International Solidarity Movement’s response to the Rachel Corrie verdict
ISM | August 28, 2012
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is deeply concerned by the verdict of Judge Oded Gershon that absolved Israel’s military and state of the 2003 murder of American ISM activist Rachel Corrie. Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the American administration stating that the Israeli military investigation had not been “thorough, credible and transparent” and the Israeli government withholding key video and audio evidence, Judge Gershon found no fault in the investigation or in the conclusion that the military and state were not responsible for Rachel’s death. Judge Gershon ruled that Rachel was to blame for her own murder and classifies her non-violent attempt to prevent war crimes as proof that Rachel was not a “thinking person”.
By disregarding international law and granting Israeli war criminals impunity Judge Gershon’s verdict exemplifies the fact that Israel’s legal system cannot be trusted to administer justice according to international standards. The ISM calls on the international community to hold Israel accountable by supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and continuing to join the Palestinian struggle in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Describing the situation in Gaza 2 days before she was killed, Rachel said, “I’m witnessing the systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive. It’s horrifying.” Rachel’s analysis holds true today, confirmed by the United Nations a day before this ruling, which reported that Gaza would not be “liveable” by 2020 barring urgent action.
The verdict is a green light for Israeli soldiers to use lethal force against human rights defenders and puts Palestinian and International human rights defenders in mortal danger.
This will not deter us. As long as our Palestinian sisters and brothers want our presence, the ISM will continue to find ways to break Israel’s siege, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. As Rachel’s mother Cindy put it, “There were children behind the walls of the home Rachel was trying to protect… We should have all been there”.
Judge Gershon’s verdict is a travesty of justice but it is not exceptional. As a rule the Israeli legal system provides Israeli soldiers impunity to commit murder. The only Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter since the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000 was Taysir Hayb, a Bedouin citizen of Israel for shooting British ISM volunteer Tom Hurndall in the back of the head with a sniper rifle as Tom was carrying a child to safety. At least 6,444 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in this period, with no justice for them or their families.
For more information Contact: Aide Mormech 059228094 or Huwaida Arraf 0598336215
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Riot Grrrls and Followers Ride the Bernays Highway
Kenny’s Side Show | August 19, 2012
Haven’t we had about enough of this? In the words of some TV writers, this whole Pussy Riot episode is fake, fake, fake, fake and useful idiots all over the world fall for the script. When so called ‘celebrities’ like Madonna and Paul McCartney show their support, well, you know you’ve been had.
Overall, even the alternative media has failed to expose this blatant psyops. Check out Noor’s posts on this, here and here. Not everyone is fooled.
A fairly good summary comes from someone on the girl’s facebook page:
Freedom of speech is going into a Russian Orthodox Christian Church wearing KKK masks and denouncing Putin and Christianity? Really? What if some women went into a Synagogue in this country and sang some anti-semitic epithets? You better bet your Zionist owned ass that they would be tried as terrorists and disappeared into a Luciferian dungeon for the rest of their lives. This Pussy Riot stunt and the naked Ukrainian girl that chainsawed a Cross to the ground, is just Western backed agitation and BS propaganda. I’m all for free speech and women’s rights but this ain’t it. Ever since Putin kicked out the Jewish Oligarchs from Russia, the CIA/Mossad have been backing stunts like this. Don’t believe the hype. And Kasparov’s real name is Garik Weinstein, Zionist agent. And no culture that bases itself in a cesspit of Luciferianism, Propaganda, Pedophilia, Immorality and Insanity – all designed by Zionists who enjoy dumb goyim fighting amongst each other, will ever lead to a revolution that means anything. Only thing thing Pussy Riot will be good for is the headlining act at a FEMA Camp near you.
And from a comment here:
So obvious. The endless media coverage is of course the first tip off. Russia is standing in the way of certain designated “enemies”(Syria and Iran) and Israel and the US don’t appreciate it. Pussy Riot=obvious psy op.
And here:
The heavy sentence they received is probably the Russian’s way of sending a message to the people that they are not going to tolerate them siding with the US state department in an effort to destabilize the country. This is Putin after all. He’s making a point. And it’s probably not going to the missed by the others in Russia who are trying to help neo-liberalize the country and take them back to the Yeltsin years of corruption and pillaging the nation.
What really topped it off for me was the topless chain saw wielding Ukrainian girl cutting down a cross that was a memorial for those murdered and starved by Stalin’s bolshevik killers. One doesn’t have to be traditionally religious in the least to see it for what it is…an attack on true history that some would want us to forget.
We can understand the paid provocateurs. They do it for the money and the little fame it brings them. It’s the blind followers that are worrisome.
From Propaganda by Edward Bernays
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
Small groups of persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject.
There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.
Nor, what is still more important, the extent to which our thoughts and habits are modified by authorities.
Women are just as subject to the commands of invisible government as are men.
American Jihadists and Israel’s Lone Soldiers: Come for the Perks, Stay for the War Crimes
(Margarita Korol)
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | August 15, 2012
In his 2011 book entitled Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, author J.M Berger (purportedly in his own words) “uncovers the secret history of American jihadists.” Berger, who refers to himself as a “specialist on homegrown extremism,” tells us that these traitorous terrorists are “Muslims [who] have traveled abroad to fight in wars because of their religious beliefs.”
Please read that definition again. OK, just one more time.
Now read this from Tuesday’s New York Times:
On Tuesday, with talk rampant about the possibility of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran, Mr. [Josh] Warhit became a citizen of Israel to enlist in its army.
“Our parents were freaking out,” Mr. Warhit, now 22, recalled of that first trip [to Israel] during the war against Hezbollah. “It only made us more thirsty. I love the Jewish people. Love involves commitment. Right now we need people to commit.
“Of course it’s scary,” he added, regarding Iran, “but if you feel a commitment, that’s the thing to do.”
Warhit explains his decision to leave the country of his birth in order to join the massively American–subsidized military of a foreign state this way: “I love my family, I love my friends and I love the Jewish people. The Jewish people don’t need another Jew in suburban New York.”
Apparently, according to Warhit, what the “Jewish people” do need are more Israeli soldiers using American-bought weapons to maintain a brutal 45-year-old occupation and apartheid legal system, facilitate ethnic cleansing, impose collective punishment upon millions of civilians by way of walls, checkpoints, blockade and siege, bulldoze homes, orchards and olive groves, protect colonists in violation of international law, oppress and dominate an already devastated and dehumanized indigenous population, conduct night raids, abduct, detain, and abuse children, use sonic booms to deliberately terrorize people, wage more aggressive wars and commit more crimes against humanity with total impunity.
If that’s not terrorism then nothing is.
The article, headlined “Enlisting From Afar for the Love of Israel” and written by the Times‘ new Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren, states that “Warhit, who grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., and graduated from the University of Rochester after spending several summers in Israel, was one of 127 soldiers-to-be who landed Tuesday morning at Ben-Gurion International Airport.” The enlistees, referred to as “lone soldiers,” were given “a hero’s welcome that included a live band, balloon hats and a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” who praised them for deciding “to defend the Jewish future.”
In Jihad Joe, Berger writes, “Since 1979, American citizens have repeatedly packed their bags, left their wives and children behind, and traveled to distant lands in the name of military jihad, the armed struggle of Islam.”
Compare that to what Rudoren’s Times report tells us of the young IDF cadets who “left behind parents, girlfriends, cars and stuffed animals to become infantrymen, intelligence officers, paratroopers and pilots in a formerly foreign land.”
“Their motivation is often way higher than the average Israeli,” Colonel Shuli Ayal, who oversees the lone-soldier program, told Rudoren. “They want to make their service as meaningful as possible.”
With such zealous fervor and passionate commitment to his co-religionists and the ethnocentric, exclusivist nationalist ideology of Zionism, it is no wonder that Warhit desperately hopes to join the Givati Brigade, an IDF military unit which Rudoren innocuously writes “has been active around the Gaza Strip” over the past ten years. What she should have told her readership is that the commander of the Givati Brigade, Colonel Ilan Malka, was directly responsible for authorizing the airstrike that murdered 21 members of the Samouni family in Gaza on January 5, 2009 for which no one has been held accountable.
Soldiers in the Givati Brigade are also known to have custom t-shirts designed and printed for their units at end of training or field duty that bear such images as dead Palestinian babies, mothers weeping at their children’s graves, guns aimed at kids and destroyed mosques. These shirts glorify, celebrate, and mock the rape of Palestinian girls, the murder of Palestinian men, women (especially if they’re pregnant) and children.
An anonymous Givati soldier was recently sentenced to a mere 45 days in prison for “illegal use of a firearm,” a charge reduced from manslaughter through a plea bargain. He had willfully murdered 65 year old Ria Abu Hajaj and her 37 year old daughter Majda Hajaj, after they were ordered to evacuate their home in Juhr ad-Dik with their families during the Gaza massacre in early January 2009. They were waving white flags and moving slowly in an area in which there was no combat whatsoever when the Israeli soldier opened fire on the group of 28 Hajaj family members, which included at least 17 children. Apparently, the use of his firearm was illegal, not the execution of civilians.
Clearly, for Warhit, it’s all about the love.
The article continues, “[A]ccording to a military spokeswoman, Israel has enlisted 8,217 men and women from other countries since 2009, 1,661 of them from the United States, second only to Russia’s 1,685,” adding, “They receive a host of special benefits: three times the typical soldier’s salary, a personal day off each month, a free flight home and vouchers for holiday meals.”
How’s that for incentive? Come for the perks, stay for the war crimes.
A March 2012 article in the Jewish online journal Tablet chronicles “Aluf Stone, an organization for Diaspora-born soldiers who have served in the Israel Defense Forces” that was formed in 2008 and is affiliated with the American Veterans of Israel (which is something that apparently exists). The report quotes Aluf Stone co-founder Marc Leibowitz describing service in the Israeli military as “a specific and meaningful shared experience. Deeper than an alumni group or a fraternity, which people are fanatical about.”
Fanatical.
Leibowitz explained that most Jewish groups are wary of associating with Aluf Stone since “[n]o organization wants to be seen as if they are encouraging Americans to fight in a foreign army.” Still, the article’s writer Adam Chandler reveals, in 2011 “the group was invited by the Friends of the IDF to speak at a synagogue in New York and share their stories with an audience composed of family members of IDF soldiers from the States.”
One member of Aluf Stone told Chandler that American-born former IDF soldiers “don’t belong in U.S. veterans’ groups and networks, as they didn’t [all] serve in the American military.” Consequently, “Aluf Stone occupies an interesting middle ground in the U.S.” More accurately, perhaps, the members of Aluf Stone were actually occupying Palestine.
While it’s clear that these Jewish foreigners who join the Israeli military do so out of some sort of fervent compulsion and perceived obligation to their own religious tribe, so much so that they leave their own nation to bear arms on behalf of another, it should be noted that numerous studies have found religious ideology not to be a prime motivating factor in terrorist attacks credited to Muslims.
An unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board on Sept. 23, 2004 determined that:
Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States.
Professor Richard Jackson of The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand concurs that “terrorism is most often caused by military intervention overseas, and not religion, radicalization, insanity, ideology, poverty or such like.”
Political Science professor at the University of Chicago and founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, Robert Pape, who has conducted some of the most comprehensive research and written the most respected analysis of terrorist motivation, concluded in a 2010 study that “suicide terrorism such as that of 9/11 is particularly sensitive to foreign military occupation, and not Islamic fundamentalism or any ideology independent of this crucial circumstance.” His data reveals that “[m]ore than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation.”
That U.S. and Israeli policies of invasion and occupation rather than religious extremism are the guiding forces behind acts of terrorist violence is evidenced in a letter allegedly written by those responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and published in The New York Times. It stated, “This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.”
The letter adds, “The American people are responsible for the actions of their government” and “all of the crimes that their government is committing against other people.”
Tragically, those American lone soldiers, that zealous minority of homegrown ideologues who – in J.M. Berger’s words – “travel abroad to fight in wars because of their religious beliefs,” will now be personally responsible for the actions and crimes of the Israeli government and military as well.
US Realists, Neocons and the War in Syria
Pletka wants Washington to ‘stop subcontracting Syria policy.’ (C-SPAN)
By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | August 15, 2012
In US political circles, the Syria conflict is increasingly being presented as a discussion pertaining to Israeli interests. This attitude is not substantially different from the way US politicians and media weighed in on the Egyptian January 25 revolution and its aftermath. Egypt mostly matters because of the US-brokered Camp David treaty of 1979, which benefited Israel beyond all expectations. The treaty had ushered in a false period of peace; it turned Egypt into an American ally, largely alienating it from its Arab political context.
When it comes to US foreign policy in the Middle East, Israel represents a point of departure for many in the US political establishment. Neoconservative groups have long defined US foreign policy in the region. Their most crucial and unifying concern is Israel’s security and any threat, real or imagined, to Israel’s regional domination.
The neocons clustered through various organizations and think tanks. Most visible among them was the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which included very influential foreign policy individuals. PNAC’s ‘vision’ was seen as the roadmap that guided George W. Bush in his war against Iraq, the sanctions against Iran, and the overall hostile relationship that defined (and continues to define) US foreign policy in the Middle East. Tainted by the disastrous foreign policy, PNAC folded, only to be reinvented two years ago with the advent of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).
The neocons are duly challenged. Their critics in the establishments are the ‘realists’ (as described by former Secretary of State James Baker in a recent interview with Foreign Policy). The so-called realists are far less organized than the neocons. They were simply empowered by the latter’s mammoth failures. Now the neocons are making a comeback, thanks to the golden opportunities presented by ongoing conflicts throughout the Middle East.
“Our biggest threat today isn’t Syria, or even Iran, or Russia or China,” Baker told Foreign Policy. “Our biggest threat today is our own economy, and we cannot continue to be strong diplomatically, politically, and militarily and be weak economically” (August 9). Baker, of course, hasn’t completely abandoned Israel. The problem is that the pro-Israel camp is asking for a military intervention in Syria and an escalation against Iran, both of which come with a high political and financial price tag — one that the US cannot afford.
Another ‘realist’ is Aaron David Miller, a former US adviser on the Middle East (to six Secretaries of State) and a member of the US Advisory Council of Israel Policy Forum. Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 6, in an article entitled ‘Syria: Let’s Stay out of It’, Miller stated, “Syria today is a mess — but it’s a Syrian mess. Afghanistan and Iraq should teach us that America can’t control the world. It’s time for the United States to focus on fixing its own broken house instead of chasing the illusion that it can always help repair somebody else’s.”
However, this ‘realist’ estimation by Miller was further discussed in his article in Foreign Policy two days later. In ‘Winners and Losers of Syria’s Civil War,’ Miller argued that Israel was a possible winner in case of Bashar Al Assad’s fall.
“The good news for the Israelis is that Iran and Hezbollah will be weakened by Al Assad’s fall. The bad news is that like so much of the Arab Spring/ Winter, the impending transition brings with it enormous uncertainty.”
US intervention in Libya was a much easier decision for both neocons and realists. A letter was organized by the Foreign Policy Initiative and signed by 40 policy analysts, calling on President Barack Obama’s administration to arm Libyan rebels and to “immediately’ prepare for military action to bring down the Libyan regime under Muammar Gaddafi. The neocons’ calls at the time were hardly rejected as ‘unrealistic’. According to Jim Lobe, they were “a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage US intervention in the Balkans and Iraq.” Of course, they got what they asked for in Libya. Now, the neocons are pushing for another intervention in Syria.
“Washington must stop subcontracting Syria policy to the Turks, Saudis and Qataris. They are clearly part of the anti-Al Assad effort, but the United States cannot tolerate Syria becoming a proxy state for yet another regional power,” wrote Danielle Pletka, a leading neocon and vice-president of Foreign and Defence Policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington Post, July 20).
Despite immense hesitation from the Obama administration, the neocons are now trying to weasel in their version of an endgame in Syria. Their efforts are extremely focused and well-coordinated, making impressive use of their direct ties with the Israeli lobby, major US media and Syrian leaders in exile. Writing in CNN online, Elise Labott reported on a recent neoconservative push to upgrade American involvement in Syria, urging “the Obama administration to increase its support of the armed opposition” (CNN, August 1).
The ‘experts’ included Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), another pro-Israel conduit in Washington, established in 1985 as a research department for the influential Israeli lobby group, AIPAC. Obama obliged under pressure from the ‘experts’. According to CNN, he signed a secret order “referred to as an intelligence ‘finding,’ allow[ing] for clandestine support by the CIA and other agencies.”
More, On July 31, AIPAC urged all members of Congress to sign on a bill introduced by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman. Entitled ‘The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (H.R.1905)’, the bill, if passed, “will establish virtual state of war with Iran,” according to the Council for the National Interest. The old neoconservative wisdom arguing for an unavoidable link between Syria, Iran and their allies in the region is now being exploited to the maximum. Their hope is to settle all scores left unsettled by the Bush administration.
US foreign policy in Syria is likely to become clearer once the signs of an endgame become easier to read. Until then, the neocons will continue to push for another campaign of intervention. For them, influencing the endgame in favor of Israel is much more beneficial than dealing with a divided country, which is ‘subcontracted’ to other regional powers, per Pletka’s unrelenting wisdom.
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- How much will America’s animus against Iran distort U.S. policy toward Syria? (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- The Yinon Thesis Vindicated: Neocons, Israel, and the Fragmentation of Syria (alethonews.wordpress.com)
United Church of Canada Decides To Boycott Settlement Products
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | August 16, 2012
Following around six hours of deliberation, the United Church of Canada (UCC), the largest Protestant denomination in the country, voted for boycotting products made in Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
The Toronto Star reported that a spokesperson of the UCC general council identified as Bruce Gregersen, stated that the decision is considered a significant step.
The UCC will be holding another vote on Friday to decide whether this boycott would be a regarded as a permanent policy of the church.
Israeli Ynet News reported that the Centre for Israel and the Jewish Affairs in Canada said that it was “outraged by this decision”, and considered it “a move that singled out Jewish communities for boycott”.
The Centre claimed that this decision is considered a “reckless path”, and added that the decision just dismisses the concerns of the Jewish community in Canada.
According to the Ynet, Chairman of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, David Koschitzky, stated that mainstream Jewish organization, including the Canadian Friends of Peace Now, “do not approve of this boycott decision”.
He added that this decision ignored around 100.000 families, members of different Jewish federations in Canada, and said that this decision “also ignores written rejection letters of 70 Canadian Rabbis, representing tens of thousands of Jewish families in the country”.
Israel’s settlements are located in the occupied Palestinian territories, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem. There have been several churches and organizations around the world, including educational facilities that have previously voted in favor of boycotting products made in Israel’s settlements.
Israel’s settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal under International Law, and even violate the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a signatory.
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Jewish Settlers Empty Palestinian Well, Flood Farmlands
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | August 15, 2012
A group of extremist Israeli settlers used electric pumps to empty a Palestinian irrigation well and flooded Palestinian farmlands in as-Seer area, east of Sa’ir town, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Resident Yassin Mohammad ash-Shalalda, told the Land Research Center that settlers of Esfir and Mitzad settlements carried out their attack on Tuesday at night. The settlers reportedly used a motor pump to empty the well and flooded the nearby Palestinian farmlands.
He added that several hundred cubic meters of land were wasted in the attack, and that the residents use this water for both irrigation and as a source of drinking water for their livestock.
Ash-Shalalda further stated that the residents filed a complaint to the Israeli police in Keryat Arba’ settlement in Hebron, but are not hopeful that there will be any affirmative action by the police due to the fact that numerous previous assaults, carried out by the settlers, were never investigated
The area in question is subject to frequent attacks especially since the settlers of both the illegal settlements of Mitzad and Esfir have been trying to expand their colonies at the expense of privately-owned Palestinian lands. The two outposts were also built on privately-owned Palestinian land.
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a signatory.
Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are turning Palestinian cities, towns and villages into isolated ghettoes, while Israel and the extremist settlers continue to focus on fertile Palestinian lands, mainly in the Jordan Valley. Most Israeli settlements and outposts are also built on hilltops surrounding different parts of the occupied West Bank.
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Shifting Truths in Sinai: The political value of murdering Egyptians
By Ramzy Baroud | Press TV | August 13, 2012
Two Land Cruisers filled with about fifteen well-built gunmen in ski masks and all-black outfits appear seemingly out of nowhere. Behind them is vast, open desert. They approach a group of soldiers huddled around a simple meal as they prepare to break their Ramadan fast. The gunmen open fire, leaving the soldiers with no chance of retrieving their weapons.
This is not an opening scene out of a Hollywood action movie. The massacre actually took place at an Egyptian military post in northern Sinai on August 5th. The description above was conveyed by an eyewitness, Eissa Mohamed Salama, in a statement made to the Associated Press (August 8). The gunmen were well-trained. Their overt confidence can only be explained by the fact that “one militant got out a camera and filmed the bodies of the soldiers.”
One is immediately baffled by this. Why would the masked militants wish to document the killings if they were about to embark on what can be considered a suicide mission in Israel? “The gunmen then approached the Israeli border,” with two vehicles, one reportedly a stolen Egyptian armored personnel carrier. The BBC, citing Israeli officials, reported that one of the vehicles “exploded on the frontier,” while the other broke through the Israeli border, “travelled about 2km into Israel before being disabled by the Israeli air force” (BBC News Online, August 7). According to the BBC report, citing Israeli sources, there were about 35 gunmen in total, all clad in traditional Bedouin attire.
Their mission into Israel was suicidal, since, unlike Sinai, they had nowhere to escape. But who would embark on such a logistically complex mission, document it on camera, and then fail to take responsibility for it? The brazen attack seemed to have little military wisdom, but it did possess a sinister political logic.
Only 48 hours before the attack, the media was awash with reports about the return of electricity in the Gaza Strip. The impoverished Strip’s generators have not run on full capacity for about six years – since Hamas was elected in the occupied territories. The Israeli siege and subsequent wars killed and wounded thousands, but they failed to bend Gaza’s political will. For Gazans, the keyword to their survival in the face of Israel’s blockade was ‘Egypt’.
The Egyptian revolution on January 25, 2011 carried a multitude of meanings for all sectors of Egyptian society, and the Middle East at large. For Palestinians in Gaza, it heralded the possibility of a lifeline. The nearly 1,000 tunnels dug to assist in Gaza’s survival would amount to nothing if compared to a decisive Egyptian decision to end the siege by opening the Rafah border.
In fact, a decision was taking place in stages. Hamas, which governs Gaza, was a branch of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The latter is now the lead political force in the country, and, despite the military’s obduracy, it has managed to claim the country’s presidency as well.
In late July, a high level Hamas delegation met in Cairo. All the stress and trepidation of the last 16 months seemed to have come to an end, as Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, his deputy Musa Abu Marzouq and other members of the group’s politburo met with President Mohammed Morsi. The country’s official news agency reported Morsi’s declarations of full support “for the Palestinian nation’s struggle to achieve its legitimate rights”. According to Reuters, Morsi’s top priority was achieving unity “between Hamas and Fatah, supplying Gaza with fuel and electricity and easing the restrictions on the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.”
Juxtapose that scene – where a historical milestone has finally been reached – with an AFP photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak, standing triumphantly next to a burnt Egyptian vehicle that was reportedly stolen by the Sinai gunmen. The message here is that only Israel is serious about fighting terror. Israeli newspaper Haaretz’s accompanying article started with this revelation: “Israel shared some of the intelligence it received with the Egyptian army prior to the incident, but there is no evidence Egypt acted on the information.” This was meant to further humiliate Egypt’s military.
Naturally, Israel blamed Gaza, even though there is no material evidence to back such accusations. Some in Egypt’s media pounced on the opportunity to blame Gaza for Egypt’s security problems in Sinai as well. The loudest amongst them were completely silent when, on August 18, 2011, Israel killed six Egyptian soldiers in Sinai. Then, Israel carried out a series of strikes against Gaza, killing and wounding many, while claiming that Gaza was a source of attack against Israeli civilians. Later the Israeli media dismissed the connection as flawed. No apologies for the Gaza deaths, of course, and AP, Reuters and others are still blaming Palestinians for the attack near Eilat last year. Then, Palestinian factions opted not to escalate to spare Egypt an unwanted conflict with Israel during a most sensitive transition.
None of that seems relevant now. Egypt is busy destroying the tunnels, continuing efforts that were funded by the US a few years ago. It also closed the Gaza-Egypt crossing, and is being ‘permitted’ by Israel to use attack helicopters in Sinai to hunt for elusive terrorists. Within days, Gaza’s misfortunes were multiplied and once more Palestinians are pleading their case. “Haniyeh calls on Morsi to open border crossing closed since Sunday’s Sinai attack, say(ing) ‘Gaza could never be anything but a source of stability for Egypt,” reported Reuters.
Israeli officials and analysts are, of course, beside themselves with anticipation. The opportunity is simply too great not to be utilized fully. Commenting in Egypt-based OnIslam, Abdelrahman Rashdan wrote that according to the Israeli intelligence scenario, “Iranians, Palestinians, Egyptians, and al-Qaeda operatives all moved from Lebanon to attack Egypt, Israel and defend Syria.”
In Western mainstream media, few asked the question of who benefits from all of this – from once more isolating Gaza, shutting down the tunnels, severing Egyptian-Palestinian ties, embroiling the Egyptian military in a security nightmare in Sinai, and much more?
The Muslim Brotherhood website had an answer. It suggested that the incident ‘can be attributed to the Mossad.’ True, some Western media outlets reported the statement, but not with any degree of seriousness or due analysis. The BBC even offered its own context: “Conspiracy theories are popular across the Arab world,” ending the discussion with an Israeli dismissal of the accusation as ‘nonsense.’ Case closed. But it shouldn’t be.
Before embarking on a wild goose chase in Sinai, urgent questions must be asked and answered. Haphazard action will only make things worse for Egypt, Palestine and for Sinai’s long-neglected Bedouin population.
Related articles
- Analysts say Sinai attack attempt to strain Egypt-Gaza relations (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israel evacuated military outpost near Rafah hours before Sinai attack (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- August 5 Sinai Attack Bears All the Hallmarks of an Israeli False Flag (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Former Fatah strongman Dahlan accused of taking part in Sinai attack (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israel should retake Philadelphi – Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
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Indian government slammed for joint research programs with Israel
PressTVGlobalNews | August 12, 2012
Good old Israel?
By Georgina Reeves | Palestine: a journal of everyday occupation | August 5, 2012
In his latest piece written for the New York Times, Avraham Burg asks: “Where is the good old Israel?” Assuming he is not being tongue-in-cheek, and there is no suggestion in the rest of the article that he is, he continues to peddle the same old clichés that liberal Zionists are so fond of. Propaganda is a powerful tool, but so is the truth.
He talks of the early days of Israel’s foundation: “It was an age of dreamers and builders who sought to create a new world, one without prejudice, racism or discrimination.” He neglects to mention, though, the Palestinians who remained in what became Israel, and how the new state treated them.
From 1948 until 1966, Palestinians lived under martial law. They required permits issued by the military governor to leave their villages or towns. Palestinians were subject to curfews, administrative detention – detention without charge or trial – and expulsions were common. As Palestinians were concentrated mainly in the Galilee, the Negev and the Triangle, subjecting them to such strict measures of control was simple for the authorities.
Alongside the physical restrictions on Palestinians, the newly-created state of Israel also enacted laws designed to dispossess Palestinians of their land and their rights to their land. The Absentees Property Law aimed to take ownership of property and land belonging to Palestinians. The term “absentee” was carefully applied and targeted Palestinians who had been expelled from their homes during the war of 1948.
This law applied to Palestinians who had been made refugees and were now outside Israel, and also to those who were now in Israel but living as internally displaced persons. Israel calls these Palestinians “present absentees”, an Orwellian state of being which denies them access to their homes, even though many live in the same area and their homes are still standing (unlike the 500-plus towns and villages razed to remove the evidence of Palestinians’ existence on the land for many hundreds of years before).
Burg goes on to say “But something went wrong in the operating system of Jewish democracy. We never gave much thought to the Palestinian Israeli citizens within the Jewish-democratic equation.” But that is just not true. A lot of thought went in to how to treat the non-Jewish citizens of Israel. Even before 1948 the Zionists were planning how to gain as much land with as few Palestinians as possible: for the Zionist plan of the Jewish state to become reality, Arabs had to be removed.
Yossef Weitz, director of the Jewish National Fund played a major role in acquiring land for the Yishuv (pre-1948 Jewish community). He stated: “Transfer does not serve only one aim—to reduce the Arab population—it also serves a second purpose by no means less important, which is to evict land now cultivated by Arabs and to free it for Jewish settlement. The only solution is to transfer the Arabs to neighbouring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be let off.”
The Dalet plan was devised during February 1948 by the Haganah – the Jewish paramilitary organisation succeeded by the Israeli Defence Forces upon Israel’s establishment. The plan was simple: the systematic expulsion of the Arab communities. The expulsions were conducted by the Palmach (elite Haganah fighters), the Irgun and the Stern (Lehi) gang. Villages and towns were attacked, depopulated and destroyed.
The men who designed and fought the war of 1948 were the same men who designed and created Israel after that war. Prejudice, racism and discrimination characterise the Israel they built and the Israel that exists today. The truth is there never was a “good old Israel”.
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UAE tortured, killed journalist for opposing Israel normalization
The Cradle | October 31, 2026
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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