Catalonians need to be careful, there’s an evil divisive force behind their quest for independence

Catalonia The Newest European Kosher State?

Catalonia’s ruling coalition has vowed to declare independence “immediately” if a majority of voters back it in an October referendum.Secessionists in the north-east region have long argued that it should break away from Spain. Catalonia is one of Spain’s richest regions, both culturally and industrially. It also boasts its own distinct language – Catalan – and centuries-old customs.

Until recently, there was little support for full independence – but Spain’s painful economic crunch has prompted an upswing. BBC

The Government of Catalonia^]or Generalitat de Catalunya is the institution under which the autonomous community of Catalonia in Spain is politically organised. It consists of the Parliament of Catalonia, the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Government of Catalonia.

It was controlled in the 70s 80s 90’s till 2003  by Jordi Pujol

Here’s his Speech at the Knesset Jerusalem, October 28, 2003

I come from a family at first rather sympathetic with the Jews, but not especially interested. However, there was something that increased, by reaction, the pro-Jewish attitude, and was that the Franco regime was anti-Jewish. And oddly enough, he mixed Judaism with Catalanism. In times of great Francoist exaltation and xenophobia of Spain, we were accused of being the Jews of Spain But as I said, I did not come into contact with Judaism alone. Also, and in a certain sense above all with Zionism. And not in a superficial way. At only 17-18 years old I read Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” and a very comprehensive book by Chaïm Weizmann, which tells the whole Zionist struggle…………

His successor was Artur Mas He believes that  Israel is a strategic country for Catalonia and we want to continue strengthening our cooperation”

The President of President of the Generalitat of Catalonia is Carles Piugdemont

 

Carles Puigdemont, left, president of the autonomous region of Catalonia and former mayor of Girona, thanks Jewish Russian Billionaire Shimon Aminov, center. Looking on, from left, are: vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky; Rabbi Berel Lazar of Russia and Rabbi Dovid Liebersohn of Barcelona.

His Media advisor a guy called Aleix Clarió tweets saying that 32 percent of Spanish exports are to Israel and 79% of Israeli investment is to Catalonia

The Catalonian Jews seem ready to jump the Spanish ship and join the Catalonian independence crowd Five Catalan cities have decided to leave Spain’s network of Jewish quarters, an organisation dedicated to preserving and promoting medieval urban Jewish neighbourhoods.Marta Madrenas, the mayor of Girona, which is one of the cities leaving the network, told the New York Times that she and her allies would create a new network because “we think we can do better in terms of showcasing our Jewish patrimony.” Source European Jewish Council website

The official Catalonian Govt website says QUOTE From the Catalan Government Trade & Investment office in Tel-Aviv, you get tailor–made information and full support for a smooth, fast and successful set-up of operations in Catalonia from start to finish. We also offer personalised assistance to Catalan companies wishing to open in Israeli markets and find new global business opportunities.ENDQUOTE  Source

The joker in the pack is a 59 year old named Alfons Lopez Tena

In 2012 Catalan leader predicts independence in about two years, and close friendship with Israel 

In 2015 he had completely changed his mind Catalonia’s independence quest ‘wishful thinking’,

 

“Israel sought independence, and gained it. It revived its language and has for 65 years dealt with the hostility of the nations surrounding it. That explains our support of Israel and the Jewish people. On a personal level, I define myself as being pro-Israel and pro-Zionist.  These are views I inherited, in my family.I well remember the concern that filled our house at the time of the Six Day War. I was a boy at the time, 10 years old, and we all prayed for Israel’s survival.”

Sounds crypto enough to me or as the Spanish put it a Marrano

Marrano Tena has in the same article by Haretz been described as one of the main leaders of the separatist movement when in truth his party has just 4 out of 135 seats in the Catalan Assembly

For some wierd reason crypto Tena has taken to criticizing Modi on twitter and repeatedly mentioning he fought Franco Maybe his PR people told him thats the easiest way to increase his “international image” Four seat backed Tena could suddenly be projected as the great Catalonian Anti Facist Freedom Fighter

We all know how the Jewish Media can make or break someone’s “image” these days

Come October after the probably Yes vote expect a surge of Rohingya like sympathy for the Catalan nation

Breaking Spain up Sweet revenge for the Alhambra Decree ???

@FIFAcom ‏ignores International Law: FIFA Won’t Intervene in Palestinian-israeli Crisis Over Settlement Soccer Teams

FIFA Won’t Intervene in Palestinian-Israeli Crisis Over Settlement Soccer Teams

The impasse centers on Israeli teams that play in West Bank settlements, which the Palestinian Football Association says is against FIFA rules

Palestinian youth hold cards reading “Israel out of FIFA,” in Hebron, West Bank, May 28, 2015.

Global soccer body FIFA will not intervene in the impasse between the Israeli and Palestinian football authorities and considers the matter closed, its president Gianni Infantino said on Friday.

The dispute centers on six teams from lower divisions of the Israeli league which are based in settlements in the West Bank and play their matches there.

The Palestinian Football Association says this is contrary to FIFA statutes which state that a member country’s teams cannot play matches on the territory of another association without permission.

The PFA has also complained that Israel hampers its activities, including limiting the movement of players between the West Bank and Gaza, and that it has barred some international travel.

Israel has cited security concerns for its actions and the Israeli FA says it is not responsible for the actions of its government.

In 2015, the PFA proposed during a FIFA Congress that Israel be suspended from international soccer but backed down after FIFA set up a task force led by South African politician Tokyo Sexwale.

“FIFA has decided to refrain from imposing any sanctions or other measures on either the Israel FA or the Palestinian FA,” Infantino told a news conference after a FIFA Council meeting.

 “These territories are a concern for the international public law authorities and FIFA has to remain neutral.”

A FIFA statement added: “The matter is declared closed and will not be the subject of any further discussion until the legal and/or de facto framework has changed.”

The statement acknowledged that the situation was exceptionally complex and said that any interference by FIFA could aggravate the footballing situation in the region.

It made no specific mention of the six clubs.

Israeli settlements on the occupied territories are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

FIFA said it would “continue to facilitate the movement of players, officials and football equipment in, out of, and within Palestine.”

israel-dominated U.S. Congress passes four more anti-Iran bills

Source

NY Congressman Eliot Engel (second from left) is lead sponsor on recent anti-Iran bills. Engel, who is the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has traveled to Israel often and is one of its most fervent defenders. (Photo is from his Congressional website.)

If Americans Knew | October 27, 2017

Ever since Iran’s increasingly despotic Shah was overthrown by a popular revolution in 1979, Israel has targeted Iran for attack because of the country’s support for Palestinian rights. (The Shah had been put in place by a 1953 UK-US engineered coup against the country’s Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh.)

The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. said recently that Iran is Israel’s number one concern, and an Iranian newspaper reported: “Iran is the primary target of the Mossad’s actions, which number in the hundreds and thousands each year.”

The Israel lobby has accordingly worked for U.S. policies against Iran, including disseminating advertisements that demonize Iran; an example is this 2010 full-page advertisement in the New York Times :

The list on the left is of the groups that sponsored the ad, as evidenced by their icons at the bottom of the ad.

Now Congress has obliged Israel and its lobby by passing four more bills against Iran. Below is a report on the latest legislation. (Photographs and some additional information in Italics have been added.)

By Bryant Harris, Al-Monitor

Despite a purely partisan Republican push to alter the terms of the Iran nuclear deal, an overwhelming majority of US lawmakers from both parties continues to advance legislation to counter Iranian behavior throughout the Middle East.

The House passed four bills today and Wednesday taking aim at Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite paramilitary group fighting alongside Iranian forces on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. In addition, Iran hawks in Congress continue to press the Donald Trump administration to ban US aircraft sales to Iran and designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.

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Member Pro-Israel Groups Funded Travel*
* – Trips are those approved, which includes all trips from office both by members and by staffers…

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Lee, Barbara (D, California District 9 ) $5,968.63 2
Lee, Christopher J (R, New York District 26 ) $15,024.74 1
LeMieux, George S (R, Florida Senate)
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Linder, John (R, Georgia District 7 ) $0.00 0
Lipinski, Daniel (D, Illinois District 3 ) $0.00 0
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Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah has opposed Israeli invasions and occupation. Photo is of a Beirut suburb bombed by Israel in 2006.

“The whole thing with the [nuclear deal] that irked me throughout was that during the course of the negotiations … we were told consistently that this was only about nuclear weapons,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Al-Monitor. “We couldn’t raise terrorism, we couldn’t raise ballistic missiles. We couldn’t raise all the other things against Iran and it frustrated me to no end.”

“I think those of us who really feel that Iran is a major cause of instability in the Middle East need to make sure that Iran is sanctioned,” Engel added.

[U.S. intelligence agencies have found no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.]

In July, Congress passed the first round of sanctions on Iran since the 2015 nuclear accord. The Iran Ballistic Missiles and Sanctions Enforcement Act, which the House passed 423-2 today, would further expand sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Senate must now vote on the additional sanctions package before it can head to Trump’s desk.

Engel, the lead cosponsor of both Iran sanctions packages, has described today’s bill as “pretty similar” to the July sanctions package. The new version, however, would affect entities and individuals supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program even if they don’t have assets in the United States.

The House also passed three bills targeting Hezbollah on Wednesday. The US government considers Hezbollah a terrorist group and US lawmakers overwhelmingly regard it as an Iranian proxy.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) at the ‘National Leadership Assembly for Israel’ event organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. (National Press Club July 28, 2014 in Washington, DC.)

“They’re giving the money to Hezbollah to kill individuals and fund terrorism around the world,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on Fox News before Wednesday’s votes. “And we’re putting an end to that, continuing to put the sanctions and the pressure on.”

The primary Hezbollah sanctions bill, the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act, introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., passed the House unanimously on Wednesday. It is designed to cut Hezbollah’s funding streams from foreign states such as Iran while cracking down on the group’s alleged racketeering activities abroad. The Jerusalem Post reported in September that Iran now gives Hezbollah roughly $800 million a year, an unprecedented level of funding.

Congressmen Ed Royce (L) and Eliot Engel (R) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Companion legislation passed the Senate unanimously earlier this month. The House version, however, contains some extra provisions that single out Iran and Russia for their support of Hezbollah.

Specifically, the House version amends a 2010 Iran sanctions package to include Iran’s support for Hezbollah and directs the administration to sanction government entities that are already on the State Department’s state sponsor of terrorism list if they support Hezbollah. Iran, Syria and Sudan are currently the only three countries on that list.

Engel, the lead cosponsor of the Royce bill, told Al-Monitor that he’s optimistic its Iran provisions will survive reconciliation with the Senate version.

“I think ultimately they won’t disappear because I think both sides of the aisle understand that Iran’s a threat and even those who want to keep the [Iran deal] don’t want to take the pressure off Iran,” said Engel. “When we do things and wrap it up for the year, I think the Iran sanctions have to be in there.”

The House also unanimously passed legislation from Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., to impose overlapping sanctions on foreign states and individuals for providing support to Hezbollah due to its alleged use of human shields. The sanctions in both Hezbollah bills would target the same individuals and entities, but its supporters say the Gallagher bill still has value.

“The purpose of these bills, especially the reporting part, is to highlight the various harmful actions which Congress wants to expose with regard to Hezbollah,” said Joseph Gebeily, the president of the Lebanese Information Center, a think tank critical of Hezbollah.

Gebeily added that the Gallagher bill “puts more focus on the United Nations Security Council’s responsibility in disarming Hezbollah and preventing its military operations in Lebanon.” The bill requires the US ambassador to the United Nations to “secure support for a resolution that would impose multilateral sanctions against Hezbollah for its use of civilians as human shields.”

Lastly, a resolution offered by Rep. Ted Deutch, R-Fla., to urge the European Union to designate the political wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization passed the House unanimously. While the EU considers Hezbollah’s paramilitary wing to be a terrorist group, US lawmakers have repeatedly voiced their frustration that it does not extend that designation to Hezbollah parliamentarians and Cabinet officials in Lebanon.

Congressional Representatives Ilyana Ros-Lehtinen and Ted Deutch with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Deutch’s website says: “Congressman Ted Deutch is a passionate supporter of Israel whose advocacy for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship stretches back to his youth. Ted spent his summers at Zionist summer camp, worked as a student activist in high school and college, and served in leadership roles on several local and national Jewish organizations throughout his professional career. Today, Ted serves as Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s influential Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, where he continues to champion Israel’s security during a time of great volatility in the Middle East.”

And House lawmakers aren’t done.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, continues to push for adoption of his bill urging the State Department to designate the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has a companion bill in the Senate.

US Rep. Michael McCaul (sixth from left) led a 2015 bipartisan Congressional delegation to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump himself designated the IRGC as a terrorist-supporting entity when he declined to certify the nuclear deal earlier this month, but the move falls short of what some in Congress are asking for.

“There’s not really an expansion of sanctions on the IRGC,” said Kenneth Katzman, an Iran sanctions expert at the Congressional Research Service. Trump’s executive order “has a slight travel restriction, obviously, but how many IRGC people … are going to realistically get visas to come to the United States?”

McCaul agrees more could be done.

“The president, when he sanctioned the IRGC, went a long ways in terms of getting the idea of it,” he told Al-Monitor. “However, they didn’t designate it as a foreign terrorist organization. So I’d like to complete that.”

McCaul told Al-Monitor that his bill is currently held up by staff on the House Judiciary Committee who believe that designating terrorist organizations should remain strictly within the purview of the administration.

“Maybe we’ll work with leadership to put it to the floor anyway,” he said.

Iran hawks in the House are also fighting to preserve legislation that would that would bar US aircraft manufacturers, such as Boeing and Airbus, from selling civilian airliners to Iran. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., included the language in a spending package in September.

Congressman Peter Roskam speaks at AIPAC fundraiser in Chicago, 2013. (Video here.) Roskam co-chairs the House Republican Israel Caucus and is a member of the bipartisan Israel Allies Caucus.

The 2015 nuclear deal paves the way for such sales, but Roskam and others fear that Iran could use the civilian airliners to transport troops to fight on behalf of the Syrian regime. The Senate version of the appropriations bill, however, does not contain such language.

israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu Is Leading US President Trump to War with Iran

Can Generals James Mattis (US Secretary of Defense) and John Hyten (Head of US Strategic Command) Prevent a Disaster?

By Prof. James Petras | Global Research | October 27, 2017

Introduction

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Presidents of the 52 Major Jewish American Organizations are leading President Trump, like a puppy on a leash, into a major war with Iran. The hysterical ’52 Presidents’ and ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu are busy manufacturing Holocaust-level predictions that a non-nuclear Iran is preparing to ‘vaporize’ Israel. The buffoonish US President Trump has swallowed this fantasy wholesale and is pushing our nation toward war for the sake of Israel and its US-based supporters and agents. We will cite ten recent examples of Israeli-authored policies, implemented by Trump in his march to war (there are scores of others).

1. After many years, Israel and ‘the 52 Presidents’ finally made the US withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) because of its detailed documentation of Israeli crimes against Palestinian people. Trump complied with their demands.

David Friedman (Wikimedia Commons)

2. Tel Aviv demanded a Zionist fanatic and backer of the illegal Jewish settler occupation of Palestinian lands, the bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, be appointed US Ambassador to Israel. Trump complied, despite the ambassador’s overt conflict of interest.

3. Israel launched waves of savage bombings against Syrian government troops and facilities engaged in a war against ISIS-mercenary terrorists. Israel, which had backed the terrorists in its ambition to break-up of the secular Syrian state, demanded US support. Trump complied, and sent more US arms to the anti-government terrorists.

4. Israel denounced the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal Framework and Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed by 6 major states and UN Security Council Members, (US, France, UK, Germany, China and Russia). A furious Netanyahu demanded that President Trump follow Tel Aviv and abrogate the multiparty agreement signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump complied and the US is at risk of openly violating its international agreement.

Trump parrots Netanyahu’s falsehoods to the letter: He raves that Iran, while technically in compliance, has violated ‘the spirit of the agreement’ without citing a single instance of actual violation. The 5 other signers of the ‘Framework’, the US military and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly certified Iran’s strict compliance with the accord. Trump rejects the evidence of countless experts among US allies and ‘his own generals’ while embracing the hysterical lies from Israel and the ‘52’. Who would have thought the ‘hard-nosed’ businessman Trump would be so ‘spiritual’ when it came to honoring and breaking treaties and agreements!

5. Israel and the ‘52’ have demanded that Washington imprison and fine US citizens who have exercised their constitutional First Amendment Right of free speech by supporting the international boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is designed to end the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and crimes against Palestinians. Trump complied. Americans may soon face over a decade in prison and complete economic ruin for supporting a peaceful economic boycott of Israeli settler products. This will represent an unprecedented violation of the US Constitution. At present, US public employees, like teachers in certain US states, are facing job loss for refusing to sign a ‘loyalty oath’ not to boycott products from Israel’s illegal settlements. Desperate American victims of the floods and natural disasters in Texas are being denied access to public US taxpayer relief funds unless they sign similar loyalty oaths in support of Israel.

6. Israel demanded that the US appoint Zionist fanatic real estate attorney, Jason Greenblatt and real estate speculator, Jared Kushner as Middle East peace negotiators. Trump appointed South Carolina businesswoman Nikki Haley as US Ambassador to the United Nations. Israel pushed for Ms. Haley, the first US governor to criminalize support for the peaceful BDS movement.

7. Trump went against the advice of ‘his Generals’ in his own cabinet regarding Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement, and chose to comply with Netanyahu’s demands.

8. Trump supports the long-standing Israeli project to maneuver a Kurdish takeover of Northern Iraq, grabbing the oil-rich Kirkuk province and permanently dividing the once secular, nationalist Iraqi nation. Trump has sent arms and military advisers to the Kurds in war-torn Syria as they attempt to grab territory for a separate ‘Kurdistan’. This is part of an Israeli plan to subdivide the Middle East into impotent tribal ‘statelets’.

9. Trump rejected the Turkish government’s demand to extradite CIA-Israeli-backed Fethullah Gulen, self-exiled in the US since 1999, for his leadership role in the failed 2016 military coup d’etat.

10. Like all his predecessors, Trump is completely submissive to Israeli-directed ‘lobbies’ (like AIPAC), which operate on behalf of a foreign power, in violation of the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act. Trump chose his Orthodox Zionist son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a callow real estate investor and prominent supporter for war against Iran, as his chief foreign policy adviser.

President Trump’s irresponsible pandering to Israel and its American-Jewish agents has caused deep unease among the Generals in his cabinet, as well as among active duty and retired US military officers, who are skeptical about Tel Aviv’s push for open-ended US wars in the Middle East.

Ten Reasons Why Military Officers support America’s Nuclear Accord with Iran

The Netanyahu-Israel First power configuration in Washington succeeded in convincing Trump to tear-up the nuclear accord with Iran. This went against the advice and wishes of the top US generals in the White House and active duty officers in the field who support the agreement and recognize Iran’s cooperation.

The Generals have ten solid reasons for rejecting the Netanyahu-Trump push to shred the accord:

1. The agreement is working. By all reliable, independent and official observers, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the US intelligence community and the US Secretary of State – Iran is complying with its side of the agreement.

2. If Trump violates the agreement, co-signed by the 6 members of the UN Security Council, in order to truckle to the whims of Israel and its gang of ‘52’, the US government will lose all credibility among its allies. The US military will be equally tainted in its current and future dealings with NATO and other military ‘partners’.

3. Violation of the agreement will force the Iranians to restart their nuclear, as well as advanced defensive weapons programs, increasing the risk of an Israeli-Trump instigated military confrontation. Any US war with Iran will be prolonged, costing the lives of tens of thousands of US troops, its land bases in the Gulf States, and warships in the Persian Gulf. Full-scale war with Iran, a large and well-armed country, would be a disaster for the entire region.

4. US generals know from their earlier experiences under the George W. Bush Administration that Zionist officials in Washington, in close collaboration with Israeli handlers, worked tirelessly to engineer the US invasion of Iraq and the prolonged war in Afghanistan. This led to the death and injury of hundreds of thousands of US military personnel as well as millions of civilian casualties in the invaded countries. The ensuing chaos created the huge refugee crises now threatening the stability of Europe. The Generals view the Israel-Firsters as irresponsible armchair warmongers and media propagandists, who have no ‘skin in the game’ through any service in the US Armed Forces. They are correctly seen as agents for a foreign entity.

5. US generals learned the lesson of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Somalia – where disastrous interventions led to defeats and loss of potential important regional allies.

6. US generals, who are working with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to negotiate an agreement with North Korea, know that Trump’s breaking a negotiated agreement with Iran, only reinforces North Korea’s distrust of the US and will harden its opposition to a diplomatic settlement on the Korean Peninsula. It is clear that a full-scale war with nuclear-armed North Korea could wipe out tens of thousands of US troops and allies throughout the region and kill or displace hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians.

7. US generals are deeply disturbed by the notion that their Commander in Chief, the elected President of the United States, is taking his orders from Israel and its US proxies. They dislike committing American blood and treasure for a foreign power whose policies have only degraded US influence in the Middle East. The generals want to act for and in defense of US national interests – and not Tel Aviv’s.

8. US military officials resent the fact that Israel receives the most advanced US military weapons and technology, which have been subsidized by the US taxpayers. In some cases, Israelis receive advanced US weapons before US troops even have them. They also are aware that Israeli intelligence agents (and American citizens) have spied on the US and received confidential military information in order to preempt US policy. Israel operates within the United States with total impunity!

9. US generals are concerned about negotiating accords with China over strategic military issues of global importance. The constant catering and groveling to Israel, an insignificant global economic entity, has reduced US prestige and status, as well as China’s trust in the validity of any military agreements with the Americans.

10. Trump’s total reliance on his pro-Israel advisers, embedded in his regime, at the expense of US military intelligence, has led to the construction of a parallel government, pitting the President and his Zionist-advisers against his generals. This certainly exposes the total hypocrisy of Trump’s presidential campaign promise to ‘Make America Great Again’. His practice and policy of promoting war with Iran for the sake of Israel are placing US national interest and the advice of the US generals last and will never restore American prestige.

Trump’s decision not to certify Iran’s compliance with the accord and his handing the ultimate decision on an international agreement signed by the six members of the UN Security Council over to the US Congress is ominous: He has effectively given potential war making powers to a corrupt legislature, often derided as ‘Israeli occupied territory’, which has always sided with Israeli and US Zionist war mongers. Trump is snubbing ‘his’ State Department, the Pentagon and the various US Intelligence agencies while giving into the demands of such Zionist zealots as New York Senator Charles Schumer, Netanyahu’s alter ego in the US Senate and a huge booster for war with Iran.

Conclusion

Trump’s refusal to certify Iran’s compliance with nuclear accord reflects the overwhelming power of Israel within the US Presidency. Trump’s rebuke of his generals and Secretary of State Tillerson, the UN Security Council and the 5 major cosigners of the 2015 accord with Iran, exposes the advanced degradation of the US Presidency and the US role in global politics.

All previous US Presidents have been influenced by the billionaire and millionaire die-hard Israel-Firsters, who funded their electoral campaigns. But occasionally, some ‘Commanders in Chief’ have decided to pursue policies favoring US national interest over Israel’s bellicose ambitions. Avoiding a catastrophic war in the Middle East is such a case: Obama chose to negotiate and sign a nuclear accord with Iran [though implementation was stalled]. Tel Aviv’s useful fool, Donald Trump, intends to break the agreement and drag this nation further into the hell of regional war.

In this regard, international opinion has sided with America’s generals. Only Israel and its US acolytes on Wall Street and Hollywood applaud the blustering, bellicose Trump!

Atzmon Once Again

October 21, 2017  /  Gilad Atzmon

By Gilad Atzmon

I learned from the Jewish Chronicle  today that Berkshire Jews are “horrified” because yours truly has “challenged Holocaust denial legislation.” What caused the present outbreak of Pre Traumatic Stress? Apparently, my Sunday book launch at the Reading International Festival.

First, I am sorry to hear that my questioning of Jewish identity politics and culture have created a state of Jewish collective horror. I would be pleased if any Berkshire Jews would bravely dare to attend my talk on Sunday, they may discover that they agree with most of my observations.

But what is it in my new book Being in Time – A Post Political Manifesto that inflicts ‘horror’ on Berkshire Jews and other Jewish institutions? No one knows. The book has been well-reviewed and no one has yet found any factual mistakes or a methodological flaws in the text. Ifthey want to burn it then you certainly want to own a copy.

In the last few days, British Jewish institutions have used every trick in the Hasbara book in an attempt to cancel my coming talk.  The notorious CAA and the ultra Zionist Board of Deputies of British Jews mounted pressure on the venue, they contacted the local council, they harassed local politicians; they even attempted to recruit ‘LGBT activists’ who were asked to pursue thevenue.

The Jewish Chronicle reports that Rabbi Zvi Solomons of the Jewish Community of Berkshire said that Mr Atzmon is “a notorious antisemite. He has promoted Holocaust denial, compared Israelis to the Nazis.” Other political organizations have taken the accusations against me seriously. They have carefully examined the matter and have found that the claims levelled against me are baseless, malicious and often duplicitous.

The Rabbi wrote,  “The event organisers did not seem concerned that they were going to be providing a platform to a known peddler of hatred.”  I believe that the Rabbi should accept that outside of his congregation, criticism of ID politics, and Jewish culture are considered a legitimate intellectual and ethical adventure. Further, I have been writing on Jewish and Zionist matters for 20 years, and in spite of the strict anti hate legislation in the UK and other countries, I have never been questioned by a single law enforcement body about any of my writings or public speeches, neither here in Britain nor anywhere else around the world.

The Rabbisaid, “They are giving a platform to someone who is lauded by white supremacists. Surely that is not the intention of a venue like that.”

There is an element of truth there. My work has been praised by a wide spectrum of intellectuals: Right, Left and Centre (see here and here). One explanation is that I am dealing with meta-political issues. Rather than advocating a political standpoint, I attempt to offer a method to engage in ethical discussions within a critical philosophical framework.

Jonathan Arkush, the president of the Board of Deputies, said no “reputable event should feature Gilad Atzmon.” He reiterated that the Board was “extremely concerned that the Solidarity Centre and the festival organisers appear happy to host someone with such a track record for openly racist views.”

The one thing, neither Arkush, Rabbi Solomons nor any other detractor of mine has ever managed to do is to point at a single critical reference to race or biology in my entire body of work. I do not criticise people, I dissect culture and politics and dig into their meaning.

The Jewish Chronicle reports that a small number of congregants from Rabbi Solomons’ 50-strong community plan to hold a protest vigil if the event goes ahead. Two weeks ago I encountered a similar vigil in Berkeley, California. The event organiser was able to persuade the entire Zionist group to attend the talk. At the end of the talk, some of the Zionists admitted to the organiser that they were persuaded by my argument and were impressed by my delivery. I am looking forward to meeting the Rabbi and his followers. I will, of course, invite them to join the peace lovers inside the Reading International Solidarity building.

If they want to burn it, you want to read it! Being in Time – A Post Political Manifesto, Amazon.co.uk , mazon.com and  here (gilad.co.uk).  

To understand Gilad watch Gilad and All That Jazz:

 

Syrian general explains why US won’t be able to set up a Kurdish region

By  News Desk

 –

27/10/2017

The war against terrorists is coming to a victorious end in Syria, and the Kurdish issue is gaining momentum. The Syrian Army has recaptured vast territories near Deir ez-Zor, bordering Raqqa Governorate, where the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are operating. Syrian Brigadier General Turki al Hasan has commented on the latest developments.

Brigadier General Turki al Hasan offered his opinion on the situation around Syria’s largest oil field, al-Omar, which has been recently taken by the SDF.

“The US wanted to take this oil field under its control to be able to supply oil products to all the groups they support and weaken the Syrian government. The oil field is now controlled by the predominantly Kurdish SDF because Daesh have left the area on the order of the US. The SDF have quietly captured the deposit,” the Syrian military official opined.

However, he ruled out any further strengthening of the Kurds’ positions.

“The US won’t be able to set up a Kurdish region on Syrian territory. There are very few Kurds residing in this area, and so there is not enough support for this plan,” the military official explained.

Turki al Hasan further suggested that the success of the Syrian army in Deir ez-Zor will undoubtedly contribute to the political settlement of the Syrian conflict at the upcoming peace talks in Astana.

Brigadier General Turki al Hasan explained that terrorists have been forced out of their positions around Deir ez-Zor airport and the Syrian army is getting ready to liberate Al-Bukamal, a city on the Euphrates River in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.

According to the military analyst, the country’s servicemen have no intention to fight with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which are operating in Raqqa right now, as it has other goals to achieve first.

Source: Sputnik

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Imam Khamenei Warns Abadi of US Plots against Iraq: Don’t Trust Washington

October 26, 2017

Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei called on Iraqi government not to truct the United States, saying Washigton, the real creator of ISIL terrorist group, would not hesitate to harm Iraq whenever possible.

In a meeting with Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Tehran on Thursday, Imam Khamenei cautioned Baghdad against US plots.

“Americans themselves created Daesh, but now that the terrorists have been defeated by the Iraqi government and nation, they pretend to favor and support such a major development,” Imam Khamenei said, referring to the Arabic acronym of ISIL.

US will “undoubtedly strike a blow to Iraq again” whenever it has the opportunity, the Leader said.

The Leader also hailed Iraq’s victory against the terrorists and their sponsors as a result of unity among various Iraqi ethnicities and of the Baghdad government’s support for the popular forces.

Describing Iraq as an influential and major country in the Arab world, Ayatollah Khamenei praised Baghdad government for its efforts to safeguard the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Iraq.

Ayatollah Khamenei also voiced support for the expansion of Tehran-Baghdad relations in all fields.

The visiting Iraqi premier, for his part, expressed gratitude to Iran for supporting the Arab nation in the fight against terrorism, saying Baghdad embraces broader ties with Tehran.

Abadi also reaffirmed commitment to protecting Iraq’s unity and integrity, saying his government would not allow secessionist moves to threaten the country.

Source: Iranian media

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SYRIAN SOCIAL NATIONALIST PARTY, ARAB NATIONALISM AND CONFLICT IN SYRIA

South Front

The traditional societies of the Middle East have always been notable for their ethnic and religious diversity. Today, however, the Middle East is on the cusp of a deep schism along ethnic and religious lines. This situation has brought several Muslim Arab states to the brink of collapse, is provoking new difficult to resolve conflicts, and continues to undermine the secular aspect of Arab nationalism to the benefit of strengthening its Islamic component, the replacement of nationalism as such with ultra-religious extremism and ethnic separatism.

An Iraqi Army M1A1M Abrams battle tank destroyed by Kurdish Peshmerga forces during the recently sparked Arab-Kurdish tensions in northern Iraq:

The current range of conflicts, which revolve around the struggle for power and territory, showed their destructive potential. The difficulty in resolving such conflicts is due to their roots in history, which further complicate the search for peace. There is also another, no less important, problem. Most of the current Arab states’ political organizations are based on the principle of nationalism. This is the principle that was used to form the post-Ottoman independent states. Their multi-religious and multi-ethnic nature was also the aftermath of the rather arbitrary drawing of borders during the colonial period.

The Evolution of Arab Nationalism

By the end of the late ‘30s and early ‘40s of the 20^th Century, the influence of Islam on Arab nationalist movement began to grow. This was to a large extent due to a deep disappointment on the part of a sizable proportion of liberal secular Arab elites in the “civilizing” mission of the secular and enlightened West. As a result of Middle East policies of Western powers, Arabs were not able to establish a single state. Their lands were arbitrarily divided between Great Britain and France, the newly founded states became colonial dependencies. Simultaneously, Western powers actively supported the creation of a national Jewish nucleus in the Palestine, which only worsened the already tense situation.

After WW2, this process continued, receiving its expression in the concept of urub, or the spirit of Arab national consciousness, in order to strengthen the ties between Arab nationalism and Islam. The struggle over the future course of political development that raged in Arab states in the 1950s and ‘60s in the context of establishing independent states and modern societies brought to power secular Arab nationalists (Ba’athists, Naserites), who tried to pursue development using socialist ideas.

In spite of that, the Islamist trend within Arab nationalism did not vanish but merely receded. Even the most progressive and secular Arab leaders were forced to seek legitimacy in adherence to Islam and respect the interests of religiously active parts of society when forming own base of support.

Supporters of President Bashar al-Assad (portrait) wave Baath Party flags during a pro-government rally in Damascus. FILE IMAGE: Louai Beshara – AFP

The lack of a charismatic mainstream leader with regional appeal capable of offering a pan-Arab model of secular development respecting the interests of the Arab Muslim majority, the rights and desires of national and religious minorities, and attract regional elites and the broad masses, caused Arab leaders to encounter problems in the early 21^st century. The long-serving leaders were  concerned continuity of their political course, in order to guarantee their own interests were preserved. Young Arab leaders inherited power from their fathers. This was achieved through intra-elite compromise, achieved not so much through free agreement or a democratic choice, but rather through clever intrigues and strong-arm tactics used to neutralize possible competition. Therefore the young leaders were forced to mostly worry about forming their own governing team, balancing between various power centers and regularly proving their legitimacy and the ability to govern the state to both domestic and international actors.

In the 1990s and early ‘00s, economic problems and the desire to demonstrate pro-democracy leanings led some Arab leaders to strengthen own legitimacy through elections. But the main winners of this liberalization were Islamist political movements, whose adherence to Western democratic norms was dubious.

As an alternative to hereditary power transfer, a whole range of moderate Islamic movements (for example, Tunisian An-Nahda Islamic party led by Rached Ghannouchi) entered the fray with the aim of democratizing Islam. They called for a “democratic Islamic state” within the existing borders. They also favored renouncing violence as a means of political struggle, condemned terrorism, supported the principle of open parliamentary elections, questioned the idea of divinity of authority, supported democratic power transition procedures, and also spoke in favor of expanding the role of women in the traditional Islamic society while in general actively promoting human rights.

But here the reformers of Islam ran into a problem. There were and are too few supporters of democratic Islam in the strongly traditional Arab society. And one can readily say the society is not ready for them. Can one seriously view the ideologues of moderate Islam the pioneers of democracy in the Arab world? Can a democratic Islamic state ensure political and religious pluralism, which is one of the fundamental aspects of democracy? How does one reconcile the norms of Sharia with human rights in the way they are understood in the West? To what extent can women’s rights be expanded? They could not answer these questions, and therefore the political fray was joined by supporters of Islamic fundamentalism who called for a return to the sources of Islam and build a modern society on this foundation.

Modern Islamic fundamentalism was formed as a reaction to such secular ideologies as liberalism, Marxism, and nationalism. For Muslim fundamentalists, an Islamic state was an ideological state, expanding its authority into every aspect of human life. It would control social, political, economic, and even cultural interactions. Sovereignty in such a state belongs to God, which in practical terms means Sharia law. Fundamentalists spoke in favor of democratic elections not for the sake of establishing democracy or individual freedoms, but in order to establish the rule of Islam. And when fundamentalist theorists touched upon the question of democracy, they were not talking about its compatibility or incompatibility with Islam, but about how difficult it was to reconcile Western democratic principles with Islamic governance that could only be based on the revealed laws of Islam—Sharia.

But even here there were problems. Principles of “pure Islam” adhered to by Wahhabites and Salafites were most applicable to the environment of early Middle Ages. When one had to overcome tribal conflicts and built a centralized state. The assumption of power in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood did not resolve societal problems, but rather made them worse. ISIS implementation of Islamic state ideas in Iraq and Syria showed how savage the application of Islamic norms can be in the context of 21^st Century. The only example of successful functioning of a theocratic state is Iran. But here the overwhelming majority of population are adherents of Shia Islam which is based on the principle of vilayat al-fakih. This principle assumes that the leadership over the Shia is to a certain extent centralized and is being implemented by authoritative and competent Shia clerics whose authority is beyond doubt.

Given the proliferation of ideas and Islamic movements, the question of how (and whether) one can reconcile secular Arab nationalism with Islam, in order to develop the basis for a new national ideology, gains in importance. Or perhaps might it not be better to reject the idea of Arab national state with Islamic leanings?

It may be now is the time for concepts based on national, religious, and territorial principles, which could found the basis of a new political system capable of neutralizing obsolete medieval vestiges of Islam, unify states whose borders were drawn by Western powers without considering local issues, ensure justice among various ethnic and religious groups, stabilize international relations in the region.

One of such movements which might be ready to solve above-mentioned problems is the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Party History and Program

The idea of a Syrian nation within clearly defined borders is not new. In the 19t century the proponents of a Syrian state included Butrus al-Bustani, who believed that a unified Syrian nation ought to form an autonomy within the Ottoman Empire that required reform. His follower Henri Lammens, a prominent Arabist of the late 19^th-early 20^thcenturies, claimed that Greater Syria existed already in ancient times in the Fertile Crescent. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of an Arab state became a very real possibility. But the intervention by Western powers in the affairs of former vassals of the Porte and the Sykes-Picot delineation of spheres of responsibility ended plans for creating such a state.

Antoun Saadeh

But the idea did not die, and in 1932 the Lebanese journalist and Christian Antoun Saadeh created the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). It was founded as an anti-colonial and liberation organization. Saadeh rejected language and religion as defining characteristics of the new nation, and instead clamed nations are formed through joint developments of peoples inhabiting a certain geographic area.

SOURCE: Stratfor.com

The Syrian national state, as imagined by the party founder, should cover the Fertile Crescent and the area of current Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Cyprus, Sinai, south-east Turkey (Alexandretta and Cilicia), parts of the Zagros mountains on Lebanese territory, and regions in Saudi Arabia’s north.

According to Saleh, “the aim of the SSNP is a Syrian social renaissance which will accomplish unification and breathe life into the Syrian nation, organizing a movement seeking full independence of the Syrian nation and defense of its sovereignty, creating a new social order to protect its interests and increase its standard of living, seeking to form the Arab Front.”

A map of Greater Syria. SOURCE: theweichertreport.com

Its main principles are separation of mosque and state, keeping the clerics from involvement in political and legal processes, removing religious barriers, removing feudal relics from social life, transforming the agrarian economy into an industrial one, protection of worker rights, of national and state interests, and the establishment of strong, effective military.

When it comes to relations with Jews, SSNP is strictly anti-Zonist, since Saadeh believed Jews were unable and unwilling to assimilate. He also criticized assertions that the Jews could be a foundation for a national state. According to SSNP Jews were not a nation because they were a heterogeneous mixture of nations.

SSNP flag. Click to see the full-size image

The party emblem is whirlwind (Arabic “Zawba’a), which according to party members is a fusion of Christian cross and Islamic half-moon. Emblem arms represent freedom, duty, discipline, power. The black backdrop reflects the dark past as part of Ottoman Empire, colonialism, national and religious fragmentation, and backwardness.

Here one needs a caveat to clarify the party’s name and its emblem. There is no similarity between it and the NSDAP. SSNP was formed long before NSDAP. Saadeh visited Axis powers during WW2 and was arrested by French colonial authorities, but released after they couldn’t find evidence of collaboration, and Nazi leaders said they had no dealings with him. He was also in favor of French colonial authorities over Nazi rule.

The creation of Israel in 1948 and its militant, aggressive policies pursued with Western approval caused worry in Arab states. Israel’s actions caused as an attempt to meddle in Arab matters using Jewish hands, and once again redraw the borders. Arab leaders’ incompetence caused their defeat in the 1947-48 war. Saadeh criticized their actions, and in 1949 SSNPR attempted a coup in Lebanon which failed. As a result of collusion between Lebanese and Syrian governments, and with active British intelligence support, Saadeh was executed. The party was delegalized. Prior to the start of the civil war, SSNP attempted another coup in 1961, fought against Arab nationalists. The civil war the party viewed as the consequence of dividing the Syrian nation into separate states. Until the end of the war, SSNP fought alongside Hezbollah against Israeli occupiers and their Lebanese supporters. Only in the early ‘90s did the party become legalized and, starting in 1992, it participates in Lebanese parliamentary elections.

In Syria itself, SSNP was a significant force since independence. But ideological disagreements with the ruling Ba’ath Party and the Syrian Communist Party led to SSNP leaving Syria’s political arena.

Current Situation

In the spring of 2005, SSPN was partly legalized in Syria and allowed an observer in the National Progressive Front which is headed by Ba’ath.

The party viewed the start of anti-government demonstrations as yet another effort to fracture the country along ethno-religious lines. It organized demonstrations in support of the current government. On February 26, 2012 the majority of Syrians supported a referendum that amended the constitution by removing Ba’ath Party from the post of the leading political force, equalizing its status with other parties. This allowed SSNP to fully participate in political struggles. Between March 2012 and May 2014 the party was part of the opposition Ba’ath National Front For Change and Liberation. But in May its leader stated SSNP would leave the National front and support Bashar Assad in presidential elections.

Ali Haidar

The current leader of SSNP in Syria is Ali Haidar, who also the Minister of National Reconciliation in Syria’s government. The party secretary is Joseph Sweid. He also has a ministerial portfolio. In Lebanon, SSNP is headed by Ali Halil Qanso who is also the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs

The party currently is the most numerous political force in Syria, after the ruling Ba’ath, with over 100,000 members. In 2012 elections the party won 4 out of 250 seats in Syria’s parliament, in 2009 Lebanese elections it won 2 seats out of 128.

Here is what Ali Haidar said in an interview with the Al-Mayadin TV channel concerning the civil war in Syria. “Throughout the war, the US headed the anti-Syrian campaign and tried to destroy Syria’s national existence using terrorist groups such as ISIS and an-Nusra. US airstrikes on ISIS terrorists on one hand, and sponsoring and training “opposition” fighters simply amount to replacing uncontrollable terrorism with US-controlled one.” In his view, US regional strategy has not changed. They seek to change Middle East’s political structure to guarantee Israel’s security and legalize its existence. As to reconciliation, Haidar said that it’s not a political tactic but the fate of all Syrians, the result of governmental effort on the national level, even though in some regions of Syria it is encountering resistance due to the presence of foreign mercenaries.

Armed formations and their role in the Syrian war

SSNP’s armed formation is the Nusur al-Zawba’a (Eagles of the Whirlwind). It was formed during the Lebanese civil war in 1974. The main motivating factor for SSNP member participation in the war was the ongoing war against Wahhabism and Israel which supports it, in order to preserve the multicultural and multi-religious Syria. Since 2014, Eagles of the Whirlwind are considered the most effective pro-government force, after the SAA.

Click to see the full-size map

Eagles’ strength is eastimated at 6-8 thousand. They operate in Raqqa, Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Sweida, Deraa, Deir-ez-Zor, Idlib, Latakia, Jobar, Damascus, East and West Ghouta provinces. They are armed mainly with small arms and improvised armored vehicles. This is due to them fighting mainly in urban confines, where rapid movement is required, every  house is a fortress, and tanks are an easy and sluggish target.

Eagles differ from other formations in that they don’t have a single commander. Each unit has its own commander and each region its administrator. Their names are unknown, only their pseudonyms.

The heaviest fighting experienced by SSNP units took place in northern Latakia, in Salma, Ghamam, and Deir Hanna. This region was strategically important since it is adjacent to Turkey and provides supply and reinforcement routes for an-Nusra. Moreover, controlling this region blocks militant movement into the province and also opens a route for government forces into Idlib.

Click to see the full-size image

Another region where Eagles were active is the al-Ghab plain. This plain runs along western coastal mountains, and is in close proximity to Hama province capital. Controlling the plain creates a buffer zone which is crucial to ensure the security of coastal regions. Next to al-Ghab there are several cities with mainly Christian population, Mahardah and al-Suqaylabiya. Mahardah, in particular was the site of heavy fighting since the start of the war. Since 2015, Islamists launched attacks here nearly every day. The approaches to the city were nominally held by SAA’s 11^thDivision. But in the 6 years of war, the unit had practically ceased to exist. The division had under 500 soldiers and officers in March-April 2017. SSNP was able to field about 1500 fighters from among local inhabitants, and only their presence allowed the SAA to hold this important sector.

Click to see the full-size image

The Homs province includes the mostly Christian city of Sadad, which was also a test for SSNP fighters. An-Nusra first took Sadad in October 2013. According to Human Rights Watch, 46 inhabitants, including 14 women and 2 children, were murdered, some of the bodies were dropped into a well, and churches were looted. After intensive clashes, the SAA ejected Islamists from Sadad on October 28, 2013.

Two years later, in October-November 1015, ISIS appeared on Sadad outskirts after capturing nearby Muheen. The city was defended by local population, SAA, and 500 Christian fighters. They were helped by 200 SSNP fighters. Fighting together, they were able to stop ISIS advance.

Click to see the full-size image

The Sadad visit by Syrian Orthodox Church Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem Karim II was an important event. He met with the fighters to raise their morale and take part in funeral rites. The defense of the city is significant because it is one of the few remaining Syrian cities with predominantly Christian population, fighting against a huge number of jihadists.

SSNP units are recruited from among Orthodox Lebanese and Syrian Christians. At first, most of the recruits came from Lebanon, then their number decreased as the number of Syrians grew. One should not think, however, the Eagles consist only of Christians. Muslims and Christians are fighting side by side. This was evident in Sadad fighting, where SSNP units contained many Muslim volunteers. This fact is yet more evidence of the level of support the idea of Syrian state has among its adherents, and SSNP does nto segregate along religious lines.

At present time, due to the large-scale government offensive, Eagles units maintain order in cities liberated from the militants.

The party’s future in Syria’s political life

In order to determine SSNP’s role in Syria’s and Middle East’s political life, one must deal with several difficult to answer questions.

SSNP’s strong aspects. Spring 2011 demonstrations were caused by external factors but also the internal political stagnation. The Ba’ath party has been in power since the early ‘60s. Sooner or later the war will end and Syria will have to make a choice—what political forces will govern the country? Secular and radical Islam have shown its true nature, and there is no return to it. USSR collapsed over 25 years ago. Without its support, there is also no future for a return of socialist parties in the Middle East. Therefore SSNP has a good chance to gain power and show its abilities. By Middle East standards, SSNP is a political veteran. It has a clearly defined program, which it follows. There is an advanced ideology with a future, which is important when no other political force can offer anything new. Seeking dialogue with the ruling party (Ba’ath in Syria) means that in extreme conditions SSNP will not seek confrontatios and is ready to aid its former rival. Participating in the war against Islamic and international terrorism, in deed and not word, gives the party considerable weight and popular support.

Omar Sanadiki / Reuters

Weak aspects. Since its start, the party has been underground. This is reflected in its low level of participation in legislative activity in Syria and Lebanon, as mentioned earlier. Apart these two countries and Jordan, where SSNP has been active since 2013, the party has no significant presence elsewhere.

Political democratization in post-imperial nation-states, first secular and then religious, meant the transfer of power into the hands of the majority. The question of religious or national minorities was addressed in different ways by various countries but, as a rule, these approaches tended to rely on force. Some nations had to emigrate, others took up arms. Given progressive state weakness and near-universal drive for autonomy, one can draw the conclusion the region is continuing its process of tribalization. Overcoming the remnants of clan and tribal systems and the minorities’ desire for own sovereign states will be very difficult for SSNP. This is further complicated by the persecution of Christians and their mass exodus from Lebanon in the past and Syria right now. But the local Christians were the most opposed to any forms of violence, and represented the intellectual and entrepreneurial elite. They made the party into what it is today: ready for dialogue, to offer a new path of development, to defend own country with force of arms.

SOURCE: RIA

There are also external factors which cloud the future of SSNP. How will regional powers, like Turkey or Israel, react to the appearance of a new actor, the Greater Syria? Will they allow it to appear at all? Will the leaders of countries in SSNP zone of interest be willing to give up own power, population, and territory?

Internal and external factors make SSNP’s future extremely uncertain. The idea of establishing a state on the basis of the common aspects of the people populating the region is still ahead of its time. But even if SSNP fails for some reason, it will represent a big step toward creating a new-model Arab state.

Conclusion

Unlimited nationalism as foundation of state system has sparked a trend toward anarchy and therefore can no longer be used as an effective means of political organization and preserving societal stability. Arab leaders who survived Arab Spring find it difficult to ensure own legitimacy, internal stability, and good relations with more powerful neighbors. Some have left the stage peacefully. Some were forcibly removed. Others are fighting to remain in power. Wars, coups, mass unrest, and outflow of refugees are boosting the trend toward anarchy and threaten not only the Middle East but the whole world. The recent history of Middle Eastern countries contains many examples of struggle between and cross-pollination among religious (pan-Islam, Islamic Modernism) and secular (Pan-Arabism, Arab Nationalism) currents. This trend to a certain extend determined the evolution of the Arab political thought and helped to, up to a certain point, adapt to the ideas borrowed from the West. But as noted above, they were unable to avert the fracturing of the Middle East and address the conflict among ethnic and religious groups. This fracturing is made worse by the arbitrary nature of borders of countries which qualify as Arab. These states control the territory they do largely due to powerful external pressure, and not as a result of internal processes. It means the current system suffers from a delay-fuse bomb planted under it. It may be now is the time to implement new political ideas and to establish a state based on a historic sense of community among people living in a certain area, irrespective of their language, religion, or nationality.

It’s a Miracle: Britain Drops 3,400 Bombs In Syria (illegal) And Iraq, Claims No Civilian Casualties

Britain Drops 3,400 Bombs In Syria And Iraq, Claims No Civilian Casualties

By Jamie Merrill

Royal Air Force drones and jets have dropped more than 3,400 bombs and missiles on Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, an investigation by Middle East Eye has revealed, yet the British government maintains that there is “no evidence” they have killed a single civilian.

The vast quantities of ordnance dropped since the start of Operation Shader against IS in 2014 seriously undermines the claim by ministers that the RAF has not caused any civilian casualties in the three-year-long bombing campaign, and has prompted calls for an investigation.

The Ministry of Defence does not routinely release statistics on the numbers of weapons used over Iraq and Syria, but an MEE analysis has combined weekly updates of operations in the region and information collated by campaign group Drone Wars.<img src=”http://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/themes/core/images/ads/ad-mp-squigl.jpg” class=”no-thickbox”/>

It shows that up to the end of September UK forces have dropped at least 3,482 bombs and missiles in the battle against IS, including 2,089 Paveway IV bombs and 486 Brimstone missiles dropped by Typhoon and Tornado jets.

RAF Reaper drones have also fired 724 Hellfire missiles at IS

Weekly report on israel’s terrorism against the Occupied Palestine (19 – 25 October 2017)

Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 

(19 – 25 October 2017)

Israeli forces continue systematic crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt)

(19 – 25 October 2017)

 

 

• Palestinian child was wounded in the centre of Hebron, south of the West Bank.

• Israeli forces conducted 67 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and a limited one into the central Gaza Strip.
• 95 civilians, including 30 children, were arrested in the West Bank.
• 54 of them, including 23 children, were arrested in Jerusalem and its suburbs.
• Israeli forces confiscated amounts of money, claiming their owners obtained them from Hamas Movement and maltreated many families.

• Israeli forces continue to target the Gaza Strip border areas.

• Israeli authorities continue to make a Jewish majority in occupied East Jerusalem.
• Israeli Intelligence and police officers along with their Special Forces carried out an arrest and maltreatment campaign against the residents of al-‘Issawiyah village.
• Israeli forces raided “Saint George” Hotel in the centre of Jerusalem and prevented a seminar from being held, claiming it is sponsored by the Palestinian Authority (PA)

• Israeli forces continue settlement activities in the West Bank
• Two dwellings, a grow house and barrack were demolished in Hebron.
• Israeli forces also confiscated an excavator, which was clearing a plot of land in Beit Dajen village, east of Nablus.

• Israeli forces continued to target the Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip Sea.
• 6 Shooting incidents were documented against Palestinian fishing boats, but no casualties were reported.

• Israeli forces turned the West Bank into cantons and continued to impose the illegal closure on the Gaza Strip for the 10^th
• Dozens of temporary checkpoints were established in the West Bank and others were re-established to obstruct the movement of Palestinian civilians.
• 10 Palestinian civilians, including 4 children, were arrested at the checkpoints in the West Bank.
• A patient from Khan Younis was arrested at Beit Hanoun “Erez” Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip.

 

Summary

Israeli violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the oPt continued during the reporting period (19 – 25 October 2017).

 

Shooting:

During the reporting period, Israeli forces wounded a Palestinian child from Hebron in the southern West Bank.  In the Gaza Strip, Israeli naval forces continued to chase Palestinian fishermen in the Sea and open fire at farmers and houses in the border areas.

 

In the West Bank, on 20 October 2017, a 14-year-old Palestinian child was wounded with a bullet to the right foot when Israeli soldiers stationed at the checkpoint at the entrance to al-Shuahdaa’ Street in the centre of Hebron, moved into Bab al-Zawiyah neighbourhood.  A number of children and youngsters gathered in the neighbourhood and threw stones at the soldiers, who opened fire at the stone-throwers.  As a result, the child was wounded.

 

In the Gaza Strip, as part of the Israeli attacks against Palestinian fishermen offshore, Israeli forces monitored the Israeli escalating attacks against Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Sea although the later were allowed to sail up to 9 nautical miles instead of 6.  This proves that the Israeli forces continue their policy to target fishermen and their livelihood.  During the reporting period, Israeli gunboats chased the fishing boats and opened fire at them 6 times; 3 were in the north-western Beit Lahia and 3 in the western Soudaniyah area in the northern Gaza Strip.

 

In the context of targeting the border areas, on 22 October 2017, Israeli forces stationed along the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel, east of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at the border area.  Neither casualties nor damages to property were reported.  The shooting recurred in the same area on 25 October 2017.

 

Incursions:

 

During the reporting period, Israeli forces conducted at least 67 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During those incursions, Israeli forces arrested at least 95 Palestinian civilians, including 30 children. Fifty-four of those, including 23 children, were arrested in Jerusalem and its suburbs.  PCHR also documented that Israeli forces maltreated Palestinian civilians while raiding their houses.  During many house raids, Israeli forces confiscated amounts of money claiming their owners obtained them from Hamas Movement.

 

During the reporting period, after the school day ended in Haji Ziad Hamoudah al-Rajabi School in al-Nasara Valley neighbourhood in the southern area of Hebron, Israeli soldiers along with a settler attacked the school students, claiming the latter threw stones at the soldiers.  When the teachers intervened, the soldiers detained the Deputy Head of the school and threatened to arrest him under the pretext of inciting the students.

 

In the Gaza Strip, on 24 October 2017, Israeli forces moved 100 meters into the western side of the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel, northeast of al-Bureij, amidst the Israeli shooting towards farmers, who were forced to leave the area.  The Israeli vehicles levelled and combed the lands adjacent to the border fence and later redeployed along the fence.

 

Measures to Make a Jewish Majority in occupied East Jerusalem

 

During the reporting period, on 23 October 2017, Israeli soldiers and Special Police and Intelligence officers backed by a helicopter moved into al-‘Issawiyah village, northeast of Hebbron from its entire main and sub entrances.  They raided and searched dozens of houses and so terrified the residents.  Before withdrawing, Israeli forces arrested 50 civilians from the village, including 23 children, and took them to the detention and investigation facilities in Jerusalem.

 

As part of targeting NGOs, on 25 October 2017, Israeli forces and Intelligence officers raided “Saint George” Hotel on Salah al-Deen Street in the center of occupied EJrusalem.  They prevented a seminar titled as: “Islamic and Christian Endowments in Jerusalem” from being held under the pretext of being sponsored by the PA.

 

Settlement Activities and Settlers’ Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and their property:

 

On 19 October 2017, Israeli forces demolished a grow house belonging to Mohammed ‘Isa al-Yatimin al-Tawanah village, east of Yatta, south of Hebron.

 

On the same day, Israeli forces demolished a 60-square-meter country house comprised of 2 rooms in al-Halawah area, south of Yata.  This house sheltered Younis Jamil Abu ‘Aram, his wife and 2 children along with his brother Mahmoud and his wife and 2 children as well.  They also levelled a residential tent built of bricks on an area of 40 square meters.  The tent sheltered ‘Ali Mohammed ‘Ali Abu ‘Aram, his wife and 2 children.

 

On the same day, Israeli forces confiscated a 50-square-meter barrack built of tin plates in Beit Z’atah area, northeast of |Beit Ummer village, north of Hebron after dismantling and putting it in a truck.  The barrack was built by Saber Zamel Abu Mariah for stone and marble manufacturing and cost him 10,000 shekels.  It should be mentioned that the Israeli authorities previously demolished a barrack built by Abu Mariah in the same place of bricks and tin plates on 25 September 2017.  This workshop supports his family of 12 members, including 4 children.

 

On 24 October 2017, Israeli forces confiscated an excavator which was clearing a plot of land in the eastern area in Beit Dajen village, east of Nablus, and took it to an unknown destination.

 

Restrictions on movement:

 

Israel continued to impose a tight closure of the oPt, imposing severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

 

The illegal closure of the Gaza Strip, which has been steadily tightened since June 2007 has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.  The Israeli authorities impose measures to undermine the freedom of trade, including the basic needs for the Gaza Strip population and the agricultural and industrial products to be exported. For 9 consecutive years, Israel has tightened the land and naval closure to isolate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and other countries around the world. This resulted in grave violations of the economic, social and cultural rights and a deterioration of living conditions for 2 million people.  The Israeli authorities have established Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shaloum) as the sole crossing for imports and exports in order to exercise its control over the Gaza Strip’s economy.  They also aim at imposing a complete ban on the Gaza Strip’s exports. The Israeli closure raised the rate of poverty to 65%. Moreover, the rate of unemployment increased up to 47% and youth constitutes 65% of the unemployed persons.  Moreover, 80% of the Gaza Strip population depends on international aid to secure their minimum daily needs. These rates indicate the unprecedented economic deterioration in the Gaza Strip.

 

In the West Bank, Israeli forces continued to suffocate the Palestinian cities and village by imposing military checkpoints around and/or between them. This created “cantons” isolated from each other that hinders the movement of civilians. Moreover, the Palestinian civilians suffering aggravated because of the annexation wall and checkpoints erected on daily basis to catch Palestinians.

 

 

Details

 

1. Incursions into Palestinian Areas, and Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

 

Thursday, 19 October 2017

 

• At approximately 01:00, Israeli forces moved into ‘Asker refugee camps, northeast of Nablus. They raided and searched a number of houses after which they arrested 3 civilians namely Ra’fat Ayman Abu Hadeeb (18), Sajed Mahmoud ‘Araishi (22), from ‘Aker al-Jadeed refugee camp, and ‘Emad Eden Mahmoud Saqer (19), from ‘Asker al-Qadeem refugee camp.

 

• At approximately 01:30, Israeli forces moved into Qalqiliyah. They raided and searched 2 houses belonging to Laith Shehab Khadraj (25) and Mahdi Eyad ‘Akas (25) and then arrested them.

 

• At approximately 02:00, Israeli forces moved into al-Dheisheh refugee camp, south of Bethlehem. They raided and searched dozens of houses, including houses of former prisoners and left a great damage to the houses’ contents. The soldiers then arrested ‘Essa Sarasrah (22) and confiscated a vehicle belonging to Hanadi al-Moghrabi, wife of prisoner Ahmed al-Moghrabi.

 

• At approximately 02:30, Israeli forces moved into the eastern area in Jenin, and patrolled the neighbourhoods. They raided and searched several houses. At approximately 07:00, the Israeli forces arrested Mohammed Shami Yusuf al-Shami (17) and Abdullah Hilal Abdul Halim (17) when they were going to school.

 

• At approximately 03:40, Israeli forces moved into Jafna village, north of Ramallah. They raided and searched a house belonging to Hadi Jamal al-Dabasi (17). The soldiers confiscated NIS 70,000 and then arrested Hadi.

 

• At approximately 17:30, Israeli gunboats stationed offshore, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 2 nautical miles. They also fired a number of flare bombs and chased the boats. As a result, the fishermen were forced to flee fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (5) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Dura, al-Thaheriyah village, and al-Thaher area, south of Beit Ummer village, in Hebron; Qalqiliyah and Kafel Hares village, north of Salfit.

 

Friday, 20 October 2017

 

• At approximately 01:30, Israeli forces moved into Ya’bad village, southwest of Jenin. They raided and searched a number of houses after which they arrested 4 civilians namely Hadi Tawfeq Hamarshah (22), Mohammed Jalal ‘Atatrah (24), Mahdi Mahmoud Nayef Turkman (20), and Jalal Ibrahim Hamarshah (25).

 

• At approximately 02:30, Israeli forces moved into al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem. They raided and searched a house belonging to Mousa Yusuf Deriyah (26) and then arrested him.

 

• At approximately 02:40, Israeli forces moved into ‘Azzoun village, east of Qalqiliyah. They raided and searched a house belonging to Rashid Mahmoud Redwan (60) to arrest his son Mohammed (29). The soldiers didn’t find Mohammed, so they arrested his father and took him to an Israeli military camp, east of the city. They released the father at approximately 05:50. The soldiers deliberately caused damage to the contents of Rashid’s house in addition to Mahmoud’s house in the upper floor. They also threatened Mohammed’s mother to arrest her if he did not turn himself in. Mahmoud Rashid Redwan (32), Mohammed’s brother and officer at the Preventive Security Service (PSS), said to PCHR’s fieldworker that;

“On Friday, 20 October 2017, Israeli forces raided our house to arrest my brother Mohammed, who refused to turn himself in fearing of the Israeli officer’s threats to my father. The officer informed us that he will send a special force to immediately kill him. The Israeli forces arrested my father, who is an old man, as a pressure on my brother to turn himself to them. However, they released my father at the dawn. The soldiers also threatened my mother to arrest her. When I faced the officer and told him that “my mother is sick and you can’t arrest her”, he ordered me to step aside or he will open my file and arrest me again as I am a former prisoner released in the Shalit prisoners’ exchange deal. Moreover, the soldiers arbitrarily and brutally damaged the whole house contents. The soldiers still constantly raid our house, rendering us sleepless. In fact, our condition is difficult.”

 

• At approximately, 03:00, Israeli forces moved into al-‘Aroub refugee camp, north of Hebron. They raided and searched a house belonging to Fadi Mahmoud Jawabrah (28) in Jawabrah neighborhood. The soldiers detained the family members in one room and searched the house looking for weapons. They withdrew later, and no arrests were reported. After the family checked the house contents, they found that the soldiers confiscated a cell phone after they took it from the house owner.

 

• At approximately 15:00, a number of Israeli soldiers stationed at a military checkpoint established at the entrance to al-Shuhada’a Street in the center of Hebron, moved into al-Zawiyah Gate neighborhood and patrolled the streets. After that, a number of youngsters gathered and threw stones at the soldiers, who chased them and randomly fired tear gas canisters at them. As a result, a number of civilians suffered tear gas inhalation. The soldiers then stationed behind the cement cubes in front of the checkpoint and one of them fired a live bullet at the youngsters. As a result, a 14-year-old child sustained a live bullet wound to the right foot. He was transferred by an ambulance to the Hebron Governmental Hospital to receive medical treatment.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (7) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Silwad, and al-Mazra’ah al-Sharqiyah villages, northeast of Ramallah; Beit Awla, Taffuh, al-Thaheriyah, Deir al-‘Asal, and Beit Awa villages in Hebron.

 

Saturday 21 October 2017:

 

• At approximately 02:00, Israeli forces moved into Kufert village, southwest of Jenin. They raided and searched a house belonging to Anwar ‘Atef Fares (21) and then arrested him.

 

• At approximately 05:20, Israeli gunboats stationed offshore, west of al-Sudaniyah area, west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 4 nautical miles and chased them. As a result, the fishermen were forced to flee fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

• At approximately 08:50, Israeli gunboats stationed offshore, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 3 nautical miles. They also fired flare bombs and chased them. As a result, the fishermen were forced to flee fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

• At approximately 14:20, Israeli forces moved into Joyous village, northeast of Qalqiliyah. Meanwhile, there was an opening ceremony for the first ski club for children in the center of the village. The soldiers raided the aforementioned place and then arrested Mazen Mohammed Saleh Kharishah (16) under the pretext of his participation in throwing stones at the Israeli forces. The soldiers later released Mazen.

 

• At approximately 21:00, Israeli gunboats stationed offshore, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 2 nautical miles. They also fired flare bombs and chased them. As a result, the fishermen were forced to flee fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

• At approximately 22:00, an Israeli infantry force moved into al-Harayeq area near the “Kiryat Arba” settlement, east of Hebron. The soldiers deployed in the vicinity of houses belonging to Da’na family. A number of young men gathered and threw stones at the soldiers, who randomly fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters at them. As a result, a number of young men suffered tear gas inhalation.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (5) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Raba village, east of Jenin; Abu al-‘Asja, Dei Samet villages and Dura in Hebron; and Far’oun village, south of Tulkarm.

 

Sunday, 22 October 2017:

 

• At approximately 01:00, Israeli forces moved into Taqou’ village, southeast of Bethlehem. They raided and searched several houses after which they arrested Mohammed Suleiman al-Sha’er (18) and Husain Khalid al-Badan (18).

 

• At approximately 07:00, Israeli forces stationed along the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel, east of Beit Hanoun village in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at the border area. The shooting caused fear among farmers, whose agricultural lands are close to the targeted area, and a number of birds hunters. They were forced to leave their work fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

• At approximately 13:00, at the end of school day at Ziad Jaber Elementary School for Boys in Wad al-Nasara neighbourhood in the southern area in Hebron, a number of Israeli soldiers accompanied with a settler attacked the school students claiming they threw stones at the soldiers. When teachers intervened, the soldiers threatened them and detained teacher, Mohanned Zaghir, Deputy Head of the School. The soldiers threatened to arrest him under the pretext of incitement. It should be noted that the school is 50 meters away from the eastern side of the street used by the settlers from and to “Kiryat Arba” settlement to go to the Ibrahimi Mosque and outpost settlements in the city. The school is constantly raided and its students are searched in addition to firing tear gas canisters at the outside yard. Abdul ‘Alim al-Saliamah, teacher at the abovementioned school said to PCHR’s fieldworker:

“Few minutes after the students left the school, some of them returned shouting that there are a number of soldiers and a settler running after them. I immediately went to the street where there were 2 soldiers, who reached the schools outdoor. The school Deputy Head, Mohanned al-Zaghir, followed me and helped the students to cross. While Mohanned was helping the students, a soldier detained him. When Manal Da’ana, researcher at B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, was covering the incident, a soldier attacked her and hit her on her hand. Moreover, the soldiers banned me from moving forward claiming that the area is a military closed zone. This situation continued for 45 minutes and then the soldiers released al-Zaghir. Al-Zaghir said that the soldiers accused him of incitement telling him the students throw stones at the soldiers.”

 

• At approximately 16:00, an Israeli infantry unit moved from the “Carmi Tsur” settlement, south of Beit Ummer village, north of Hebron, into al-Thaher neighbourhood, south of the village. The soldiers arrived at an agricultural land and fired several live bullets in the air. A number of youngsters gathered and threw stones at the soldiers stationed about 15 meters away. The soldiers fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters. As a result, the residents panicked and a number of them suffered tear gas inhalation. PCHR’s fieldworker saw how the Israeli soldiers were provoking the children when he was at the area. Last week, the Israeli forces arrested a child while he was on the street near the soldiers and watching what was happening. The soldiers blindfolded the child and forced him to walk to the abovementioned settlement that is about 500 meters away from his house. The child complained of the maltreatment during his detention as the soldiers scared him. He was released 7 hours later.

 

• At approximately 16:40, Israeli gunboats stationed offshore, west of al-Sudaniyah area, west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 4 nautical miles and chased them. As a result, the fishermen were forced to flee fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (10) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Tulkarm, Shueikah Suburb, Tulkarm refugee camp, and ‘Anabtah village, east of the city; Bal’a, Deir al-Ghusoun, and al-Jaroushiyah villages, north of the city; al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah; Hebron and Surif village.

 

Monday, 23 October 2017

 

• At approximately 01:00, Israeli force moved into Jenin and stationed in the eastern neighborhood. They raided and searched a house belonging to Faraj Omer al-Sanouri (36) and then arrested him.

 

• Around the same time, Israeli forces moved into Jenin refugee camp, southwest of Jenin. They raided and searched a number of houses and then arrested 3 civilians namely Fares Sa’ed al-Shalabi (27), Yazan Ayman Mahmoud Mala’i (22), and Abdul Rahman Salah Turkman (19).

 

• At approximately 02:30, Israeli forces moved into Tulkarm refugee camp, east of Tulkarm. They raided and searched a house belonging to Malek Sa’ed Salim Kharyosh (30) and then arrested him.

 

• At approximately 03:00, Israeli forces moved into Tulkarm. They raided and searched a house belonging to Abdulah Husain al-‘Alami (22) and then arrested him.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (5) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Hebron, al-Shyoukh, Bani Na’im, and Deir al-‘Asal al-Fuqa villages, northeast of Qalqiliyah.

 

Tuesday, 24 October 2017 2017

 

• At approximately 01:00, Israeli forces moved into Taqou’ village, southeast of Bethlehem. They raided and searched a number of houses and then arrested Qusai Jamal Salman (16) and Mohammed Na’man Jebril (17).

 

• At approximately 01:30, Israeli forces moved into Bethlehem. They raided and searched a number of houses and then arrested 3 civilians namely Ahmed Jamal al-Haremi (23), Nader ‘Ayad al-Haremi (44), from Wad Ma’ali area in the center of the city, and Khalil Khader Shukah (23) from Handazah Mount, east of Bethlehem.

 

• Around the same time, Israeli forces moved into Beit Fajjar village, south of Bethlehem. They raided and searched a house belonging to Ahmed Salah Taqatqa (16) and handed him a summons to refer to the Israeli Intelligence Service in “Gush Etzion” settlement complex, south of the city.

 

• At approximately 02:00, Israeli forces moved into Qabatiyah village, southeast of Jenin. They raided and searched a number of houses and then arrested 5 civilians, including a child, namely Maher Sati Sadeq Abu al-Rab (17), Mohammed Lutfi Abu al-Rab (24), Abdul ‘Aziz Hasan Abu al-Rab (20), his twin brother Abdul ‘Athim, and Mohammed Mustafa Kamil (20).

 

• Around the same time, Israeli forces moved into Beit Awa village, southwest of Dura, southwest of Hebron, and stationed in al-Khaneq neighborhood. They raided and searched a house belonging to Mahmoud Yasser Mahmoud Masalmah (38) and then withdrew. They confiscated NIS 12,000 and checks of NIS 36,000. Mahmoud Masalmah said to PCHR’s fieldworker;

“Dozens of Israeli soldiers raided our house and held us in one room while searching the house. The soldiers confiscated about NIS 12,000 and checks of Nis 36,000 that I use in my work in furniture. When I spoke to the Israeli officer, he refused to give me any confiscation list. He claimed that the money funded by Hamas Movement and the “Shabak” has the right to confiscate it. The officer also said that he wants NIS 80,000 for each month I spent in the Israeli prisons claiming that Hamas gave it to me.”

 

• At approximately 07:30, Israeli forces accompanied with several military vehicles moved about 100 meters into the west of the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel, northeast of al-Buraij in the central Gaza Strip. They opened fire at Palestinian farmers, who were forced to flee from the area. The Israeli forces then leveled the lands adjacent to the abovementioned border fence. Few hours later, they redeployed along the border fence.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (4) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Qalqiliyah, Halhoul, Yatta and Emrish village in Hebron.

 

Wednesday, 25 October 2017

 

• At approximately 01:00, Israeli forces moved into Tulkarm refugee camp, east of Tulkarm. They raided and searched a house belonging to Mohammed Taleb Khader Dyab (49) and then arrested him.

 

• Around the same time, Israeli forces move d into Beit Ummer village, north of Hebron, and stationed in several neighborhoods in the village. In ‘Asidah neighborhood, the Israeli forces raided and searched a house belonging to Wahid Hamdi Zamel Abu Mariya (45) and then arrested him. Around the same time, a number of Israeli forces raided and searched a house belonging to Yusuf Bader Mahmoud Ekhleil (34) in Rous al-Group area, west of the village. They opened the main door with special tools, raided the bed room and then arrested Yusuf.

Yusuf’s wife said to PCHR’s fieldworker;

“We woke up to find the Israeli soldiers in our room. My husband Yusuf asked the soldiers to allow me to wear my clothes, but they refused and pushed my husband to the window. I covered myself with the blanket and asked them to go to the room of my son ‘Ammar (11). I found him in bed and he said that a soldier poked him with the rifle while he was sleeping. The soldiers then handcuffed Yusuf and arrested him. The soldiers damaged the house contents after they searched it.”

 

Following that, the Israeli soldiers raided and searched a house belonging to Zeyad Bader Ekhleil (36) after they damaged the iron doors of 4 stores. In Thaher al-Barahish neighborhood, south of the village, the Israeli forces raided and searched a house belonging to Ibrahim Abdul Hamid Ahmed Abu Mariyah (52). They opened the main door with special tools and then attacked Zeyad, his wife, his sons Mohammed (22), Mahdi (14), Baraa’ (17), and Alaa’ (24) and handcuffed them all with plastic ties. Then soldiers then arrested Mohammed.

Zeyad said to PCHR’s fieldworker that;

“We woke up on knocks on the first floor’s door. When I opened the door of my apartment in the second floor, the soldiers opened the main door with a special tool. They violently raided the house, and 7 of the detained me and hit me with their rifles on my chest. A soldier grabbed my son’s, Mahdi, neck and pushed him to the wall as other soldiers beat him. The soldiers also attacked my son Mohammed and detained him in the kitchen. My daughter, Alaa’, attempted to move the soldiers away from her brother Mahdi, a soldier slapped and detained her in my bed room along with her mother, who was shouting. After that, my daughter Baraa’ went to move the soldiers away from her brother Mahdi as the soldier was attempting to strangulate him with his hand, so the soldiers violently handcuffed her and did so with my other sons. The soldiers continued detaining us for an hour during which they attacked and verbally insulted us. Later, the soldiers left after arresting my son Mohammed. They left us handcuffed until our relative came and released us.”

 

• At approximately 01:30, Israeli forces moved into Jenin refugee camp, west of Jenin. They raided and searched a number of houses and then arrested 3 civilians namely Mujahed Raja Abu al-Haija (21), Mahmoud Hatem Abu ‘Ali (23), and Ahmed Abdul Hadi al-Safuri (21).

 

• At approximately 03:00, Israeli forces moved into Taqou’ village, southeast of occupied East Jerusalem. They raided and searched a house belonging to Ibrahim Sabah (23) and then arrested him.

 

• At approximately 04:40, Israeli gunboats stationed offshore, west of al-Sudaniyah, west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 4 nautical miles and chased them. As a result, the fishermen were forced to flee fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

• At approximately 08:30, Israeli forces stationed along the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel, east of Beit Hanoun village in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at the border area. As a result, the farmers, whose agricultural lands are close to the targeted area, were forced to leave the lands fearing for their lives, but neither casualties nor material damage was reported.

 

Note: During the aforementioned day, Israeli forces conducted (3) incursions in the following areas and no arrests were reported: Hebron, al-‘Aroub refugee camp, and Howarah village, south of Nablus.

 

Demonstrations in protest against the annexation wall and settlement activities

 

West Bank:

 

• Following Friday prayer on 20 October 2017, dozens of Palestinian civilians and international human rights defenders organized protests in Ni’lin and Bil’in villages, west of Ramallah, al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of the city, and Kafer Qadoum village, northeast of Qalqiliyah, in protest against the annexation wall and settlement activities. Israeli forces forcibly dispersed the protests, firing live and metal bullets, tear gas canisters and sound bombs. They also chased the protesters into olive fields and between houses. As a result, many of the protesters suffered tear gas inhalation while others sustained bruises due to being beaten up by the Israeli soldiers.

 

 

2. Continued closure of the oPt

 

Israel continued to impose a tight closure on the oPt, imposing severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

 

Gaza Strip

 

Israeli forces continuously tighten the closure of the Gaza Strip and close all commercial crossings, making the Karm Abu Salem crossing the sole commercial crossing of the Gaza Strip, although it is not suitable for commercial purposes in terms of its operational capacity and distance from markets.

Israeli forces have continued to apply the policy, which is aimed to tighten the closure on all commercial crossings, by imposing total control over the flow of imports and exports.

 

Israeli forces have continued to impose a total ban on the delivery of raw materials to the Gaza Strip, except for very limited items and quantities. The limited quantities of raw materials allowed into Gaza do not meet the minimal needs of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

 

Israeli forces also continued to impose an almost total ban on the Gaza Strip exports, including agricultural and industrial products, except for light-weighted products such as flowers, strawberries, and spices. However, they lately allowed the exportation of some vegetables such as cucumber and tomatoes, furniture and fish.

 

Israel has continued to close the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing for the majority of Palestinian citizens from the Gaza Strip. Israel only allows the movement of a limited number of groups, with many hours of waiting in the majority of cases. Israel has continued to adopt a policy aimed at reducing the number of Palestinian patients allowed to move via the Beit Hanoun crossing to receive medical treatment in hospitals in Israel or in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel also continued applying the policy of making certain civilian traveling via the crossing interviewed by the Israeli intelligence service to be questioned, blackmailed or arrested.

 

Israeli Forces Arrest Patient from Khan Yunis at Beit Hanoun “Erez” Crossing

• On Tuesday, 24 October 2017, Israeli forces stationed in Beit Hanoun “Erez” crossing, north of the Gaza Strip, arrested ‘Abed al-Rahman Sami Humidan Abu Lehia (33), from al-Qararah area in Khan Yunis. Abed al-Rahman was arrested while he was on his way to the West Bank through Erez Crossing and then to Jordan for treatment. ‘Abed al-Rahman’s father, who was accompanying him, was returned to the Gaza Strip. Abed al-Rahman’s father said to PCHR’s fieldworker that he and his son, Abed al-Rahman, who suffers from neuropathy, headed to Beit Hanoun Crossing in order to travel to Jordan for treatment. Abed al-Rahman’s father said that they both obtained entry permits from the Civil Liaison, a medical referral, and Jordanian entry permits as well. He said that after waiting inside the crossing until 10:00, he was ordered to return to the Gaza Strip while his son is so far under the Israeli arrest.

Israel has imposed a tightened closure on the West Bank. During the reporting period, Israeli forces imposed additional restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians:

 

• Ramallah: Israeli forces established (8) checkpoints all over the city.

At approximately 09:30 on Friday, 20 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrance to al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah and at the entrance to Ni’lin village, west of the city.

At approximately 17:40 on Sunday, 22 October 2017, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance to al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah. At approximately 16:30 on Monday, 23 October 2017, a similar checkpoint was established near ‘Atarah village’s bridge, north of the city.

On Tuesday, 24 October 2017, Israeli forces established 4 checkpoints at the entrance to al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah; at the entrance to Ras Karkar village, west of the city; at the entrance to ‘Ain Sinah village, north of the city; and at the entrance to Silwad village, northeast of the city.

 

• Hebron: Israeli forces established (17) checkpoints all over the city.

On Thursday 19 October 2017, Israeli forces established 3 checkpoints at the entrance to al-Fawar refugee camp, at the entrance to Sa’ir village and on Wad al-Jouz road, east of Bani Na’iem village.

On Friday, 20 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrance to al-Fawar refugee camp and at the southern entrance to Hebron ( Haraiq).

On Saturday, 21 October 2017, 2 similar checkpoints were established at the entrance to al-Dahiriyia village and at the entrance to al-‘Aroub refugee camp.

On Sunday, 22 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrances to Sa’ir and al-Shayyoukh villages.

On Monday, 23 October 2017, 2 similar checkpoints were established at the entrances to Ethna and Tarama villages.

On Tuesday, 24 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrances to al-Fawar refugee camp and Bani Na’iem village.

On Wednesday, 25 October 2017, 4 similar checkpoints were established at the entrances to Dura, Samou’a, Ethna and Raboud villages.

 

• Qalqiliyia: Israeli forces established (8) checkpoints all over the city.

 

At approximately 23:00 on Friday, 20 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the eastern entrance to Qalqiliyia and at the entrance to Hebla village, south of the city.

On Saturday, 21 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints between ‘Azoun and Kafur Thulth villages, east of Qalqiliyia; and Between Jayyous and Kafur Jamal villages, northeast of the city.

On Monday, 23 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrances to Sa’ir and al-Shayyoukh villages.

On Monday, 25 October 2017, 2 similar checkpoints were established at the eastern entrance to Qalqiliyia and at the entrance to ‘Azoun village, east of the city.

On Tuesday, 24 October 2017, 2 similar checkpoints were established at the entrance to Hebla village, south of Qalqiliyia and at the entrance to ‘Azoun village, east of the city.

 

Salfit: Israeli forces established (5) checkpoints all over the city.

On Friday, 20 October 2017, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the northern entrance to Salfit and at the entrance to Askaka village, east of the city.

At approximately 13:30 on Saturday, 21 October 2017, Israeli forces established a checkpoint under the bridge of Askaka village, east of Salfit.

On 23 October 2017, Israeli forces established a checkpoint under the bridge of Askaka village, east of Salfit. At approximately 16:05 on Friday, 06 October 2017, they re-established the abovementioned checkpoint under the bridge of Askaka village, east of Salfit.

 

Tulkarm: Israeli forces established (2) checkpoints all over the city.

At approximately 12:15 on Friday, 20 October 2017, Israeli forces stationed at ‘Inab military checkpoint, east of Tulkarm, tightened their arbitrary measures against Palestinian civilians. They searched their vehicles and checked their IDs. The Israeli forces obstructed the vehicles’ movement until 13:50 and no more incidents were reported.

At approximately 17:15 on Saturday, 21 October 2017, Israeli forces stationed at ‘Inab checkpoint, east of Tulkarm, tightened their arbitrary measures again against Palestinian civilians. They searched their vehicles and checked their IDs. The Israeli forces obstructed the vehicles’ movement until 17:45.

 

Nablus:

At approximately 21:00 on Thursday, 19 October 2017, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the western entrance to ‘Aqraba village. They stopped Palestinian vehicles and checked passengers’ IDs. No arrests among civilians were reported.

 

Arrests at Military Checkpoints:

 

• At approximately 11:30 on Thursday, 19 October 2017, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the eastern entrance to Qalqiliyia. They searched Palestinian civilians’ vehicles and checked their IDs. They then arrested Mahmoud Khalid Shatarah (25), from Qalqiliyia.

 

• At approximately 18:00 on Thursday, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the intersection of ‘Araba village, branching from Nablus-Jenin Street. They stopped Mohamed Ziyad Salah (21) and his brother Ziyad (16), from Ya’boud village, southwest of Jenin. The Israeli forces checked Mohamed and Ziyad’s IDs and then took them to an unknown destination.

 

• At approximately 16:30 on Saturday, 21 October 2017, while Israeli forces were patrolling in Qalqiliyia, they arrested Ibrahim Saber Ridwan (14) and Ahmed Saleem Ridwan (25). Both of them are from ‘Azoun village, east of Qalqiliyia. It should be noted that Ibrahim and Ahmed were arrested when they were on their way back to their village after picking olives from their lands.

 

• At approximately 17:00 on Saturday, while Israeli forces were patrolling on the bypass road, northeast of Jenin, they stopped Adham Mohamed al-Qadi (18) and Hadi Ahmed Khamaisa (21), both of them from Jenin, and beat them. The Israeli forces then arrested them.

 

• At approximately 16:00 on Sunday, 22 October 2017, Israeli forces stationed at Abu al-Rish military checkpoint, at the southern entrance to Hebron’s Old City, arrested Ghada ‘Azam ‘Azmi al-Shammas (16), from the Old City.

 

• At approximately 16:50 on Sunday, while Israeli forces were patrolling near “Karnei Shamron” settlement, east of Qalqiliyia, they arrested Hamza Mohamed Nimer Shubitah (14) and his father Mohamed Nimer Shubitah (56), under the pretext that Hamza had a knife in his bag. It should be noted that ‘Azoun village’s lands are adjacent to the Main Street and near the settlement outposts, which resulted in exposing the Palestinian farmers to repeated attacks while heading and retuning from their agricultural lands, especially in olive harvest season.

 

Efforts to Create Jewish majority

 

Israeli forces escalated their attacks on Palestinian civilians and their property. They have also continued their raids on al-Aqsa Mosque and denied the Palestinians access to it:

 

• Arrests and Incursions:

 

• At approximately 16:00 on Saturday, 21 October 2017, Israeli forces arrested Mostafa Abu Sunienah (19) and ‘Alaa Najeeb (21) while walking on al-Wad Street in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City. They were then taken to al-Maskobiyia center for investigation.

 

• At approximately 00:30 on Monday, 23 October 2017, a large force of Israeli soldiers, special police and intelligence officers backed by a helicopter moved into al-‘Issawiyia village, northeast of occupied Jerusalem. They raided and searched dozens of houses and caused fear among civilians. In the evening, they arrested 50 civilians, including 23 children, and then took them to an investigation facility in occupied Jerusalem. Moreover, they handed summonses to Nour Sultan, Mahmoud ‘Awadallah Derbas and Shereen al-‘Isawiy to refer to the Israeli security services. Lawyer Mohamed Mahmoud said that the Israeli forces transferred the arrested persons to detention facilities and questioned them in others, including al-Mascobiyah, west of Jerusalem, a facility belonging to the Israeli Border Police on Salah al-Deen Street; al-Qashlah in Old Jerusalem; and a detention center in “Abu Ghunim” settlement, south of the city.

PCHR keeps the names of the arrested persons.

 

• At approximately 01:00 on Tuesday, 24 October 2017, Israeli forces moved into Abu Dis village, east of Occupied Jerusalem. They raided and searched a house belonging to Fayiz Quraie’ (29) and arrested him.

 

• At approximately 17:20 on Tuesday, Israeli forces arrested Iyad Hussni Buziegh (23), from Qalandia camp, north of occupied East Jerusalem, while he was in front of al-Ja’bah buildings in the center of Ramallah.

 

• Restrictions on Civil Society Activities

 

• At approximately 16:30 on Wednesday, 25 October 2017, Israeli forces and Israeli Intelligence officers raided “ George Hotel” on Salah al-Deen Street in the center of East Jerusalem. They prevented a seminar from being held titled as, “Islamic and Christian Endowments in Jerusalem”, under the pretext of being sponsored by the PA. Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli Intelligence officers accompanied with Israeli Special forces surrounded St. George Hotel on Salah al-Deen Street and then raided it. They also hanged a decision to ban holding a seminar on Endowments in Jerusalem by the Scientific Library and the National Coalition for Palestinian Rights. The eyewitnesses also said that the Israeli forces took the attendees out of the hall while other Israeli soldiers were at the hotel entrance and prevented anyone from entering the hotel in addition to summoning many attendees and the event’s organizers for interrogation. According to the closure order signed by the Israeli Minister of Internal Security, Gilad Ardan, the seminar is sponsored by the PA and the prevention order was according to the Implementing Gaza-Jericho Agreement (Restriction on Activity), 1994. Mazen al-Ja’bari, one of those participating in the seminar, said that three academic papers were prepared to talk about the dangers that threaten the Islamic and Christian property by the Israeli authorities. He added that “we were surprised, before the seminar even begins, with the Israeli forces raiding the hall and confiscating the papers and identities.”

 

Israeli settlers’ attacks against Palestinian civilians and property

 

• At approximately 10:00 on Thursday, 19 October 2017, Israeli forces accompanied with a bulldozer and a vehicle of the Israeli Civil Administration moved into al-Tawanah village, east of Yatta, south of Hebron. The bulldozer demolished a 9-squre-meter grow house belonging to Mohamed ‘Isaa al-Yateem under the pretext of not being built within Area C without a license.

 

• Around the same time, Israeli forces accompanied with a truck carrying 2 diggers moved into al-Halawa area, south of Yatta. This area is part of Masafer Yatta villages whose residents are threatened of expulsion due to being military training areas. The two diggers demolished a 60-square-meter country house comprised of 2 rooms and sheltering Yunis Jameel Abu ‘Araam, his wife, and their 2 children, in addition to his brother Mahmoud, his wife, and their 2 children. The house was demolished under the pretext of non-licensing. It should be noted that the house was built and donated by GVC. The Yatta Rural Services Council filed a petition to the Israeli court in order to stop the demolition, but in vain. The residents in Khirbet al-Halawa live in dwellings and residential tents built of bricks and tin plates, south of Yatta. Khirbet al-Halawa area is around 12 dumuns sheltering 9 families of 120 persons. Khirbet al-Halawa includes 4 tents, 6 barracks built of tin plates, 22 caves and many new dwellings. In the vicinity of these communities, “Raghavim” settlement organization, which is active in the field of observing buildings and facilities in the area, provides the Israeli Civil Administration with information to send notices and demolish these facilities. The organization also asks help from Israeli forces and uses a drone to take photos of the newly-built facilities.

 

• At approximately 09:00 on Thursday, Israeli forces accompanied with military vehicles, a vehicle of the Israeli Civil Administration and a truck-mounted crane moved into Beit Za’atah area, northeast of Beit Ummer village, north of Hebron. The Israeli forces deployed on the Main Street, while the Israeli Civil Administration staff dismantled a 50-squre-meter barrack built of tin plates and used for manufacturing stone and marble. They then put the barrack in the truck and confiscated it. The abovementioned barrack belongs to Saber Zamel Abu Mariyah and cost him around 10,000 shekels. When Abu Mariyah family attempted to intervene, the Israeli soldiers forcibly dispersed them from the area. It should be noted that on 25 September 2017, the Israeli authorities demolished a barrack built by Abu Mariah in the same place under the pretext of non-licensing. Abu Mariyah said to PCHR’s fieldworker that he resorted to the Society of St.Yves to deposit a file there after he was handed a notice to stop the construction work there on 19 September 2017. Abu Mariyah obtained a non-demolition decision from the court giving him 2 months until he completes the legal documents. The barrack used to support 12 persons, including 4 children.
• At approximately 17:30 on Tuesday, 24 October 2017, Israeli forces in Beir Zablit area, 40 meters away from the eastern area in Beit Dajan village, east of Nablus, confiscated an excavator belonging to Iyad al-Sawadi, from al-Fari’ah village, south of Tubas. The excavator was working for al-Jara’iy contracting company in land reclamation. The Israeli forces took the excavator to Beit Fowreek checkpoint before taking it to an unknown destination.

Recommendations to the International Community

 

PCHR warns of the escalating settlement construction in the West Bank, the attempts to legitimize settlement outposts established on Palestinian lands in the West Bank and the continued summary executions of Palestinian civilians under the pretext that they pose a security threat to the Israeli forces. PCHR reminds the international community that thousands of Palestinian civilians have been rendered homeless and lived in caravans under tragic circumstances due to the latest Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip that has been under a tight closure for almost 10 years. PCHR welcomes the UN Security Council’s Resolution No. 2334, which states that settlements are a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions and calls upon Israel to stop them and not to recognize any demographic change in the oPt since 1967.  PCHR hopes this resolution will pave the way for eliminating the settlement crime and bring to justice those responsible for it. PCHR further reiterates that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are still under Israeli occupation in spite of Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan of 2005.  PCHR emphasizes that there is international recognition of Israel’s obligation to respect international human rights instruments and international humanitarian law.  Israel is bound to apply international human rights law and the law of war, sometimes reciprocally and other times in parallel, in a way that achieves the best protection for civilians and remedy for the victims.

 

1. PCHR calls upon the international community to respect the Security Council’s Resolution No. 2334 and to ensure that Israel respects it as well, in particular point 5 which obliges Israel not to deal with settlements as if they were part of Israel.
2. PCHR calls upon the ICC in 2017 to open an investigation into Israeli crimes committed in the oPt, particularly the settlement crimes and the 2014 offensive on the Gaza Strip.
3. PCHR Calls upon the European Union (EU) and all international bodies to boycott settlements and ban working and investing in them in application of their obligations according to international human rights law and international humanitarian law considering settlements as a war crime.
4. PCHR calls upon the international community to use all available means to allow the Palestinian people to enjoy their right to self-determination through the establishment of the Palestinian State, which was recognized by the UN General Assembly with a vast majority, using all international legal mechanisms, including sanctions to end the occupation of the State of Palestine.
5. PCHR calls upon the international community and United Nations to take all necessary measures to stop Israeli policies aimed at creating a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem and at voiding Palestine from its original inhabitants through deportations and house demolitions as a collective punishment, which violates international humanitarian law, amounting to a crime against humanity.
6. PCHR calls upon the international community to condemn summary executions carried out by Israeli forces against Palestinians and to pressurize Israel to stop them.
7. PCHR calls upon the States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC to work hard to hold Israeli war criminals accountable.
8. PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to fulfill their obligations under article (1) of the Convention to ensure respect for the Conventions under all circumstances, and under articles (146) and (147) to search for and prosecute those responsible for committing grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions to ensure justice and remedy for Palestinian victims, especially in light of the almost complete denial of justice for them before the Israeli judiciary.
9. PCHR calls upon the international community to speed up the reconstruction process necessary because of the destruction inflicted by the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
10. PCHR calls for a prompt intervention to compel the Israeli authorities to lift the closure that obstructs the freedom of movement of goods and 1.8 million civilians that experience unprecedented economic, social, political and cultural hardships due to collective punishment policies and retaliatory action against civilians.
11. PCHR calls upon the European Union to apply human rights standards embedded in the EU-Israel Association Agreement and to respect its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights when dealing with Israel.
12. PCHR calls upon the international community, especially states that import Israeli weapons and military services, to meet their moral and legal responsibility not to allow Israel to use the offensive in Gaza to test new weapons and not accept training services based on the field experience in Gaza in order to avoid turning Palestinian civilians in Gaza into testing objects for Israeli weapons and military tactics.
13. PCHR calls upon the parties to international human rights instruments, especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to pressurize Israel to comply with its provisions in the oPt and to compel it to incorporate the human rights situation in the oPt in its reports submitted to the relevant committees.
14. PCHR calls upon the EU and international human rights bodies to pressurize the Israeli forces to stop their attacks against Palestinian fishermen and farmers, mainly in the border area

Syria’s Fifth Assault Corps Offensive against ISIS Terrorists in Deir Ezzor. U.S. Special Forces Facilitate Evacuation of ISIS Commanders

Source

By Anna Jaunger,

As the Syrian Army’s advance towards the province of Deir Ezzor, some new details of the upcoming operation on the total elimination of ISIS terrorists in the eastern region of Syria continue to appear in the mass media.

According to Inside Syria Media Center, the General Command of the Syrian Army intends to actively cooperate with fighters of the Fifth Assault Corps, the elite volunteer-based military force that was created by the Syrian government together with Iran and Russia in 2016.

According to expert estimates, warriors from ISIS Hunters, Tribal Forces, Assad Shield, and the Ba’ath Brigades military groups, which are in service of the Fifth Assault Corps, could be at the forefront of the upcoming offensive operation in Deir Ezzor. Such a decision is conditioned by many reasons.

Firstly, the units of the Corps are well-trained and show high efficiency in fighting terrorists. These qualities are the result a full course of combat training organized by military instructors from Iran and Russia.

The Lebanese As-Safir reported that most of the members of the Fifth Assault Corps already had combat experience in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor. Their concerted actions played a major role in the liberation of the ancient Palmyra from ISIS terrorists, and in the preservation of its cultural heritage.

Besides, after the liberation of the eastern part of Homs, the volunteers of the formation pushed ISIS terrorists back their positions along the Palmyra-Deir Ezzor Highway.

Secondly, according to military correspondents, the Syrian High Command, supported by Russia, managed to organize cooperation between Kurdish Self-Defense Forces and the Fifth Assault Corps. This step will directly lead to the strengthening of the government forces’ positions in the province of Deir Ezzor.

Obviously, the coordination between the Kurdish formations with the Fifth Assault Corps is an evidence of the Syrian government’s interest in the early settlement of the conflict and the destruction of ISIS terrorists.

In turn, Washington’s actions in Syria are extremely controversial. Despite all the loud statements made by representatives of the White House, the United States prefers to stay away and doesn’t take any concrete measures to eliminate terrorists.

The U.S. Special Forces were caught up in the evacuation of the ISIS field commanders from Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, and al-Mayadin, who were under the pressure of the government forces. Moreover, it is even known that the U.S. and its forces directly offer terrorists to leave the besieged cities in exchange for opposition to the Syrian Army.

It becomes obvious that the fight against ISIS is beneficial only to the Syrian government and its allies. The United States and the international coalition only dispense with empty statements, trying to delay the solution of the Syrian crisis and prevent the success of government forces.

Anna Jaunger is a freelance journalist at Inside Syria Media Center where this article was first published.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Still not the truth and nothing but the truth: Trump blocks release of some JFK assassination records

Trump Blocks Release of Some JFK Assassination Records

President John F. Kennedy slumps down in the back seat of the Presidential limousine as it speeds along Elm Street toward the Stemmons Freeway overpass after being fatally shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy leans over the president as Secret Service agent Clinton Hill rides on the back of the car. | Ike Altgens/AP Photo

The government is releasing 2,800 documents, but other files will be subject to further review.

By KELSEY TAMBORRINO, BRYAN BENDER, CRISTIANO LIMA and LOUIS NELSON

President Donald Trump on Thursday delayed the release of some documents relating to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, while allowing the National Archives to post 2,800 other pages that had yet to be made public.

Trump is holding back an unspecific number of documents at the request mainly of the FBI and CIA, according to a White House official, and has directed federal agencies to re-review the remaining files, giving them 180 days to do so. The documents being held back include redacted information, and are not being immediately released due to national security concerns.

The president had been hyping the release of the trove on Twitter in recent days, tweeting on Saturday that “subject to the receipt of further information,” he would allow “the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.” On Wednesday, he teased the release again, tweeting that “the long anticipated release” of the files would take place Thursday, calling them, “So interesting!”

Trump released a memo on Thursday explaining why he had decided to block — at least temporarily — the release of some files.

“The American public expects — and deserves — its Government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event,” the president said.

He added that some executive departments and agencies had proposed that certain information should remain redacted “because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns.”

“I have no choice — today — but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation’s security,” the president wrote.

The 2,800 files that were fully released late Thursday will prove deeply interesting to researchers trying to connect more dots in the JFK saga

Many appear to be on subjects of intense speculation.

They include files from the CIA’s station in Mexico City, where alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald visited in the weeks before Kennedy’s assassination. There are also documents mentioning James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s counterintelligence chief at the time who took over the CIA’s post-assassination investigation. One of his communications with the CIA director is dated Nov. 23, 1963, a day after the assassination and is described as about “assassination of President Kennedy.”

Others are about E. Howard Hunt, a CIA operative who was later linked to the break-in at the Watergate Hotel that eventually led to the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

The law, which mandated the release of all documents related to Kennedy’s assassination, was signed by then-President George H.W. Bush in response to “JFK,” the conspiracy-filled Oscar-winning movie from Oliver Stone that had been released a year earlier. The law ordered the immediate release of thousands of pages of documents and set the 25-year deadline for the release of the 3,100 yet-unseen documents as well as the full, unredacted versions of the 30,000 pages already made public.

Trump said that all the information in the redacted documents will be withheld from the public until no later than April 26 of next year, and that agencies will have to propose any further postponements by March 12.

The president’s announcement on Thursday partially made good on a 1992 law that ordered the publication of the assassination files, setting a 25-year deadline that ran out on Thursday.

The law established the Assassination Records Review Board, which has compiled the JFK collection at the National Archives. It also left wiggle room, though, for the president to block the release of some documents, an option Trump partially exercised. While many of the documents released Thursday were created in the 1960s and 70s, a small number of them — mostly sourced from the CIA — are as recent as from the 1990s. Such documents could have the potential to expose relatively recent intelligence and law enforcement operations.

The CIA said Thursday they “welcome” the president’s decision to withhold the release of certain documents, stressing that the continued review was necessary to protect intelligence sources and officials.

“CIA’s current redactions were undertaken with the intent to protect information in the collection whose disclosure would harm national security — including the names of CIA assets and current and former CIA officers, as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protecting the nation today,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement.

The agency highlighted that of the over 87,000 CIA records identified by the 1992 law as pertaining to the case, 69,000 have already been made accessible to the public, and that those that were still redacted make up only less than one percent of the total information they’d collected.

Following the White House’s rollout, researchers expressed skepticism that the CIA and FBI didn’t have enough time to fully review the files for any information that might still risk revealing intelligence sources and methods.

“I guess nobody had 25 years to prepare for today,” said Rex Bradford, president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit research organization that has digitized hundreds of thousands of documents and government reports about the Kennedy assassination.

Stuart Wexler, a high school history teacher in New Jersey and recognized authority on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed disappointment in the delay in some JFK records.

“This morning I cut all my lessons short to explain the document release and how, while smoking guns are unlikely, a more complete documentary record allows careful historians to piece together answers that fill in important historical gaps,” he said. “Tomorrow my students will ask me why the U.S. government needs to withhold information 50 years after the fact, and I will not have a satisfactory answer.”

“This is a fiasco,” said John McAdams, a political science professor at Marquette University and JFK researcher. “These issues should have been resolve weeks, if not months, ago.”

McAdams also said the decision to delay the release of large portions of the records is also a sign of how difficult it is for the unconventional Trump to follow through on some of his promises to buck the system.

“One thing to remember about Trump is that his off-the-top-of-the head popping off is often unconventional or even outrageous, but over time — presumably under the influence of staff or Washington insider – he becomes more conventional,” he said. “Conventional in this case would involve listening to intelligence agencies and giving them what they want.”

But an NSC official who spoke on background defended the partial release: “There does remain sensitive information in the records,” he said.

“This reflects poorly on the Trump Administration and confirms everyone’s worst fears about government in general,” said Russ Baker, an investigative journalist and founder of WhoWhatWhy.com, a new site that has established a team to pore over the documents that are released.

“Whatever combination of incompetence and self-interest, it is highly demoralizing,” he added. “The only possible mitigating factor is budget cuts at agencies, and a lack of adequate personnel to handle these tasks — and again blame falls on the Trump Admin and its GOP allies.”

The trove of documents released Thursday still offered fresh information on the Kennedy assassination, an event that has been the intense focus of historians and conspiracy theorists for decades. Trump himself has not shied away from offering his own theories on the assassination, including linking Rafael Cruz, the father of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), to Kennedy’s murder. Trump offered no evidence to support the accusation, which both Cruzes have denied.

The released documents also included a slew of files related to the late Martin Luther King Jr., a well-known target of the FBI. One such file, the beginning of which is heavily redacted, includes pages dated from May 18-19, 1966 appearing to list 18 names and phone numbers of persons involved in phone calls to and from King. Included as well are receipts from December, 1965 from a men’s clothing store at the Miami International Airport, and credit charges via the Diner’s Club at a Sheraton Hotel in Chicago.

Trump has willingly waded into other conspiracy theories as well, serving most notably as one of the loudest voices behind the so-called “birther” movement that accused former President Barack Obama of having been born in another country. The release of Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate did little to assuage the baseless theories pushed by Trump and others, and the president only conceded that Obama had been born in the U.S. in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, claiming credit for having gotten to the bottom of the former president’s place of birth.

But the White House said Thursday’s decision to only partially release of the documents, which relate to the details of a historic event cemented in the American psyche, was still consistent with a desire for transparency.

“The president wants to ensure there is full transparency here,” a White House official said. “And [he] is expecting that the agencies do a better job in reducing the conflicts in the redactions. … That’s what’s been conveyed to all the agencies.”

Akela Lacy contributed to this report.

 

Forget the ‘slippery slope’ — israel already is an apartheid state

Source

by Neil MacDonald

As the late Yossi Sarid, longtime leader of Israel’s Meretz party and former education minister once put it: “What acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck — it is apartheid.” (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

The time has come to call the duck a duck. It’s time to agree with a long list of Israeli political leaders, academics and public figures on both the political left and right, including three former prime ministers, a winner of the Israel prize, two former heads of the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, and one of the country’s principal newspapers, all of whom have warned that the Jewish state is becoming, or already is, an apartheid state.

I would choose the latter characterization.    

It’s interesting that within the Israeli discourse, the assertion seems to have become routine, while it remains radioactive in the West, where energetic pro-Israel activists scrutinize the media, the academy and the polity, ready to declare anti-Semitism or incitement at any use of the word.

Look at the outrage and venom poured upon former President Jimmy Carter, under whose brokerage the peace accord between Israel and Egypt was signed, when he titled a 2006 book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.

Suddenly, Carter was transformed from a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and statesman to a dotty old man under the sway of terrorists, at least in the eyes of Israel’s supporters, including a significant fraction of his own cohort, Evangelical American Christians.

A duck is a duck

But reality is reality, and a duck is a duck. As the late Yossi Sarid, longtime leader of Israel’s Meretz party and former education minister once put it: “What acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck — it is apartheid.”

This past June, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak re-stated a position he’s held for years: “If we keep controlling the whole area from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan where some 13 million people are living — eight million Israelis, five million Palestinians … if only one entity reigned over this whole area, named Israel, it would become inevitably — that’s the key word, inevitably – either non-Jewish or non-democratic.” The country is, he repeated, “on a slippery slope” that ends in apartheid.

The dividing line between prominent Israelis who use the term in the here and now, rather than as a warning of what’s coming, seems to be the continued existence of the “peace process,” with its promise of a Palestinian state, and self-governance.

And when I was posted in Jerusalem for CBC News, back in the late ’90s, that actually did seem like a possibility, if an unlikely one.

Since then, the peace process — always half-hearted — has utterly collapsed. Expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank continued, and since the election of Donald Trump, colonization has surged with an invigorated enthusiasm.

A picture taken on January 17, 2017 shows new apartments under construction in the Israeli settlement of Har Homa situated in East Jerusalem, and a view of the Arab neighborhood of Umm Tuba in the background. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)

Their existence is in fact currently being celebrated in a series of appearances by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We are here to stay, forever,” he declared two months ago in the settlement of Barkan, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

“There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel.” (The “Land of Israel,” as opposed to the State of Israel, is a term used by the Israeli right to describe all the territory between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, and sometimes even further).

Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, respectively Israel’s justice and education ministers, have said the Palestinians must understand they will never have a state. Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman, a settler, has said there is “no hope” of a mutually agreed upon Palestinian state, but has warned Naftali Bennett against promoting outright annexation:

“What Bennett and his Jewish Home party are proposing is a classical bi-national state,” Liberman said two years ago. “They need to decide if they’re talking about a bi-national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean … or whether they’re talking about an apartheid state.”

Palestinian underclass

Liberman’s logic seems to be that as long as the Palestinians are simply occupied and governed by a different set of laws, with far fewer rights than Israelis (as opposed to denying them a state but giving them a vote in some expanded version of Israel, which the Israeli right considers national suicide), then it is not really apartheid.

But annexation at this point would merely amount to staging a home already sold.

In the past decade, Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall” doctrine has given rise to an actual wall, sometimes an iron one, running roughly along the 1967 borders of the West Bank and Gaza. The main roads from Jerusalem north to Ramallah and Nablus and south to Bethlehem and Hebron are now blocked by gigantic, fortified military barriers. The roughly three quarters of a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have complete freedom of movement and their own set of roads, effectively forbidden to the disenfranchised Palestinian underclass.

 

Settlers suspected of crimes are entitled to full rights in Israeli courts; Palestinians endure military tribunals, indefinite imprisonment without charge (“administrative detention”) and collective punishment. Settlers are entitled to carry arms and use them in self-defence; Palestinians are not. Settlers have property rights. Palestinians have property claims. Et cetera.

Netanyahu frames it all as a matter of national survival, warning that any land conceded will immediately be occupied by fundamentalist terrorists determined to destroy the State of Israel, with its nuclear weapons, tanks, fighter jets, layered missile defence systems and 600,000-plus active and reserve troops.

His definition of terrorism is a nuanced one; at an event a few years ago commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the King David Hotel by Irgun fighters, considered a terrorist act by the British government to this day, Netanyahu characterized the perpetrators as legitimate military fighters, and warned the outraged British government to watch its language.

Netanyahu frames expansion of settlements all as a matter of national survival. (Sebastian ScheinerAssociated Press)

But then, an elastic worldview is apparently necessary to maintain the status quo; when Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party signed a formal reconciliation recently with the “terrorists” of Hamas, who rule Gaza, both Israel and the United States objected, saying such a union endangers, yes, the peace process. The fact that today’s terrorists tend to become tomorrow’s statesmen (the Irgun bombers later joined the nascent government of Israel, and former Irgun chief Menachem Begin became prime minister) is apparently irrelevant in this context.

At any rate, Ehud Barak’s slippery slope is now in the rearview mirror. Yossi Sarid’s duck has arrived. Let’s accept that, drop the pretense, and move on.

This column is part of CBC’s Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor’s blog and our FAQ

America and Hezbollah during decades of war أميركا وحزب الله في عقود من الحرب

America and Hezbollah during decades of war

أكتوبر 26, 2017

Written by Nasser Kandil,

When Washington presented its project for an Israeli war that would reform Lebanon and the position of Syria in 1982, Hezbollah was not born yet, but Washington had launched the war of Iraq against Iran two years ago and the war of the Muslim Brotherhood against Syria three years ago. Moreover it had launched with the cooperation of Saudi Arabia Al-Qaeda Organization against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. All of which were projects that are integrated with two main goals; to employ Camp David path, the importance of the exit of Egypt from the conflict with Israel, the consolidation of the Saudi leadership in the region, and to confine the expansion which started to emerge with the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and what it led to revolutionary popular background in the region that adopted the Palestinian Cause with the slogan of Al Imam Al- Khomeini “Today Iran, Tomorrow Palestine”. The Arab street repeated “O, Khomeini, we will be your soldiers towards liberation” This slogan started from Beirut and it spread in all the Arab capitals. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon sponsored by the US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and then its consequences were under the control of the US envoy Philip Habib. It was not a war against on Hezbollah, since it was not yet present, it was a preemptive war for its birth and the birth of any resisting axis that will cancel the historical consequences witnessed by Washington with Camp David, and it worried about them with the victory of the Iranian revolution.

During  a decade of confrontation the American project has been defeated in the region in its main front despite the attempts of the compensation through the Gulf War and the positioning under the pretext of the occupation of Kuwait which was the outcome of the American embroilment of Iraq, as the embroilment in the war on Iran, it is the same path of embroilment which was culminated by the invasion of Iraq and occupying it, but the main path of confrontation has led to the failure of Camp David path and the US positioning on the coast of the Mediterranean  from the gate of Beirut, so the Marines fled and the seventieth of May Agreement  which is the Lebanese version of Camp David has fallen along with the war of the Muslim Brotherhood on Syria.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union the Americans expanded the confrontation, they drew their plans for the whole world, Europe witnessed their victories after the war of Yugoslavia, they were unique in drawing the international politics and they tried to contain Syria to the Madrid Peace process and Al Taif Agreement and to charge it with the administration of  Lebanon, but the second decade witnessed more of the American failure in the main confrontation; it is the future of the conflict with Israel after the resistance led by Hezbollah has emerged as an outcome of the consequences of the Iranian revolution on hand, and an outcome of the spirit of the revolutionary people and their eagerness to the resistance on the other hand. The culmination was by the withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon without negotiation, or cost, or conditions, so this was a clear pure victory for the resistance. The Americans have been defeated despite their side successes in Europe which prepared for them the success of their ruling the world and their ability to draw politics with more power where there is no need to use it as their new Secretary Defense Donald Rumsfeld said.

In the third decade, Asia formed the arena of the US War, there was the war of Afghanistan and then the invasion of Iraq, the goal was to besiege Iran, to  subdue it, and to threaten Syria and to tame it. Due to the failure, America decided to repeat what it did in the year 1982; it beheld Israel the responsibility of waging the war in 2006 to crush the resistance as an entry to formulate new Middle East. The result for the second time was the failure, but this time by Hezbollah, so it waged the war of chaos and brought Al-Qaeda organization which it founded for a similar war decades ago, to fight the ideologues with the ideologues. But after the failure of its two reserve armies Israel and Al-Qaeda in two consecutive wars, it witnessed the birth of new international equations. Russia returned stronger than what it was on the days of the Soviet Union from the gate of the war on Syria. And Iran returned stronger than it was before the war of Iraq against it, in addition to Hezbollah the regional equations maker which cannot be denied.

America still has many plans and projects, but the wars which are like the chess are different from it, because in chess the second half does not start as the first half started, but from where it ended. Today’s America is different than America from three decades and a half, as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Al-Qaeda organization. On the other hand, Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Hezbollah are not as before too. The imbalance has become double falling here and emerging there, and it is not mere a deceit that the Americans put the slogan “resisting the hegemony of Hezbollah on the region” in order to meet the chiefs of staff of their armies and the armies of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their allies after decades from the emergence of Hezbollah under the slogan of “resisting the US-Israeli hegemony on the region”.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,

أميركا وحزب الله في عقود من الحرب

أكتوبر 25, 2017

ناصر قنديل

– عندما قدّمت واشنطن مشروعها لحرب «إسرائيلية» تعيد تشكيل لبنان وعبره موقع سورية عام 1982، لم يكن حزب الله قد ولد بعد، لكنها كانت قد أطلقت حرب العراق على إيران قبل عامين، وحرب الإخوان المسلمين على سورية قبل ثلاثة أعوام، وأطلقت بالتعاون مع السعودية حرب تنظيم القاعدة على الجيش السوفياتي في أفغانستان، وكلّها مشاريع تتكامل مع هدفين رئيسيين، توظيف مسار «كامب ديفيد» وثقل خروج مصر من الصراع مع «إسرائيل»، وتكريس الزعامة السعودية في المنطقة، ومحاصرة المدّ الذي بدا أنه ينطلق مع انتصار الثورة الإسلامية في إيران، وما أثارته من مُناخ شعبي ثوري في المنطقة تصدّرته القضية الفلسطينية مع شعار الإمام الخميني «اليوم إيران وغداً فلسطين»، وردّ الشارع العربي بهتاف، «يا خميني سير سير نحنا جنودك بالتحرير»، الذي انطلق من بيروت وعمّ العواصم العربية. فالاجتياج «الإسرائيلي» للبنان الذي رعاه وزير الدفاع الأميركي كاسبار واينبرغر يومها، وتابع منتجاته المبعوث الأميركي فيليب حبيب، لم يكن حرباً على حزب الله الذي لم يكن موجوداً بعد، بل كان حرباً استباقية لولادته، وولادة أيّ محور مقاوم يلغي النتائج التاريخية التي رأتها واشنطن مع «كامب ديفيد»، وقلقت عليها مع انتصار الثورة الإيرانية.

– خلال عقد من المواجهة، هزم المشروع الأميركي في المنطقة، في جبهته الرئيسية، رغم محاولات التعويض الجانبية عبر حرب الخليج والتموضع بذريعة احتلال الكويت الذي كان ثمرة توريط أميركي للعراق، كما التوريط بالحرب على إيران، وهو مسار التوريط ذاته الذي توّج بغزو العراق نفسه واحتلاله، لكن المسار الرئيسي للمواجهة رسم فشلاً لمسار «كامب ديفيد» والتموضع الأميركي على ساحل المتوسط من بوابة بيروت، فرحل المارينز وسقط اتفاق السابع عشر من أيار، النسخة اللبنانية عن «كامب ديفيد». وفشلت حرب الإخوان المسلمين على سورية.

– عندما وسّع الأميركيون دائرة المواجهة بعد تفكك الاتحاد السوفياتي، رسموا خططهم على مساحة العالم، فكانت أوروبا مسرحاً لانتصاراتهم بعد حرب يوغوسلافيا، وتفرّدوا في رسم السياسة الدولية، وحاولوا احتواء سورية بمسار مدريد للسلام، واتفاق الطائف وتفويضها بإدارة لبنان، لكن العقد الثاني حمل المزيد من الفشل الأميركي في جبهة المواجهة الرئيسية، وهي مستقبل الصراع مع «إسرائيل» بعدما نمت المقاومة وعلى رأسها حزب الله، كثمرة لتجذّر نتائج الثورة الإيرانية من جهة، ولروح الشعوب الثورية وتوقها للمقاومة من جهة أخرى، وكان التتويج بانسحاب «إسرائيل» بلا تفاوض وبلا ثمن وبلا شروط من جنوب لبنان، مسجلاً انتصاراً نظيفاً واضحاً للمقاومة، فهزم الأميركيون رغم نجاحاتهم الجانبية في أوروبا التي هيّأت لهم نجاح حكمهم للعالم وقدرتهم على رسم السياسة بالمزيد من القوة حيث لا تنفع القوة، كما قال وزير دفاعهم الجديد دونالد رامسفيلد.

– شكلت آسيا في العقد الثالث ساحة الحرب الأميركية، فكانت حرب أفغانستان وبعدها غزو العراق، والهدف تطويق إيران وتطويعها، وتهديد سورية وترويضها. وبسبب الفشل قرّرت أميركا تكرار ما فعلته عام 1982 فأوكلت لـ«إسرائيل» مهمة شنّ الحرب في عام 2006 لسحق المقاومة كمدخل لصياغة شرق أوسط جديد، وكانت النتيجة مرة أخرى هي الفشل. لكن هذه المرة على يد حزب الله، فخاضت حرب الفوضى، وجلبت تنظيم القاعدة الذي سبق وأسّسته لحرب شبيهة قبل عقود، مقاتلة العقائديين بالعقائديين. وبعد فشل جيشيها الاحتياطيين «إسرائيل» و«القاعدة»، في حربين متتاليتين، شهدت ولادة معادلات دولية جديدة، فروسيا عادت أقوى مما كانت أيام الاتحاد السوفياتي من بوابة حرب سورية، وإيران أقوى مما كانت قبل حرب العراق عليها، وحزب الله صانع معادلات إقليمية لا يمكن تجاهله.

– لا يزال في الجعبة الأميركية الكثير من الخطط والمشاريع، لكن الحروب التي تشبه لعبة الشطرنج تختلف عنها، بكون الشوط الثاني لا يبدأ كما بدأ الشوط الأول، بل من حيث انتهى، وأميركا اليوم ليست أميركا قبل ثلاثة عقود ونصف، و«إسرائيل» ليست نفسها، والسعودية ليست نفسها، وتنظيم القاعدة ليس نفسه. وفي المقابل روسيا وإيران وسورية والعراق وحزب الله ليسوا كما كانوا، والخلل في الموازين صار مزدوجاً، سقوط هناك ونهوض هنا، وليس مجرد مكر وثعلبة أن يضع الأميركيون للقاء رؤساء أركان جيوشهم وجيوش «إسرائيل» والسعودية وحلفائهم، شعار «مقاومة هيمنة حزب الله على المنطقة» بعد عقود من انطلاق حزب الله تحت شعار مقاومة الهيمنة الأميركية «الإسرائيلية» على المنطقة.

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الدبّ الروسي ونوم الملائكة في حضن الشيطان!

أكتوبر 26, 2017

محمد صادق الحسيني

 

هل حانت ساعة تنفيذ تفاهمات القيصر والإمام، وماذا يريد القيصر من زيارته لطهران الأربعاء المقبل!؟

كلّ شيء يسير في سياق استمرار الهجوم الاستراتيجي للحلف المعادي للأحادية الأميركية الذي بات ممتداً من موسكو إلى غزة.

حلف المقاومة يوسّع حزام الأمان ويتقدّم في سورية، إنْ في دير الزور وإنْ باتجاه البوكمال، ويستعدّ لمرحلة تطهير بلاده من قواعد الارتكاز الأميركية…

والعراق بعد قلع مسمار جحا «الإسرائيلي» في كردستان يتقدّم باتجاهين… الأول تحرير راوة والقائم ليلتقي الجيش السوري ويوسّع كوريدور حركة تنقلات محور المقاومة أو باتجاه قطع اتصالات كردستان العراق برميلان والحسكة، وعملياً بالقواعد الأميركية في سورية ومجموعات «قسد» التابعة لها…

في هذه الأثناء ينقضّ النسر الروسي على الجناح الجنوبي الشرقي لحلف الأطلسي في قطر…!

وفي هذا الخصوص علّق أحد أهمّ الجنرالات الأميركيين المتقاعدين والمتابعين لشؤون الوضع الاستراتيجي الدولي نتحفّظ على ذكر الاسم بناء على رغبة صاحب العلاقة على زيارة وزير الدفاع الروسي إلى قطر قائلاً:

1 ـ إنّ زيارة وزير الدفاع الروسي سيرغي شويغو إلى قطر لتوقيع اتفاقية تعاون تقني/ عسكري معها… لهي اختراق عسكري/ سياسي/ دبلوماسي/ روسي استراتيجي غاية في الأهمية على صعيد موازين القوى في العالم، وفي منطقة الشرق الأوسط.

2 ـ إننا نعتبر هذه الاتفاقية توطئة لإعادة إحياء الوجود الروسي، بجوانبه كلّها، في الجزيرة العربية بعد فقدان ذلك الوجود بانهيار الاتحاد السوفياتي…

3 ـ نعتقد أنّ هذه الاتفاقية سوف تشكل حجر الأساس لوجود عسكري روسي كبير في قطر، والذي سيبدأ بمجموعة من المستشارين العسكريين ويُفضي الى إقامة قواعد عسكرية روسية ثابتة هناك.

4 ـ سينجم عن هذا الوجود الروسي مزيد من الضمانات لمصالح إيران المباشرة في الخليج، إضافة الى توسيع نطاق المصالح الروسية هناك، مما يعزّز الوضع الإقليمي لإيران بخاصة إذا ما أخذنا بعين الاعتبار الوجود الأميركي الكثيف سواء في قطر أو السعودية أو البحرين وما ينطوي على أخطار تهدّد إيران.

5 ـ كما أننا نجزم بأنّ هذه الخطوة تشكل احتواء أو تحييداً للوجود العسكري التركي في قطر وضبط تأثيراته على إيران وفصل مجال ذلك عن مجال تأثيرات الوجود العسكري الأميركي.

علماً أنّ معلوماتنا تشير الى نيّة الجهات الروسية المعنية، سياسية وعسكرية، التفاهم مع تركيا لإقامة تعاون عسكري بينهما في قطر وبحر العرب…

5 ـ نعتبر هذه الخطوة بمثابة إجراء معاكس أو مضادّ لاستيلاء الإمارات العربية المتحدة وبالتالي الولايات المتحدة و»إسرائيل» على جزيرة سوقطرى اليمنية ذات الأهمية الاستراتيجية العالية. تلك الجزيرة التي تتحكّم في طرق الملاحة البحرية من باب المندب باتجاه بحر الصين مضيق مالاقا والمحيط الهادئ، وما لذلك من أهمية بالنسبة لحركة السفن التجارية والحربية الصينية وكذلك الروسية، حيث انّ الأمر يؤثر بشكل مباشر على حرية حركة الأسطول الحربي الروسي في المحيط الهادئ ميناء فلاديفوستوك شرق روسيا .

7 ـ إنّ هذه الاتفاقية سوف تؤسّس لفك ارتباط قطر بمشاريع الإرهاب التي شاركت في إدارتها، حتى الآن، مع الولايات المتحده و»إسرائيل» والسعودية، وبالتالي فإننا نرى انّ هذه الخطوه الروسية هي عبارة عن تفريغ للهجوم الممنهج من قبل واشنطن، والذي تشنّه السعودية وأذنابها ضدّ قطر خدمة لمصلحة أميركا في إدامة التوترات في المنطقه كضمان لاستمرار عقد مزيد من صفقات الأسلحة الأميركية مع دول المنطقة، ومن بينها قطر.

8 ـ أما إذا تناولنا الموضوع الاتفاقية في إطارها التكتيكي المحدود، فبالإمكان اعتبارها اختراقاً تكتيكياً روسياً في الجبهة الأميركية يوازي الاختراق الذي حققته الولايات المتحدة على الجبهة الروسية في قاطع دول البلطيق. هذا الاختراق الروسي الذي يمكن البناء عليه في أية مفاوضات استراتيجية بين الدول العظمى مستقبلاً، بخصوص تشكيل النظام العالمي الجديد.

إنه عالم ينام فيه الملائكة أحياناً في حضن الشيطان للتمويه وأحياناً العكس…

والدبّ الروسي المعروف عنه أنه قليل الضجيج في حركته، إلا أنه كبير الفعل، شديد البأس، وقد يدمّر كلّ ما حوله إذا ما تمّ استفزازه…!

تذكّروا تشوركين عندما قال للسفير القطري في الأمم المتحدة: بكلمة واحدة أزيل بلادك من الخريطة، إلزم حدودك، وأنت تتكلّم..!

إنها ساعة اضطراب المعادلات الدولية التقليدية، والأهمّ ساعة التيه الأميركي في غرب آسيا، بعد أن زعزعت وجوده خطط سليماني الارتدادية، وهو يستعدّ لموسم الهروب من بلادنا إلى خليج البنغال ومضيق مالاقا!

بعدنا طيّبين، قولوا الله…

IRAQI FORCES REACH AL-QA’IM IN LIGHTNING-LIKE ADVANCE (MAPS)

South Front

Click to see the full-size map

On October 26, the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) reached the last ISIS stronghold in Iraq, al-Qa’im city, after successfully capturing dozens of areas south and southeast of it, according to the PMU media wing.

The PMU media wing reported that government forces captured the following areas:

• H1 and H2 airbases southwest of al-Qa’im city;
• The Al-Qa’im–Akashat highway along the Syrian-Iraqi border;
• The State Company for Phosphate and the Agricultural Research Service 10km southwest of al-Qa’im city;
• Maslus Mount south of al-Qa’im city;
• Jubab, al-Ma’aml, al-Mashara’a, al-Nadrah, al-Hussiniyat, al-Akra and al-Hasa areas in western Anbar;
• Al-Naser, Abed, al-Aghr, al-Halqum and Jihash valleys south of al-Qa’im city.

Click to see the full-size map

Government forces also captured the former al-Badiyah and al-Jazeera Operation Center of the Iraqi Army, according to the PMU media wing.

Government forces are now advancing towards K1 military base west of al-Qa’im city.

The PMU media wing said that the Iraqi soldiers killed dozens of ISIS fighters during their advance. Government forces also captured several vehicles and VBIEDs of ISIS.

The rapid advance of government forces proved that the number of ISIS fighters in the Euphrates River Valley between Syria and Iraq is way less than what it was announced by the US-led coalition. ISIS will likely redeploy most of its units towards its front lines with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) inside Syria.

Iraqi forces liberate H-2 Airbase near Syrian border

By  Leith Fadel

 –

26/10/2017

BEIRUT, LEBANON (4:45 P.M.) – The Iraqi Armed Forces launched their long-awaited Syrian border offensive, today, targeting the Islamic State’s last major stronghold near Syria’s Deir Ezzor Governorate.

Led by a plethora of Hashd Al-Sha’abi and army units, the Iraqi Armed Forces began the offensive by storming the Islamic State’s positions at several sites in southwest Iraq, including the H-2 Airbase, and Al-Husseiniyeh and Al-Nadiatiyah villages.

Not long after launching their assault, the Iraqi Armed Forces imposed full control over the H-2 Airbase and several villages, killing scores of Islamic State terrorists in the process.

With the Islamic State pocket south of Al-Qa’im nearly cleared, the Iraqi Armed Forces should be able to reach the aforementioned city in the coming days.

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#BDS From HP to Ahava: The UN Blacklist of Companies Doing Business in israeli Settlements

From HP to Ahava: The UN Blacklist of Companies Doing Business in Israeli Settlements

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.819171

Settlement blacklist of 25 firms published by Israeli paper includes Israel Aerospace Industries, telecom giants, international tech firms, banks, and even cafes

UN sent warning letter to 150 companies for doing business in Israeli settlements

An Israeli newspaper has revealed the names of 25 companies who could find themselves on a UN blacklist of firms doing business in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

The list includes Israel Aerospace Industries, the Israeli branches of Motorola and HP, the Dead Sea cosmetics firm Ahava, as well as other firms like Israel’s Bank Leumi or gas supplier Paz.

In the past, Haaretz reported that about 150 companies in Israel and around the world had received letters from the UN human rights commission warning them that they are about to be added to the database, senior Israeli officials and Western diplomats involved in the matter told Haaretz’s Barak Ravid at the time.

The Israeli official, who requested to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue, noted that the letters sent by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said these firms were doing business in the “occupied Palestinian territories” and could thus find themselves on the UN blacklist for companies acting in violation of “internal law and UN decisions.”

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, shakes hand with delegates before the opening of the 36th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the UnitedLaurent Gillieron/AP

>> Israel secretly using U.S. law firm to fight BDS activists in Europe, North America <<

The Washington Post reported in August that among American companies that received letters were Caterpillar, Priceline.com, TripAdvisor and Airbnb. According to the same report, the Trump administration is trying to work with the UN Commission on Human Rights to prevent the list’s publication.

On Thursday, Yedioth Aharonoth revealed the names of some 25 of these Israeli firms, which it said is based on a partial list the paper obtained. The companies on the list range from bakeries to financial institutions to local energy suppliers and cosmetics:

1. Ahava
2. Dor Alon
3. Amisragas
4. Angel Bakeries
5. Arison Investments
6. Ashdar
7. Cafe Cafe
8. Clal Industries
9. Cellcom
10. Danya Cebus
11. Electra
12. HP
13. HOT
14. Israel Aerospace Industries
15. Matrix systems
16. Motorola
17. Nesher
18. Partner
19. Paz
20. Rami Levy
21. Remax
22. Shikun & Binui (Housing & Construction Holding Company)
23. Shufersal
24. Bank Leumi
25. Sonol

Israel’s Channel 2 reported in the past that the list includes some of the biggest companies in Israel, such as Teva, Bank Hapoalim, Bezeq, Elbit, Coca-Cola Israel, Africa-Israel, IDB, Egged, Mekorot and Netafim.

A Western diplomat, who also requested to remain anonymous, told Haaretz at the time that out of the 150 companies, some 30 were American and a number are from countries such as Germany, South Korea and Norway. The remaining half are Israeli companies.

Senior Israeli officials said the Israeli fear of divestment or scaled-down business due to the blacklist is already becoming a reality. The Economy Ministry’s Office of Strategic Affairs, they said, has already received information that a number of letter-receiving companies have responded to the human rights commissioner by saying they do not intend to renew contracts or sign new ones in Israel.

“These companies just can’t make the distinction between Israel and the settlements and are ending their operations all together,” the senior Israeli official said. “Foreign companies will not invest in something that reeks of political problems – this could snowball.”

As part of an attempt to minimize its potential damage, Israel was attempting to reach out and hold talks with the foreign companies named on the list, stressing that it is non-binding and insignificant. It is also reaching out to foreign governments saying the list is tantamount to cooperating with a boycott of Israel.

U.K. officials said Thursday that the U.K. strongly opposed this provision and considered that it went beyond the competence of the Human Rights Council. “Human rights obligations are directed at states, and not individuals or businesses, who must determine their trading relationships for themselves; as such, we have no plans to set up an equivalent database. Ultimately it is the decision of an individual or company whether to operate in settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The British Government neither encourages nor offers support to such activity,” they said.

In March 2017, the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva voted for the resolution being pushed by the Palestinian Authority and Arab nations, according to which the commission would formulate a database of Israeli and international firms directly or indirectly doing business in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. The decision passed despite massive pressure by the U.S. to soften the resolution’s wording. Even an attempt by the U.K. and the EU to reach a deal with the Palestinians to drop the clause from the resolution stipulating the blacklist’s formulation, in return for the support of European nations for the rest of its articles, failed.

Barak Ravid contributed background to this report

ISRAELI MEDIA CLAIMS NEW WAR AGAINST HEZBOLLAH INEVITABLE

South Front

A Hezbollah fighter stands at a watch tower at Juroud Arsal, the Syria-Lebanon border. Photo: REUTERS

High Level Military Group, a project of the Friends of Israel Initiative comprising former generals and high-ranking officials from NATO and allied countries, released a report on October 25 assessing Hezbollah’s current state.

They claim Hezbollah has stockpiled roughly 100,000 rockets and missiles since its last conflict with Israel in 2006; acquired anti-tank and unmanned aerial equipment; trained its men in combat alongside Bashar al-Assad forces in Syria; and spread its military assets among virtually every Shi’ite town in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli media jumped at the opportunity, claiming the report as proof of an inevitable full-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. The report claimed that, according to “Israeli policymakers”, “any war would be the result of a miscalculation by Iran and Hezbollah, forcing a response on Israel’s part.”

Although the report notes that Israel’s defense forces faced broad international criticism for their conduct in 2006, it claims that “the international environment has changed since the previous war,” and that “a defensive assault on Hezbollah, a terror organization now strongly associated with Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, will generate initial support not only from the United States, but also from other Western countries, in addition to tacit but increasing support from the Sunni Arab world.”

Israeli officials have warned that the next war will escalate quickly because Israel will be  “forced” to preemptively strike at Hezbollah’s rocket stockpiles before facing retaliation.

Considering the fact that the Israeli military has deployed thousands of air, sea and land personnel to the Lebanese border in September for its biggest military drill in almost two decades, Israel’s intentions seem obvious. The last time the IDF held a drill of this scale was in 1998, when it simulated a seven-day war with Syria. The two countries have been in a state of conflict for decades.

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The Lebanese Forces and the governmental failure القوات والفشل الحكومي

 

The Lebanese Forces and the governmental failure

أكتوبر 26, 2017

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The Lebanese Forces Party can talk whatever it wants about the idea of resigning from the government to conclude that there is no reason to resign, because it knows in advance that it got engaged in a game of authority, so the decision to get out of it is no longer easy, as it knows that there is no outcome for its presence in the government at the level of the slogans and the objectives which it foreshadowed in order to change the compass of the country and the performance of its institutions, but the outcome at the level of the authorial presence has become restricting, and the balance in approaching the next electoral path requires to combine between the meaningless political and programmatic staying in the government, which is needed for the electoral alliances and some of the electoral services and between the critical political language to the extent of talking about resignation in order to control the partisan rules that raised the ceiling of their aspirations due to the promises  of different governmental performance.

The Lebanese Forces Party has collided with its new and old allies; Al Mustaqbal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement in two main issues that draw the governmental diaries during the past and the future regarding the files of mandates and appointments, but it only got the right of reservation, Its objections were not taken into consideration regarding the adoption of standards that contribute in building the country according to controls that prevent the corruption and stop the act of favoritism, and it did not get any indirect share which ensures an appropriate satisfaction that makes it feel of partnership, and makes the burdens of defending for staying in power equal to the benefits of being in it. While in the pivotal important issues in the governmental act as the law of the parliamentary elections, the general budget, and the series of positions and salaries the Lebanese Forces Party was certain that the equation of the rule is led by Al Mustaqbal Movement, The Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, and Amal Movement, and it was certain that it did not get a share as the share which the fifth partner the Deputy Walid Jumblatt got, since the available role of the Forces is to be a partner in losses not a partner in gains.

To be a partner of losses not a partner of gains is a role accepted by Hezbollah in its relation with the institutions of the government within a convincing equation, it is not an outcome of weakness and marginalization as the case of the Forces, however it is a result of the surplus of power. Hezbollah puts among its priorities its war in Syria and its readiness to confront Israel, just for that it tries to adjust the rhythm of politics internally towards more of stability and to be away from the dangers of strife. Its disinterest towards the authority is a source of attraction of the political class away from disputing it for its position in its major files; it restricts its authoritarian interventions into issues which it managed with the cooperation and the coordination of an ally and a strategic peerless partner who is the Speaker Nabih Berri. These axes are related to the services and the appointments, while its direct interventions are present in the crucial situations on which it left its imprint, especially the law of the parliamentary elections and the depending on the relativity in it.

The Lebanese Forces Party cannot claim a role that is similar to the role of Hezbollah, on one hand; this party stands on the banks of losers and the defeated in their regional options and bets, as the war to overthrow Syria, while Hezbollah is at the forefront of the victory alliance. On the other hand, the Forces party lives its crisis with its main allies the Free Patriotic Movement and Al Mustaqbal Movement contrary to Hezbollah which interested in confidence among its main allies the Free Patriotic Movement and Amal Movement, just for that the Lebanese Forces Party needs to talk about the resignation unlike Hezbollah. It talks about the resignation from the position of weakness; it cannot practice it, while Hezbollah has practiced it when it found it necessary from the position of strength without talking about it.

The leaders of the Lebanese Forces party may not pay attention that the partnership in the government this time is different from the previous ones regarding their political course, but they will discover that in the parliamentary elections and on the eve of drawing the alliances that their points of weakness have become clear to their allies and opponents.

When the ministers of the Lebanese Forces party resign, then this means that there is a US-Saudi decision to exert pressure on the President of the Republic and maybe to overthrow the government, therefore the Forces party is left to employ the resignation by gathering some of the opposition groups electorally.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,

القوات والفشل الحكومي 

أكتوبر 23, 2017

ناصر قنديل

– تستطيع القوات اللبنانية أن تتحدّث ما شاءت عن التداول بفكرة الاستقالة من الحكومة، لتخلص للقول إن ليس هناك ما يستدعي الاستقالة، لأنها تعلم سلفاً أنها دخلت لعبة السلطة وما عاد قرار الخروج سهلاً، بقدر ما تعلم أن لا مردود لوجودها في الحكومة على مستوى الشعارات والأهداف التي بشرت بها لتميّز في الأداء يغيّر وجهة بوصلة الدولة، وأداء مؤسساتها، بينما صار المردود على مستوى الحضور السلطوي آسراً، وصار التوازن في مقاربة المسار الانتخابي المقبل يستدعي الجمع بين بقاء بلا معنى سياسي وبرامجي في الحكومة، لكنه مطلوب للتحالفات الانتخابية وبعض الخدمات الانتخابية، وبين لغة سياسية انتقادية تصل حدّ الحديث عن الاستقالة لضبط قواعد حزبية رفعت سقف تطلعاتها بسبب وعود وردية بأداء حكومي مختلف.

– تصادمت القوات مع حليفيها القديم والجديد، تيار المستقبل والتيار الوطني الحر في قضيتين أساسيتين ترسمان صورة اليوميات الحكومية خلال ما مضى وما سيأتي، في ملفي التلزيمات والتعيينات، ولم تحصد أكثر من حق التحفظ. فلا أخذ باعتراضاتها تحت شعار اعتماد معايير تُسهم ببناء الدولة وفق ضوابط تمنع الفساد وتُبطل فعل المحسوبية، ولا نالت نصيباً تحت الطاولة يضمن ترضية مناسبة، تُشعرها بالشراكة وتجعل عبء الدفاع عن البقاء في السلطة معادلاً للمكاسب المترتبة على الوجود فيها، بينما في القضايا المحورية الهامة في العمل الحكومي كقانون الانتخابات النيابية والموازنة العامة للدولة وسلسلة الرتب والرواتب، فقد تأكّدت القوات أنّ معادلة الحكم يقودها رباعي المستقبل والوطني الحر وحزب الله وحركة أمل، وأنّ ترضية الخاطر التي حصل عليها الشريك الخامس النائب وليد جنبلاط، لم تحصل على مثلها، وأنّ الدور المتاح للقوات هو شريك الغرم لا شريك الغنم.

– شريك الغرم لا شريك الغنم هو دور ارتضاه حزب الله، في علاقته بمؤسسات الحكم ضمن معادلة يستطيع الاقتناع بها وإقناع قواعده بضرورتها. فهي ليست حاصل الضعف والتهميش كحال القوات، بل نتيجة فائض القوة، فحزب الله يضع في أولوياته حربه في سورية واستعداده بوجه «إسرائيل»، ولهذا يهتمّ داخلياً بضبط إيقاع السياسة لمزيد من الاستقرار والابتعاد عن مخاطر الفتن، ويرى زهده بالسلطة مصدر جذب للطبقة السياسية عن منازعته على الموقف من ملفاته الكبرى، ويحصر مداخلته السلطوية بمحاور يديرها بالتعاون والتنسيق مع حليف وشريك استراتيجي لا منافسة معه هو الرئيس نبيه بري. وهذه المحاور تتصل بالخدمات والتعيينات، بينما تدخلاته المباشرة تحضر في المحطات الفاصلة التي ترك بصماته واضحة فيها، خصوصاً قانون الانتخابات النيابية واعتماد النسبية فيه.

– القوات لا تستطيع ادّعاء دور شبيه بدور حزب الله، وهي من جهة، تقف على ضفة الخاسرين والمهزومين في خياراتها ورهاناتها الإقليمية، وأبرزها الحرب لإسقاط سورية، بينما يقف حزب الله في طليعة حلف الانتصار. ومن جهة مقابلة تعيش القوات أزمتها مع حليفيها الرئيسيين، التيار الوطني الحر وتيار المستقبل، عكس حزب الله الذي يعيش حال الثقة بحليفيه الرئيسيين، التيار الوطني الحر وحركة أمل، ولذلك تجد القوات الحاجة للحديث عن الاستقالة ولا يجد حزب الله الحاجة لذلك، ولذلك تتحدّث القوات عن الاستقالة من موقع الضعف ولا تستطيع ممارستها، بينما مارسها حزب الله عندما وجدها ضرورية، من موقع القوة ومن دون الحديث عنها.

– قد لا ينتبه قادة حزب القوات أنّ محطة الشراكة في الحكم هذه المرة مختلفة عن سابقاتها في مسيرتهم السياسية، لكنهم سيكتشفون ذلك في الانتخابات النيابية وعشية رسم التحالفات، فقد بانت نقاط ضعفهم لحلفائهم وخصومهم.

– عندما يستقيل وزراء القوات، فذلك يعني أنّ هناك قراراً أميركياً سعودياً بالضغط على رئيس الجمهورية وربما بتطيير الحكومة ويترك للقوات توظيف الاستقالة بتجميع بعض المزاج المعارض انتخابياً.

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Syrian Army Advances in Deir Ezzor, Strikes Terrorists in Hama

October 25, 2017

Syrian Army units re-established control over al-Sina’a neighborhood in Deir Ezzor city after eliminating the last gatherings of ISIL terrorists there.

SANA reporter in Deir Ezzor said that army units combed the neighborhood fully and set up new military points inside it in preparation for launching new operations to root out ISIL terrorists from other neighborhoods.

The reporter added that army units carried out accurate operations on ISIL movements in the neighborhood of al-Hamidiya, al-Jubaila, al-Rushdiya, al-Sheikh Yassin, Kanamat and Khasarat, inflicting heavy losses upon ISIL.

In the eastern countryside of the province, army units, backed by Air Force and Artillery achieved new progress in their operations against ISIL dens in Huweijit Saqar village, after killing a number of terrorists and destroying their fortifications.

Meanwhile in Hama province, the Syrian Air Force targeted a convoy of heavy vehicles for al-Nusra Front terrorist organization in the eastern countryside.

The convoy was moving in al-Buweider village to the north of al-Saan area in the eastern countryside of Hama when the Syrian warplanes hot it, SANA reporter in Hama said.

He added that the air strikes resulted in destroying eight trailer trucks loaded with tanks and heavy weapons, in addition to eliminating many of the terrorists.

Source: SANA

 

SYRIA WAR REPORT – OCTOBER 24, 2017: SYRIAN ARMY ADVANCES EAST OF DEIR EZZOR CITY

Last night, an airstrike hit the government-held neighborhood of al-Qusour in Deir Ezzor city killing at least 14 people and wounding 32 others. Pro-opposition sources say that the incident is a result of mistake by the Syrian or Russian air power. According to pro-government sources, the airstrike was conducted by the US-led coalition as a warning to the Syrian government amid the ongoing tensions east of Deir Ezzor.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) have secured the village of Tabiyah on the eastern bank of the Euphrates and advanced on al-Ashrah on the river’s western bank. An intense fighting is now ongoing in the village.

Some pro-government sources have already claimed that al-Ashrah is under control of the SAA. But this is not confirmed yet.

An intense fighting erupted in the T2 Pumping Station area near the border with Iraq. The SAA and Hezbollah advanced on ISIS positions in another attempt to recapture this strategic site from the terrorist group.

Government troops killed up to 10 ISIS members and destroyed 2 vehicles in the clashes. ISIS claimed that it destroyed a battle tank and two vehicles of the SAA.

The pumping station area remains contested.

The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have still not been able to provide any photos or videos from the Omar oil fields area and nearby points that were seized by the US-backed force on October 22.

Meanwhile, according to pro-Kurdish sources, the SDF is preparing to push further towards the border with Iraq, capturing the remaining oil and gas infrastructure along the Euphrates.

On October 23, the second Turkish military convoy entered Syria’s Idlib province. According to local sources, the convoy was consisting of up 50 vehicles. Turkish pro-government media say that Ankara is going to establish at least 8 garrisons in the area.

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