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Treatment of Palestinians is Apartheid by Any Other Name

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice |  July 10, 2013

Were it not for the razor wire, giant concrete blocks, steel gates, watchtower and standard-issue surly teenage soldier, it would be impossible to tell at what point the barren uplands of Israel’s eastern Negev give way to the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank.

The military checkpoint of Shani vaguely marks the formal demarcation between Israel and occupied Palestinian territory, but in practical terms the distinction is meaningless. On either side of the Green Line, Israel is in charge.

In recent weeks it has been intensifying a campaign to evict Palestinian farming communities summarily from their ancestral lands to replace them with Jewish newcomers.

Israeli human rights lawyers, tired of the international community’s formulaic criticisms, say it is time to be more forthright. They call these “ethnic cleansing” zones – intended to drive off Palestinians irrespective of the provisions of international law and whether or not the Palestinians in question hold Israeli citizenship.

In the occupied South Hebron Hills, a dozen traditional communities – long ago denied by Israel the right to enjoy modern amenities such as electricity and running water – are struggling to remain in the cave-homes that sheltered them for centuries.

Israel has reclassified much of their land as a military firing range and demands that they leave for their own safety. An appeal to the Israeli courts, the latest installment in a 14-year saga to avoid eviction, is due in the next few days.

Israel’s concern for the villagers’ welfare might sound more convincing were it not encouraging Jews to live close by in illegal settlements.

Palestinians in other parts of the occupied territories coveted by Israel – such as villages next to Jerusalem and those in the fertile Jordan Valley, the territorial backbone of any future Palestinian state – are being squeezed too. Firing ranges, closed military zones and national parks are the pretexts for Israel to appropriate the farmland these rural communities need to survive.

As a result, Palestinian life is withering in the nearly two-thirds of the West Bank Israel was temporarily entrusted with – the so-called Area C – under the Oslo Accords. Endlessly harassed Palestinians have sought sanctuary in West Bank cities under Palestinian Authority control. Today the remnants in Area C, a population of about 100,000, are outnumbered three to one by Jewish settlers.

A discomfited European Union, normally mealy-mouthed on Israel’s occupation, has started to describe this as “forced transfer”. The term may sound ominous and reproving, but human rights groups say that, from a legal perspective, the terminology obscures rather than illuminates what is taking place.

“Forced transfer”, observes Suhad Bishara, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal centre for Israel’s minority of 1.5 million Palestinian citizens, usually describes uncoordinated and unofficial incidents of population displacement, often as an outcome of war.

Bishara and others argue that Israel is carrying out a systematic and intentional policy to drive Palestinians off their land to replace them with Jewish communities. This, they say, should be identified as “ethnic cleansing”, a term first given legal and moral weight in the Balkans conflict in the early 1990s.

As evidence, the lawyers point to recent developments inside Israel. The treatment of tens of thousands of Bedouin in the Negev, all of them Israeli citizens, is virtually identical to that of Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills.

The Bedouin too have faced a prolonged campaign to push them off their ancestral lands and into a series of “townships”, forcibly urbanising them in the country’s most deprived communities. In the disconcerting language of Israeli bureaucracy, the Bedouin need to be “concentrated”.

Israel has increased the pressure – as in the West Bank – by denying these Bedouin all public services, and demolishing any concrete homes they build. As with Palestinians under occupation, the Bedouin have found their communities reclassified as firing ranges, military zones or national forests.

The village of al-Araqib, near Beersheva, for example, has been demolished more than 50 times in recent years as Israel plants on its land – with a suitably sinister irony – the Ambassadors’ Forest, commemorating the help provided to Israel by the international community’s diplomatic corps.

Waiting in the wings are developers ready to build on the Bedouin’s land 10 new towns for Jews only. The rest of the territory is being eaten up by Jewish ranches, given swathes of land to create vineyards, offer camel rides and, in one case, provide a pet cemetery.

But, as in the West Bank, the Bedouin are refusing to budge, and pressing their historic land claims in the Israeli courts. Rather than wait for a verdict it may not like, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is rewriting the Bedouin’s citizenship rights.

The Prawer plan, which passed its first reading in parliament last month, will force 40,000 Bedouin off their land – the largest expulsions inside Israel for decades. Unlike Jewish citizens, they will have no say over where they live; they will be forcibly assigned to a township.

For the first time, Israeli citizens – the Bedouin – are to be deprived of any recourse to the courts as they are harried from their homes. Instead Israel will resort to administrative procedures more familiar from the occupied territories.

The policy is clear: Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line are to be treated like sheep, fenced into ever-smaller areas, while Jews will have unrestrained access to a Greater Israel envisioned by Mr. Netanyahu.

The international community has long criticised Israel for the “discrimination” its Palestinian citizens face and for the “oppression” of Palestinians under occupation. This terminology needs overhauling too, say the human rights lawyers.

A system that treats one ethnic group as less human than another already has a legal name: it is called apartheid.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

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July 10, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mossad agents detained Gaza man in Sinai

Ma’an – 10/07/2013

BETHLEHEM – Israeli Mossad agents detained a Palestinian in Egypt’s Sinai in June, Israeli media reported Wednesday.

An Israeli judge cleared news of the arrest for publication on Wednesday. Wael Abu Rida was detained on suspicion of “offenses of national security,” the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

A magistrates’ court in Beersheba on Wednesday extended Abu Rida’s remand by eight days, the report said.

Judge Yuval Livadaro allowed the publication of some details in Israeli media, but extended the gag order of other details by 10 days.

The detainee’s wife, Amani Abu Rida, had told Ma’an on July 3 that her husband disappeared during a visit to Egypt for medical treatment.

The couple traveled together to Egypt on June 6. Wael Abu Rida suffers cerebral atrophy and sought treatment at a hospital in central Sinai, his wife said.

On June 21, Wael received a phone call and left without returning, his wife said.

The family later received a phone call from the International Committee of the Red Cross informing them that Wael was in Israeli custody, without giving any reason for the arrest.

After the phone call, Amani returned to the Gaza Strip.

July 10, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ten homes invaded, three arrested in night invasion of Talfit

International Solidarity Movement | July 8, 2013

Talfit, Occupied Palestine – In the early hours of Wednesday 3rd of July, the Israeli army conducted a large scale incursion into the northern West Bank village of Talfit, invading and trashing ten houses and arresting three men. The families of these prisoners have not heard from them in the five days since they have been in Israeli custody and their current whereabouts and legal status are unknown.

Abdallah's father with a picture of his imprisoned son (Photo by ISM)

Abdallah’s father with a picture of his imprisoned son (Photo by ISM)

In a sustained invasion from around 1am to 5am, around one hundred soldiers entered the village of Talfit in a number of jeeps, heavily armed and with police dogs. At least ten families, many with young children, were forced by the military to wait in the street for many hours whilst soldiers ransacked their homes.

Twenty-six year old Abdallah Mohammed Najeeb, who works as a nurse in a Nablus hospital, was one of the three men arrested during this night invasion. He was sleeping in his home at 1am when thirty soldiers came to the door, breaking it down with an air pump and flooding into the house with dogs. According to Abdallah’s father, the soldiers ordered all ten family members, including three children under the age of four, to stand on the road for several hours; during this time, some soldiers questioned the family, whilst others were inside overturning furniture and pulling the house apart. After some time, Abdallah was forced into the jeep, wearing just his sleeping clothes and no shoes. He was driven away – along with two other men who were arrested from homes nearby – and no one has heard from them since. No justification or explanation of their arrests was given.

The father of another family had his identity card and driving license confiscated by a military commander, who stated as he took them: “you have no ID”. These will cost at least 800 shekels to replace and in the meantime he will not be able to continue his work as a driver because now he does not have the required documents to legally do so. “The soldiers shouted at them and let the dogs come very near the children – they were so afraid” said the mother of the family about her two children aged three and five, who had been ordered outside for several hours.

Several doors of homes had sound grenades thrown at them and some were physically broken in. Of the many houses that were violently searched, destroying property and furniture, some thefts by the Israeli military were also reported; money, mobile phones and even a family photo album in one case. Computers in several houses were dismantled but not removed.

Israeli military night invasions are a regular occurrence in the villages and cities of the West Bank, even those, such as Talfit, that are in Area A, thus supposedly under full Palestinian civil and security control and the Israeli authorities have no jurisdiction. The village of Talfit currently has around twenty people being held in Israeli jails, some for many years. Some are arrested with no justification whilst others are political prisoners who have been imprisoned for exercising their right to resist occupation. Under the Israeli system, Palestinians are tried in military courts, or can be held indefinitely without charge under “administrative detention”.

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July 8, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel to establish new settlement park in Jerusalem

Palestine Information center – 08/07/2013

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee has approved the establishment of a new settlement park at the expense of Walaja village’s land in southern Jerusalem, Hebrew media sources said.

The boundary of the park will run along the Apartheid Wall, which separates the villagers of Walaja from their farmland, according to Haaretz newspaper.

“The Refaim Valley Park” will cover more than 5,700 dunums, or 1,425 acres, ‏ at the southern exit of Jerusalem and will be part of the large urban park to surround Jerusalem on three sides. The Green Line runs through the base of the Refaim Valley, through which the park runs, the newspaper explained.

Haaretz stated that 1,200 dunums of land of the park are terraced farmlands belonging to the villagers of Walaja. Villagers say the main threat to the ancient culture of terrace agriculture comes from the Apartheid Wall under construction.

An Israeli official said, “changing the character of the area from Palestinian farmland into an Israeli recreational site fits in with the plan to create contiguity between the holy city and the settlements surrounding.”

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July 8, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tony Blair hired ex Israeli army intelligence officer

By Gilad Atzmon | July 7, 2013 

English: Sept. 2: (l-r backs to camera): Presi...

The Telegraph reported today that “Tony Blair has hired a former Israeli army intelligence officer to work in his private office, despite his role as Middle East peace envoy.”

Lianne Pollak, who has led intelligence teams in the Israel Defence Forces, was recruited as a private consultant between October 2012 and April this year.

The 30-year-old Israel was previously a policy adviser to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, working with security agencies and senior officials.

The former British prime minister is the envoy to the Middle East for the Quartet – the group that represents the US, Russia, the United Nations and Europe.

His role includes encouraging development in Gaza and the West Bank and helping to forge a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, having been appointed when he left Downing Street in June 2007.

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July 7, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FreedumbAndDemocrazy

By Sharmine Narwani | Al-Akhbar | 2013-07-06

Freedom and democracy. How I have come to loathe this phrase. Two-lofty-words-and-a-conjunction bandied around by handmaidens of Empire: verbal grenades that can gut entire nations. When I hear “freedom and democracy” I instinctively look for cover – just as “Allahu Akbar” yelled loudly enough can now make Arabs and Muslims hit the ground fast.

“Freedom and democracy” is the battle cry for every single western regime-change operation I can remember. Operations that leave innocent civilians dead, cities destroyed – anarchy, corruption and criminality in their wake.

In the Middle East, these are dangerous words that have filtered into our vocabulary. People here, intoxicated with their faux revolutions, now spout this silly foreign phrase with the same shrill, mad-eyed, self-righteous conviction as do Americans before they bomb us into ‘freedom.’

But Arabs and Muslims should dig deep into their recent memory:

The first words uttered by you as you rose up against your US-backed dictators were “honor and dignity” – not “freedom and democracy.”  How did that fact get lost in the mayhem to follow?

And why on earth would this distinction make any difference?

For one, ‘freedom and democracy’ has always suggested western-style standards for governance and social liberties alien to the Mideast. We’re just not there yet – not on those terms anyway – and we’re not likely to be. Many regional states are just entering the nascent phase of what will undoubtedly be a rocky political evolutionary process – with each nation creating wholly indigenous models of governance, as unique as their individual cultures and histories. What if some towns would like their political process determined by an old-fashioned cockfight? What if a strongman is the only way to prevent the disintegration of a nation-state or the outbreak of ethnic and sectarian carnage? What if people genuinely don’t give a toss about gay and lesbian rights, preferring – imagine that – to find employment and feed their kids first? Women’s suffrage? Gender-integrated football stadiums? Childcare in the workplace? Worker’s rights? Important stuff, but… Feed. Child. First.

And then there’s that other unfortunate association: freedom and democracy brings with it a cornucopia of weapons, military bases, bombs hailing from skies heaving with US-made drones, financial assistance tied to all shades of silliness.

Freedom and democracy is extremely discerning. It seems to altogether bypass friendly dictatorships, only landing with uncanny accuracy on the heads of those opposed to Empire – civilians included.

And it is a foreign-imposed concept, presupposing, for instance, that elections are all-important. Except, even Empire doesn’t believe that. Why else dismiss Palestinian elections with a Hamas victor, or Iranian elections when the candidate doesn’t suit, or Russian parliamentary ones that ‘smack’ of fraud?

Yet Empire’s silence is deafening when a friendly monarch passes the mantle to his son, when a client state doesn’t care about popular legitimacy, when a military ally with big budgets for US-made weapons rejects elections outright.

Honor and dignity is none of those things. It doesn’t mean elections, it doesn’t mean individual rights. It is unselfish and broad – it understands what is right, what is important, what is a priority. It will wait a bit longer for jobs, stability, electricity, but it demands one immediate correction: the state must recognize and act upon popular will.

What’s the difference you still say?

Freedom-and-democracy embraces US-Israeli hegemony and GCC petrodollars. Honor-and-dignity does not.

Freedom-and-democracy thinks there are “processes” to remedy the colonization of Palestinian land. Honor-and-dignity knows there is only one: decolonization.

Freedom-and-democracy seeks to vilify, marginalize and criminalize groups, sects and nations in the Middle East. Honor-and-dignity seeks collaboration and harmonious relations, even among those marked by differences.

Freedom-and-democracy is governed by militarization – it seeks military bases, weaponizes its allies, draws red lines, makes threats, retaliates disproportionally, punishes with ease, targets the vulnerable. Honor-and-dignity believes in soft power, engagement and mediation with brothers.

Freedom-and-democracy has always supported dictatorship and brutality. Honor-and-dignity wants that to stop.

Freedom-and-democracy gives you a truckload of money in exchange for implementing a political, social and economic blueprint with the assistance of foreign advisors and NGOs. Honor-and-dignity is determined to learn from its own mistakes.

Freedom-and-democracy knows what’s best for you. Honor-and-dignity wants to decide for itself.

Freedom-and-democracy fears your independence – thinks you are “not ready” for it. Honor-and-dignity can’t stand still from wanting to taste it, lick it, embrace it, implement it.

Freedom-and-democracy violates your border, guns cocked. Honor-and-dignity knows it must shoot you dead or you will never learn.

Freedom-and-democracy thinks it is free and democratic. Honor-and-dignity notices an interesting trend: the more freedom-and-democracy talks about “freedom and democracy,” the more it legislates against freedoms and undermines democracy back home.

Real ‘freedom’ in the Middle East means honor and dignity. Real ‘democracy’ in the Middle East starts with honor and dignity. Arabs nailed it the first time around.

Honor-and-dignity doesn’t mean elections and governments that operate within the exact same geopolitical and economic parameters of yesterday. Honor-and-dignity means good governance in a just society under the rule of law based on consensus – homegrown, indigenous solutions that are unique to each country.

The new governments of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen don’t stand a chance – they operate within the old parameters that acknowledge western hegemony, GCC dominance in regional affairs, and the economics of disparity. They play with Israel and pretend Palestine does not exist. They vacillate between paralysis and aggression against the only Resistance this region has ever had. They thrive on yesterday’s divide-and-rule and have warped ideas about brotherhood. And they rig systems today to ensure their continued dominance tomorrow.

You cannot have honor and dignity with a dependent economy – it will hamper your independence. You cannot have honor and dignity with foreign military bases in your country – it will cripple your independence. You cannot have honor and dignity with a colonial state in your midst subverting all efforts at regional reconciliation, killing Arabs with impunity, wagging its tongue at your impotence – it will destroy your independence.

Please leave us be, FreedumbAndDemocrazy. If you don’t, Honor and Dignity will be forced to teach you the meaning of Consequence in a way it would rather not. Leave the Mideast to chart its own course, discover its own strengths and make its own mistakes. Do it now.

And take your conditional aid and military bases with you too.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

July 6, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Obama regurgitates Israel lobby script on Syria, America sliding toward another Iraq

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | July 5, 2013

At a Washington Institute policy forum luncheon debate on June 28 entitled “Arming the Rebels: Sliding Toward Iraq or Inching Toward Stability,” Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow in the institute’s program on Arab politics, hinted at the pro-Israel think tank’s influence over President Obama’s recent shift in Syria policy. Referring to his Foreign Affairs piece entitled “Syria’s Collapse: And How Washington Can Stop It,” Tabler said he would like to say that it “follows a lot” of President Obama’s responses in a major June 17 television interview. Whether out of modesty or a desire to downplay the Israel lobby’s role in deepening Washington’s involvement in the destabilization of Syria, a smiling Tabler added, “I’m sure that he didn’t read it and then just go and regurgitate it to Charlie Rose.”

WINEP’s executive director Robert Satloff was similarly coy in his introduction. Describing Tabler as a “very consulted” expert on Syria, Satloff said, “I won’t go into the details of the consultations” he has with senior government officials “but suffice to say that the arguments that we’ll be hearing today very much reflect the arguments that are on the table.”

Given the proven track record of such arguments made “in the national interest” by partisans of Israel, it would appear that its oblivious American proxy is rapidly sliding toward another Iraq.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst. He is also the creator and editor of The Passionate Attachment blog, which focuses primarily on the U.S.-Israeli relationship. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter @O_Cathail.

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July 5, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel escalates attacks on Palestinains

PressTVGlobalNews · July 4, 2013

Nearly a dozen Palestinians have been abducted by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. A Palestinian journalist and a lawmaker are among those who were assaulted and then detained.

The latest Israeli raid also caused the death of a 19-year-old boy. Human rights groups say there has been a surge in violence by Israeli forces against Palestinian protesters and the Palestinian media recording Israel’s violations.

Attacks are escalating against Palestinians with one brutal murder and over 11 arrests this week. Although the Israeli army state that the circumstances of these arrests are for legitimate reasons, they are rarely held accountable or made to show evidence for these crimes.

Nel Burden, Press TV, Bethlehem

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July 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US aid cut to Egypt worries Israel: Report

Press TV – July 4, 2013

The Israeli regime is worried that Washington’s plan to cut aid to Egypt in the wake of the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi could endanger the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, a report says.

The Tel Aviv regime fears that the US government would suspends the annual military aid of USD 1.3 billion to Egypt after the Egyptian Army overthrew Morsi’s government, Israeli daily Globes reported on Thursday.

The paper quoted US sources as saying that Israel might ask the US administration to find a way to continue supplying aid to Egypt.

US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that he was “deeply concerned” by the military removal of Morsi. Obama said he ordered the government to review the American aid to Egypt.

Under the US law, the government has to suspend foreign aid to any country whose elected leader is toppled in a coup. Obama has so far stopped short of describing the events in Egypt as a coup.

The American sources also told the Israeli paper that maintaining the peace treaty was one of the pillars of the collapsed government of Morsi.

“The US Congress, which controls the purse strings, was suspicious, and even hostile, to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government. Its agreement, albeit with gritted teeth, to keep the peace treaty with Israel, was one of the main reasons why the pro-Israeli Congress agreed to continue aid to Egypt after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011,” the paper also said.

The sources also said that the Tel Aviv regime hoped that the US would understand the importance of the treaty and continue its aid to Egypt.

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of Egypt’s Army, announced late Wednesday that President Morsi was no longer in office. He declared Head of Supreme Constitutional Court Adli Mansour as the interim president.

Morsi’s ouster came after days of massive anti-government protests plunged the country into chaos.

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July 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report details ill-treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli forces

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Defence for Children International Palestine | June 30, 2013

Ramallah — Defence for Children International Palestine submitted a report to four separate United Nations independent human rights experts this week that details the widespread and systematic ill-treatment Palestinian children encounter in the Israeli military detention system.

The report is based on 108 affidavits collected during 2012 from Palestinian children arrested in the West Bank and prosecuted in the Israeli military detention system. The report details the type of violations children encounter in the system, including:

  • Use of hand ties in 97% of cases
  • Use of blindfolds in 95% of cases
  • No lawyer present during interrogation in 99% of cases
  • Physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation in 74% of cases
  • Verbal abuse, humiliation and intimidation in 68% of cases
  • Strip searches in 89% of cases
  • Use of solitary confinement for interrogation purposes in 19% of cases

Recommendations presented in the report to address ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children in the system include ending night arrests and the use of solitary confinement, excluding evidence obtained by force or coercion during interrogations, allowing access to legal counsel prior to interrogations as well as the presence of a parent during interrogations.

“It is no secret that systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian kids has been occurring for several years,” says Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at DCI-Palestine. “There are too many reports, what we need is action.”

Impunity for violations continued to be a significant obstacle in 2012. DCI-Palestine filed eight complaints with Israeli authorities concerning the ill-treatment and torture of children while in Israeli military detention. While investigations were opened in several of the complaints, not a single indictment has been issued against a perpetrator. Many Palestinian families refuse to file complaints for fear of retaliation or simply because they do not believe the system is fair or impartial.

The report concludes by declaring that recent amendments to Israeli military law relating to children have had little impact whatsoever on their treatment during the critical first 48 hours after an arrest, where most of the ill-treatment occurs at the hands of soldiers, policemen and interrogators.

Since 1967, Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been living under Israeli military law and prosecuted in military courts. Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military courts. Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained, interrogated and imprisoned within the Israeli military detention system.

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July 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Targets “Hezbollah Cells” in Nigeria

Al-Akhbar | July 2, 2013

In mid-May, Mustafa Fawwaz, a 49-year-old Lebanese living in northern Nigeria, was headed to the Amigo Mall, a property he co-owns with his brother Fawzi. Hours later, police stormed his supermarket and placed him under arrest.

A few days later, 48-year-old Lebanese Ahmad Tahini was arrested at Nigeria’s Kano International Airport before his flight departed to Beirut. On May 26, the police arrested 51-year-old Talal Rawda at his home, in addition to another Lebanese Hussein Noureddine.

The Nigerian police claimed these four men were part of a “Hezbollah cell,” evidence of which was a weapons depot located inside a house in Kano.

After 40 days of detention, Noureddine was released. The court accused the three remaining Lebanese men of committing “terror-related crimes” and “providing direct assistance to a terrorist group.” The indictment stated: “You confessed that you belong to the armed wing of Hezbollah, which is an international terrorist organization. You have therefore committed a crime.”

Trumped-up Charges

The main charge that led to the men’s arrest linked them to a questionable weapons cache. But the weapons found by police were old and rusting, having clearly been stored in inappropriate conditions.

A source close to the defendants said that the house where the weapons were found was originally owned by a former army general who was active in the Nigerian civil war – 40 years ago. He denies that the men are linked in any way to the weapons or any armed activity.

The three Lebanese men have been charged with terrorism by virtue of their membership in Hezbollah even though the Nigerian government does not consider the party a terrorist organization. This is the lawyer’s defense for the upcoming July 8 court date when he’ll ask the court to drop all charges.

As usual, Israel is connected to this debacle. An Israeli security official told a Western newspaper, “The security cell that was arrested is part of a Shia terror campaign targeting the West and Israel.” It is interesting that the Israeli official did not limit his accusations to Hezbollah but rather included the entire Shia sect.

Yet perhaps the strongest evidence of Israeli meddling in the investigation came from a source close to the detainees who claimed that a Mossad team was allowed to interrogate and investigate the defendants.

Israeli Objectives

Israel has always paid special attention to Nigeria, having signed several trade and industrial agreements with the African country. Yet since 2006, visits by Israeli presidents and security officials to Nigeria focused on signing security agreements and finalizing weapons deals. Nigeria specialists say that the Mossad’s close relations with Nigerian security agencies is not concealed in any way.

Israel hopes to accomplish several goals with these accusations. It seeks to pressure international, and especially European, public opinion to list Hezbollah, or at least its so-called armed wing, as a terrorist group. Another aim is to create fissures in Hezbollah by falsely accusing Lebanese businessmen and shutting down their businesses.

The US and Israel have different ways of targeting Lebanese in Africa. While the US treasury department accuses Lebanese of supporting terrorist organizations, Israel colludes with African security agencies to fabricate charges.

July 2, 2013 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli troops kidnap two shepherds in South Lebanon

Al-Akhbar | July 2, 2013

Israeli soldiers on Tuesday kidnapped two shepherds from a southern Lebanese village near the occupied Shebaa Farms, a UN official said.

“We were informed that two shepherds were apprehended by [Israel’s army] in the Shebaa area. The [UNIFIL] force commander is following up on this issue with all the parties … and is trying to secure their release,” Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, told Al-Akhbar.

He said the Israeli army confirmed to UNIFIL that the two shepherds, identified by the National News Agency as Youssef Hussein Rahil and Youssef Mohammed Zahra, are in Israeli custody.

Israel’s motivation for targeting the two men remains unclear. It also wasn’t immediately known if Youssef Mohammed Zahra was the same shepherd as an 18-year-old with the same name who was abducted by Israeli troops one year ago.

“We don’t know what happened at this stage,” Tenenti said. “There is an ongoing investigation.”

Israeli troops on 29 June 2012 kidnapped the teenage shepherd in the Shebaa Farms area before releasing him the next day.

Israel has occupied Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms region since 1967.

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July 2, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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