. His appearance in tiny Quesnel is testimony to the political importance that his organization places on silencing Mr. Topham. (The original witness scheduled to testify, Mr. Farber was a former colleague of Rudner’s, and apparently the two are close enough that Mr. Rudner’s written testimony was an exact duplicate of Mr. Farber’s original.)
Since Mr. Topham was accused of anti-Semitism, let’s look at the term. The quote below is from the Holocaust Encyclopedia, published and maintained by the United States Holocaust Museum so it is probably safe to assume that this is a standard definition.
The word antisemitism means prejudice against or hatred of Jews. The Holocaust, the state-sponsored persecution and
murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933and 1945, is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism. In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr originated the term antisemitism, denoting the hatred of Jews, and also hatred of various liberal, cosmopolitan, and international political trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often associated with Jews. The trends under attack included equal civil rights, constitutional democracy, free trade, socialism, finance capitalism, and pacifism.
Interesting that, in the first paragraph of its section on anti-Semitism, the encyclopedia blends together the concepts of ‘hatred of the Jews’ with opposition to various political and social movements generally associated with Jews. This is puzzling. Is it anti-Semitism to oppose socialism or is it anti-Semitic to oppose finance capitalism? While one could oppose both, it would be impossible to espouse either view without rejecting the other. I assume the author did not intend to imply that opposition to socialism, for instance, is anti-Semitic even if such opposition is from a fellow Jew.
I bring this up because this is precisely what I believe happened in Mr. Topham’s case. Mr. Topham was charged with two counts of inciting hatred over different periods of time. The jury found him guilty on the first count and not guilty on the second. Of course there are many possible explanations for a split verdict (none of which the jury is allowed to discuss even after trial without committing what the judge termed a ‘criminal’ offense). The observers, including myself, tended to believe that the discrepancy in the verdicts was a result of the text Germany Must Perish and its satirization by Mr. Topham in Israel Must Perish, a text that appeared on his website during the period for which Mr. Topham was found guilty.
The original text of Germany Must Perish was written in 1941 by Theodore Kaufman, an American Jewish man. The text was originally self-published, but was apparently advertized and reviewed by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine. In any case, the publication was well known enough to have been read in Germany and was cited by Hitler and Goebbels as evidence of the bad intention of the Jews. The book is horrendous. Its semi-literate ravings are a ridiculous indictment of the German people and their warlike nature. Kaufman advocates sterilization of the Germans as the only possible remedy. At best, the author is confusing all Germans with Nazis, but that is not what the book says. Mr. Topham’s satire in which he substitutes the words ‘Israel’ for Germany and ‘Zionists’ for Germans helps to make the original text comprehensible. The satire hopefully provides some insight into how these words might have been viewed by Germans in 1941. The proof that the works were effective but the satire was not understood, is that Mr. Topham faced criminal charges for aping Kaufman’s words.
In its case, the Crown made the point that Israel Must Perish was a horrible text. The Crown argued that the fact that the words were originally written by a Jewish man to indict the Germans did not kosher the text. “Jews,” the Crown said, “could write anti-Semitic things too.” Presumably her next case will be against a Jew for inciting hatred against the Jewish people. Mr. Topham was making a political point. I believe he was trying to convey the idea that Israel and Zionists could seem very much like Germans and Nazism in 1941. It is not necessary to agree with Mr. Topham’s point to understand it.
If I am right and it was this text that caused Mr. Topham’s conviction, then that is an important indictment against Canada’s admirable attempts to limit ‘hate’ speech while allowing freedom of political speech. Mr. Topham’s criminal conviction may well have been the result of a misunderstanding that Mr. Topham was criticizing Israel and Zionism and not Jews as a race. Germany and Israel are political constructs, Germans may not be, but Zionists, or those who support establishment of the state of Israel are, by definition, espousing a political cause. So, Mr. Topham criticized the political cause of the Zionists. Is there a way in which Canada’s laws would allow Mr. Topham’s political views to find an outlet? Perhaps Canada ought to make criticism of Israel legally off limits so that Canadians may adjust their behavior accordingly.
Eve Mykytyn graduated from Boston University School of Law and was admitted to bar of the state of New York.
November 29, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Arthur Topham, Canada, Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, CIJA, Human rights, Zionism |
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HEBRON – “As you can see we live in a cage,” Arwa Abu Haikel sighed as she walked up the steps of her home. “Because of the continuous attacks by settlers, throwing stones, breaking windows and causing injuries, we had to build the bars around the windows.” Based in Tel Rumedia, a neighborhood of Hebron, Arwa’s home possesses one of the most contentious postcodes of the occupied Palestinian territory. Hebron has been the epicenter of burgeoning violence since the outbreak of the so-called “Third Intifada” at the beginning of October, and a few weeks ago the Israeli military declared the whole of Tel Rumeida a closed military zone.
Despite this, Palestinian residents told Ma’an that Tel Rumedia’s difficulties long precede the recent spate of violence, and can be seen in the fight over the area’s archaeological ruins.
The troubled neighborhood has been at the heart of a longstanding battle — between settlers in the area, numerous rights groups and the Palestinian municipality of Hebron — over the development and management of an archaeological site that’s thousands of years old.
Critics say that the site is being used by a state-funded body for the benefit of extremist Israeli settlers living in the area, who have been aiming for decades to push local Palestinians out of their homes and out of the neighborhood.
A front for settler expansion
Based on archaeological surveys, the Tel Rumeida archaeological site dates back to the formation of Hebron in the middle Bronze Age. The site also has remains originating in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. Excavations by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) began in 1967, but last year new excavations started in what many criticize as a political move taken to support the presence of settlers in the area. Yonathan Mizrachi is an Israeli archaeologist who used to work for the IAA, but left the body in order to establish Emek Shevah, an organization which monitors the role of archaeology in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yonathan says the importance of and contention over the site in Tel Rumeida come from the possible implication it has for the demographic balance of the area. “In 2014 the IAA began a new excavation in Tel Rumeida on behalf of the settlers in order to make the site an archaeological park,” Yonathan told Ma’an. “When we started to monitor activity in Tel Rumeida, we began to see different ways that archaeology is used as a political tool,” he said.
“First of all, the idea of developing an archaeological park is the best way — from the settlers’ point of view — of how they can take over the land. They also realize that it can increase their power and their legitimacy over this place,” Mizrachi added.
The IAA — supported and sponsored by the Israeli government — received 7 million shekels ($1.8 million) last year from Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sport for the Tel Rumeida project, according to Mizrachi.
Abu Haikel told Ma’an that her family owns segments of land in Tel Rumeida, parts of which have been confiscated by the Israeli military and are threatened by the expansion of the archaeological park. “Our daily life is difficult. To live in Tel Rumeida you have to be very strong, very patient and very peaceful,” Arwa said. She spoke of her fear from increasing numbers of settlers in the area, and the problem that a large influx of tourists to a settler-run archaeological park may pose for Palestinian residents. “Through the years, we have been attacked many times by settlers, especially by buses of Zionist extremist tour groups. They cause a lot of trouble for us and have physically assaulted us many times… I have a problem in the nerve of my eye from being attacked by a settler,” Abu Haikal explained to Ma’an.
The manipulation of history
Dr. Ahmed Rjoub is the director of the Department of Site Management at the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. When speaking to Ma’an about his concerns over the management of Tel Rumeida, Rjoub explained that “the conflict is all on history, and as such Tel Rumeida is a conflicted place, not just in terms of the physical space but a conflict over history and culture, heritage and identity.
“We have a lot of fears that the history, the archaeology and the remains of this site will be faked for the interests of Israeli heritage,” Rjoub told Ma’an.
Rjoub had grave concerns over the conservation of the site, especially regarding any artifacts that might be related to Islamic heritage. “They actually found some tombs and ruins relating to the Roman and Islamic period and removed them,” he claimed. Rjoub said that such excavations — their methods in particular — violate standards put in place by both Palestinian and international law, and are “against the ethics of archaeology.
“Such excavations, especially the methods of excavations, violate the international standards of Palestinian and international law, and are against the ethics of archaeology.”
“As members of the PA we tried to interfere,” Rjoub told Ma’an.
“In Oslo there is an article saying any project in Area C should be coordinated with the PA. But unfortunately Israel violates even the Oslo Accords, and refused our official requests to visit even as technical and professional archaeologists,” Rjoub said.
Explaining how the political motivations behind the excavations go against the grain of archaeological convention, Rjoub said: “They have preconceptions and interpretations over this site before they have even started the excavations.
“This is very wrong, and it isn’t a scientific method to interpret the remains before you’ve even finished excavating.”
Mizrachi also raised misgivings over the integrity of Israeli archaeological practice in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“We [Emek Shevah] are monitoring all kinds of activities of the Israelis in the West Bank,” Mizrachi said. “Based on previous and present cases that we know about, we have a lot of criticism in regards to which periods are being emphasized and narrated to the people.”
Mizrachi told Ma’an that there are those who attempt to identify the layers of ruins with a “specific culture of today,” labeling the area as a “Jewish site” or a “Muslim site.”
“In this land you might find an ancient synagogue, church or mosque, obviously it is very dear to a specific culture, but it doesn’t mean that you can claim sovereignty over it. It means that it is part of the heritage of a place and you should protect it according to the international convention,” Mizrachi said.
Court verdict
After lobbying efforts — carried out by the Palestinian municipality, Tel Rumeida residents, Emek Shevah and Israeli rights group Breaking the Silence — the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank agreed to cancel the lease of the site to an pro-settlement organization, Association for Renewed Jewish Settlement in Hebron, a few weeks ago. However, this does not signal that the struggle in Tel Rumeida, or for archaeology throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, is over. Rjoub spoke of a move to raise the issue with UNESCO due to the universal value of the site. “The international community has a responsibility to protect this site as part of everyone’s history”, he said.“It’s not just Palestinian cultural heritage either — this heritage is for all,” Rjoub added.
Seeing as archaeology does not conform to contemporary political borders — such as Israel’s separation wall, the Green Line, or the West Bank’s delineation of Areas A, B and C — conforming excavations to a framework of military occupation has rendered the practice problematic. There is little structure in place to enforce accountability regarding archaeological conduct, and other sites such as as the City of David’s national park in occupied East Jerusalem as well as the Tel Shilo national park have been criticized for their current management. Israeli excavations in occupied Palestinian land appear to systematically abuse the occupation force’s power and flout International Law, whilst alienating Palestinians from their cultural heritage.
Megan Hanna is a freelance photographer and journalist based in the occupied Palestinian territory.
November 29, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | City of David, Hebron, Human rights, Jerusalem, Palestine, Tel Rumeida, West Bank, Zionism |
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Madama, Occupied Palestine – Earlier today, November 28th, a group of Israeli illegal settlers, in the presence of three Israeli soldiers, threatened to burn down a family in the village of Madama, occupied West Bank.
At noon, 25 settlers from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar trespassed the land of the Palestinian village Madama. Once they had reached the outskirts of the village they started yelling and threatening a family.
The family, which previously had problems with settlers from Yitzhar, includes 9 children and an additional child is expected within two months.
The settlers, some of whom were armed with rifles, were standing within 100-150 metres from the family’s house when they were yelling at the family. The illegal settlers were threatening the family with facing the same end as the Dawasheh family, referring to a previous attack this year where a settler firebombed a Palestinian family. 18 month old Ali Dawasheh was burned alive and both his parents later succumbed from the arson attack, leaving 4 year old Ahmed as the only surviving member of the family.
The settlers today also yelled at the family that they would be the next Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Mohammed was only 16 years old when he was kidnapped outside his house in the neighborhood of Shuafat, East Jerusalem. The kidnappers, later found out to be Jewish Israeli nationalists, beat him up and forced him to drink gasoline before finally burning him alive, from the inside out.
After today’s attack, the family in Madama is feeling even more insecure. Due to repeated attacks by the settlers the family recently got founding from the authorities to put up a barb wire fence, surrounding the house. And the father of the family has put a cover on the windows to protect his family from potential rocks thrown by the settlers.
November 29, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israeli settlement, Madama, Palestine, West Bank, Yitzhar, Zionism |
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