ماكرون أربك واشنطن في لبنان والملف النوويّ Macron confused Washington in Lebanon and the nuclear file

**Please scroll down for the English Machine translation **


ماكرون أربك واشنطن في لبنان والملف النوويّ

 ناصر قنديل

حاولت فرنسا في عهد الرئيس أمانويل ماكرون أن تستعيد صورة الدولة المستقلة والمتوازنة، وأن تقود الاتحاد الأوروبي تحت هذا العنوان، وخلال سنوات مرّت على انتخابه كانت هذه المحاولة تحت الاختبار، والأبرز كان استحقاق الحفاظ على الاتفاق النووي مع إيران، بعدما انسحبت منه إدارة الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب، ووقفت أوروبا قبل أن يبدأ تفكك وحدتها موحّدة تحت شعار حماية الاتفاق. وخلال هذه السنوات فشلت أوروبا وفي المقدّمة فرنسا في تقديم المثال والنموذج الذي كان ينتظره العالم لتقديم نموذج الاستقلال والاقتدار، فبقي القرار الأميركي حاكماً ومقرراً للحركة الأوروبية وفي قلبها الحركة الفرنسية.

راهنت إدارة الرئيس الأميركي جو بايدن على تغيير في مقاربتها للملفات الساخنة لتتفرّغ لأوضاعها الداخلية، وتستردّ ما وصفه بايدن بقوة المثال بدلاً من مثال القوة الذي وسم به سلفه ترامب، وكان لفرنسا مكانة خاصة في مقاربة بايدن للسياسات الخارجيّة الجديدة، فخطاب بايدن عن المواجهة مع روسيا والصين يبدأ باستنهاض أوروبا وحلف الأطلسي، وفي قلبهما فرنسا، والعودة للاتفاق النوويّ بصورة سريعة تحفظ ماء وجه واشنطن تقوم على رهان عنوانه فرنسا، حتى جاء اختيار بايدن لكل من وزير خارجيّته توني بلينكن ومبعوثه إلى إيران روبرت مالي، الفرانكوفينيين اللذين عاشا وتعلّما في فرنسا تعبيراً عن هذا الرهان.

دخل الرئيس الفرنسي على خطة الرئيس الأميركي نحو ملفات السياسة الخارجيّة، ووضع معادلة عنوانها حماية الدور الفرنسي بتفويض أميركيّ في التعامل مع الملف اللبنانيّ بعدما خسرت فرنسا نفوذها في ليبيا أمام تركيا، مقابل تحرّكه تحت المظلة الأميركيّة في الملفات الدوليّة وفي طليعتها تفعيل العلاقة الأميركية الأوروبية، وتنشيط حلف الأطلسي، والاصطفاف في مواجهة روسيا والصين، والتحرّك على خط التفاوض مع إيران في شروط العودة إلى التفاهم النوويّ معها، وبدا بعد الاتصال الهاتفي بين بايدن وماكرون أن فترة اختبار أميركيّة منحت لفرنسا.

خلال أسبوع من الاتصال الهاتفي أعلن ماكرون ضمانته للسعودية بالشراكة في مفاوضات الملف النووي، ضمن معادلة رسمها ماكرون ووزير خارجيّته، تقوم على تولي السعودية تسهيل مهمة فرنسا لبنانياً، مقابل حصول فرنسا على موافقة أميركيّة وإيرانيّة على ضم السعودية إلى مفاوضاتهما حول الملف النووي الإيراني، فسقط الحل اللبنانيّ المنتظر وصار مرتبطاً بالملف النووي الإيراني، على الأقل في التسهيل المنتظر من السعودية، وارتبك الدور الفرنسي الوسيط في مفاوضات الملف النووي بسبب الفيتو الإيراني على الوساطة الفرنسيّة، بعد هذا الإعلان، واضطرار واشنطن لسحب التفويض الممنوح لفرنسا كوسيط، لضمان مواصلة التفاوض، سواء عبر الدور الذي كان مؤجلاً لمبعوثها روبرت مالي، أو عبر تكليف مفوّض السياسة الخارجية الأوروبية جوزيب بوريل بتولي المهمة الفرنسية.

بدلاً من المراجعة الفرنسية للدور، مضت إدارة الرئيس ماكرون بالهروب إلى الأمام، وبعد خسارة التفويض الأميركي، تواجه مخاطر خسارة التفويض الأوروبي، فوزير خارجية فرنسا أحرج أوروبا بحديثه عن طلب العقوبات الأوروبية على المسؤولين اللبنانيين، ما اضطر بوريل إلى الإعلان عن موقف واضح مختلف عنوانه دعوة الأحزاب اللبنانية إلى إنجاز اتفاق سياسي يتيح منع الانهيار، بينما فرنسا بشخص وزير خارجيتها تريد أوروبا واجهة لضغوط تنقذ مبادرتها المترنّحة، أملاً بتجاوز مأزق وعود ماكرون التي لم تتحقق للسعودية.

شيئاً فشيئاً تسود نظرية أميركية، وتبدأ لتصبح أوروبية، عنوانها خفة الرئيس ماكرون، ويصل بعض الخبراء الأميركيين للقول إن الشهور الأولى من ولاية الرئيس بايدن ضاعت بسبب خفة ماكرون، وبعضهم يقول إن الانتظار الصيني الإيراني للإعلان عن توقيع الاتفاق الاستراتيجي، كان لمنح بايدن فرصة تظهير مقاربة جديدة للعلاقات الدوليّة، فتمخض بايدن وأجهض ماكرون، على طريقة تمخّض الجبل فأجهض فأراً.

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Macron confused Washington in Lebanon and the nuclear file

Nasser Kandil

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– France tried under President Emmanuel Macron to restore the image of an independent and balanced state, and to lead the European Union under this title, and within years of his election this attempt was tested, most notably the merit of maintaining the nuclear deal with Iran, after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from it, and Europe stood before the disintegration of its unity began under the banner of protecting the agreement. During these years, Europe, led by France, failed to provide the example and model that the world was waiting for to present the model of independence and power, and the American decision remained the ruler and rapporteur of the European movement and at the heart of the French movement.

The administration of US President Joe Biden wagered on a change in its approach to hot files in order to devote itself to its internal conditions, and to recover what Biden described with the power of the example instead of the example of power that characterized his predecessor Trump, and France had a special place in Biden’s approach to the new foreign policies, so Biden’s speech about the confrontation with Russia and China It begins with the revival of Europe and NATO, with France at their heart, and a quick return to the nuclear agreement that saves Washington’s face, based on a bet whose title is France, until Biden chose each of his foreign minister Tony Blinken and his envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, the Francophenians who lived and learned in France as an expression of this. the bet.

– President Joe Biden’s administration has bet on a change in its approach to the hot files to take off its domestic situation, and recovers what Biden strongly described as an example instead of the example of power that his predecessor Trump has branded. France has a special place in Biden’s approach to new foreign policies, Biden’s rhetoric on confrontation with Russia and China begins with its Europe and NATO, where France is the heart. The quick return to the nuclear deal will save Washington’s face water depends on France, and explain Biden’s choice to appoint too Francophenians who lived and educated in France, as his foreign minister, Tony Blinken, and his envoy to Iran, Robert Malle.

-The French President entered into the US President’s plan towards foreign policy files, and set up an equation titled protecting the French role with an American mandate in dealing with the Lebanese file after losing its influence in Libya to Turkey, in exchange for moving under the US umbrella in the international files, on top of which is the activation of the US-European relationship, and the revitalization of NATO, aligning itself in the face of Russia and China, and moving on the line of negotiations with Iran in terms of returning to a nuclear understanding with it, and it seemed after the phone call between Biden and Macron that an American test period had been granted to France.

– After the phone call between Biden and Macron that an American test period had been granted to France .The French president entered the plan of the U.S. on the foreign policy files. He put an equation to protect the French role under U.S. mandate in dealing with the Lebanese file after France lost its influence in Libya to Turkey, in exchange for the revitalization of NATO, in the face of Russia and China, and moving on the line of negotiation with Iran.

– Within a week of the phone call, Macron announced his guarantee to Saudi Arabia in partnership in the negotiations on the nuclear file, within an equation drawn by Macron and his foreign minister, based on Saudi Arabia to facilitate the mission of France Lebanon, in exchange for France’s approval of the inclusion of Saudi Arabia in their negotiations on the Iranian nuclear file, the expected Lebanese solution fell and became linked to the Iranian nuclear file, at least in the facilitation expected from Saudi Arabia, and the French mediating role in the nuclear file negotiations was confused by the Iranian veto on the French mediation., After this announcement, Washington was forced to withdraw the mandate granted to France as a mediator, to ensure the continuation of the negotiations, whether through the role that was postponed to its envoy, Robert Malle, or by assigning the European foreign policy commissioner, Josep Borrell, to assume the French mission.

-Instead of the French review of the role, President Macron’s administration proceeded to flee forward, and after losing the American mandate, He faces the risks of losing the European mandate, and the French Foreign Minister embarrassed Europe by talking about the request for European sanctions against Lebanese officials, which forced Borrell to announce a different clear position entitled: Call The Lebanese parties reach a political agreement that allows preventing the collapse, while France, in the person of its foreign minister, wants Europe to face pressures to save its faltering initiative, hoping to overcome the deadlock and Macron’s unfulfilled promises to Saudi Arabia.

– Little by little, an American theory prevails, and it begins to become European, titled the lightness of President Macron, and some American experts arrive to say that the first months of President Biden’s term were lost because of Macron’s lightness, and some say that the Chinese-Iranian wait to announce the signing of the strategic agreement was to give Biden the opportunity to demonstrate an approach to international relations, Biden labored and Macron aborted, the mountain gave birth to a mouse.

Land Day: Palestinians mark the 45th anniversary

Palestinian farmers say they face constant threats while working on family lands due to Israel’s annexation policies

Gaza farmer working on land MEE
Iyad Abughleiba, a Palestinian farmer, finds it increasingly difficult to work on his land in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s annexation policies. (MEE/Sanad Latifa)

By Maha Hussaini in Gaza Strip

Published date: 30 March 2021 12:22 UTC 

On 30 March 1976, six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces as hundreds of Arab citizens in the occupied territory took to the streets to protest Israel’s expropriation and occupation of Palestinian lands.

The event became known as the Land Day and a symbol of national struggle that unites Palestinians around the world.

Forty-five years later, Palestinians say that not much has changed, as Israel continues its policy of annexation.

Middle East Eye met with Palestinian farmers and land owners in the Gaza Strip, who have been unable to access hundreds of dunums of land belonging to their families due to Israel’s restrictions and annexation policy.

Land theft normalised

Iyad Abughleiba, 49, a Palestinian who owns agricultural land in the eastern central Gaza Strip, says that farmers find it increasingly difficult to work in the blockaded enclave as Israel continues to “normalise land theft”.

Since age 15, he and his brothers would help their father cultivate the family lands. When his father passed away, the siblings inherited the lands and continued to work as farmers.

“My grandfather had owned more than 400 dunums of land. But over the years, and with every Israeli decision or new policy, the lands have been gradually shrinking. Today we only have 25 dunums left,” Abughleiba told MEE.

‘Our safety depends on the Israeli soldiers’ mood. You could be killed at any moment’

– Iyad Abughleiba, Palestinian farmer

Although Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza in 2005 and withdrew its forces and settlers from the enclave, it still controls vast areas of land in the northern and eastern perimeter of the Strip.

“Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip is the biggest lie. They are controlling every inch of the Strip – the land, the sea, and can you hear that noise? They are also controlling the air,” Abughleiba said as an Israeli drone buzzed at low altitude above his land.

“Like the majority of Palestinians, our grandparents lost most of their lands in Gaza and the West Bank during the [Palestinian] Nakba. But land theft did not stop here.”

The Nakba, meaning the “disaster, catastrophe or cataclysm”, marks the partition of Mandatory Palestine in 1948 and the creation of Israel. At least 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes that year. A further 280,000 to 325,000 fled their homes in territories captured by Israel in 1967. 

Following its disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel established a “buffer-zone”, a military no-go area that stretches across the Strip’s borders with Israel. The first reference to a buffer-zone in the Strip appeared in the Oslo Accords in 1993, which mentioned a 50-metre wide area along the enclave. 

Today, it extends to more than 300 – 2,000 metres inside the Strip.What is the Nakba? Day of catastrophe for Palestinians, explainedRead More »

“When Israel first established the buffer zone, we lost part of our lands. Then when they expanded it in 2009, we lost another part. This is how they gradually annex more parts of our lands every now and then,” Abughleiba explained.

Abughleiba is always on high alert while farming, even though it’s been a couple of years since Israel last annexed parts of his family’s lands.

“Even if the rest of our lands is still accessible, we are always cautious due to threats of crops being bulldozed or shots being fired at us whenever we are working.

“In 2008, the Israeli forces bulldozed our lands, uprooting dozens of olive trees and destroying a water well. In 2014, during the war on Gaza, they did it once again,” he said.

Gaza farmers and landowners bear the brunt of Israel’s policies, facing periodic bulldozing of lands, flooding of crops, and shooting by Israeli forces stationed adjacent to their lands.

“After they bulldozed our lands, we planted them again and still insist on coming back to them because they are our only source of living.

“But after all, our safety depends on the Israeli soldiers’ mood. You could be killed at any moment.” Abughleiba told MEE.

‘Modernised’ methods to steal land

Um-Emad is a Bedouin woman who was expelled from her family’s land in Beersheba during the Palestinian Nakba in 1948.

The 79-year-old lives in a small room in her sons’ house, built in the middle of their agricultural land in the eastern Bureij, in the central Gaza Strip.

For Um-Emad, living on agricultural lands is part of her family’s heritage.

‘I can never imagine my life away from our land. One metre of this land is worth a thousand apartments elsewhere.’

– Um-Emad, 79, Gaza resident

“I can never imagine my life away from our land. One metre of this land is worth a thousand apartments elsewhere,” she told MEE as she sat on the ground of her room overlooking the fields.

“If I have to leave my land in Gaza, then it has to be to my family’s land in Beersheba. That is the only place I can leave to before I die.”

Um-Emad, who was evicted to Gaza at gunpoint when she was six years old during the Nakba, thinks that Israel intends to make Palestinians pay a high price for sticking to their lands, while facilitating their migration from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

For years, Israel has been implementing an annexation plan in the West Bank that was accelerated following the announcement of former US president Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”, in January 2020.

As a result, dozens of families across the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been evicted and displaced.

According to rights groups, Israel’s annexation of Palestinian lands constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, and “can have no effect on the legal status of the territory, which remains de jure occupied”.

Palestinian farmers in Gaza Strip
Palestinian farmers work in the fields in the Gaza Strip (MEE/Sanad Latifa)

“Israel today implements a systematic policy of forcing Palestinian residents in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to migrate and leave their lands.

“The occupation does this both softly and by force. They make Palestinians believe that living in Europe with better life standards is a dream, and thus make thousands of youth leave in search for a better life, in order to make room for [Israeli] settlers.

“We are being forced to abandon our lands, but I would rather be buried here before selling one centimetre of my family’s land,” he said.

‘Every day is Land Day’

Jalal Abujlala, 47, depends mainly on his agricultural land in the eastern central Gaza Strip for living.

But with the remaining area of land after annexation by the buffer zone, the father of eight children can barely cover his family’s expenses, which include the tuition fees for his daughter who’s attending university to study medicine.

‘I always tell (my children) about our stolen lands, and that one day we will regain them back’

– Jalal Abujlala, 47, Gaza farmer

“A large part of our lands was annexed by the Occupation during the Palestinian Nakba and also due to the establishment of the Israeli buffer zone. Now the remaining area can only provide the life’s necessities,” said Abjlala.

“I can see my family’s annexed lands in the occupied territory from here. Sometimes, I approach a bit and take my children to see them. I always tell them about our stolen lands, and that one day we will regain them back,” he said.

“You would think that cultivating in this land is safe since it is not very close to the Israeli borders. But in fact, it does not have to be close in order for the farmers to be hurt,” he continued, recalling memories from Israel’s military attack on Gaza in 2014, where artillery shells targeted vast areas of agricultural lands.

“Owning a land in our country comes with no guarantees. At any moment you are threatened with bulldozing or eviction and annexation.”

For Abujlala, Israel’s measures in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are similar to the event that sparked the Land Day demonstrations in 1976.

“History repeats itself. The Land Day happens everyday in Palestine.”

Sitrep China : Xinjiang backlash market shock

March 30, 2021

Sitrep China : Xinjiang backlash market shock

Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter : Here Comes China, plus editorial notes. You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe


The last two weeks we’ve watched in awe the Chinese telling the US in Alaska that a more assertive China now is a reality as the empire has left it no choice.  Of course the Alaska meeting was spiked with sanctions poison minutes before the meetings started, to present a strongman ‘advantage’ (or so they thought) to empire.   This backfired spectacularly and lasted but 15 minutes of a blistering response by China, so perfectly translated by the Chinese translator that she immediately became a new sensation in the eyes of the Chinese people.   The Chinese response is continuing and the stance is now permanent.  I think it is fair to say that China will take no more empire so-called ‘rules-based’ international order.

We saw Mr.Biden calling President Putin a “killer with no soul”.  We saw Russia moving away from empire, in action and in (less than diplomatic) words, with Foreign Minister Lavrov completing a triumphant visit to China directly after the Alaska meeting, and in press conferences making it clear that the petrodollar is now oh so last century news.  New economic and financial mechanisms will put it in its place and we already see this.  Take a look:

China signed a currency swap agreement with Sri Lanka before $3.7 billion of its foreign debt matures this year. Sri Lanka is entitled to a $1.5 billion swap facility from the PBOC, valid for three years. More than 22% of the nation’s foreign purchases were from China last year. Read full article →.

And then these wild two weeks ended with China and Iran signing a 25-year comprehensive strategic partnership, of course, not using any last century petrodollars.

The US fought back fiercely, with nothing else but rumors and the rest of the west sanctioned everything that they could possibly think of.  The rumors and propaganda are about Xinjiang and included the bathwater and the baby, cold war style, threatening hot war style and seemingly quite out of step with developments in the rest of the world.  We will look at the market fall-out in some detail.

But why now? Why did both Russia and China stand up and declare that they are here to stay, while we were used to a more muted approach from both?

James W. Carden and Patrick Lawrence considers that it is a deep disappointment with discovering the “retrograde character of the Biden administration’s foreign policies”  “We thought too well of the United States” Mr Yang, Foreign Minister of China said.  They had hopes for Biden, in other words. Given his fading competence, we ought to add, we think these policies will be shaped and directed in large measure by Blinken and Sullivan, with an adjunct role for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. This will prove another competence problem.

https://thescrum.substack.com/p/our-cold-two-front-war

What has not had much media coverage, is foreign minister Wang Yi’s tour to the Middle East after the Iran agreement announcement.   He visited Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman, all Belt and Road member countries.   To cap off these two weeks of telling empire to become productive, take their rightful place in the world if they can, stop playing warmonger and policeman and economic hitman, the take-away statement from this tour is that Wang repeatedly said global powers should butt out of making the Middle East their arena for big-power rivalry.

(Imagine empire confusion while the penny drops that their empire is over.  Anyone hearing someone playing the fiddle or more accurately the lute?)


A short video from Professor Bill Brown at Xiamen University in southeast China’s Fujian province about the changes in China after spending 33 years there.

The empire struck back with an all-out attack against the province of Xinjiang.  The Xinjiang cotton industry was attacked with baseless rumors and propaganda about the Uyghur people and the propaganda and sanctions machines went into overdrive and we saw sanctions everywhere, mainly against anyone buying cotton from the region.  It is quite ludicrous to pretend to care for the Uyghurs if your sanctions are designed to deprive them of their major industry and their income, which is from cotton.  As fast as the western sanctions were announced, they were responded to with reciprocal sanctions.  Mr.Lavrov already mentioned that there will be a concerted effort throughout the world to do away with unilateral sanctions, so, it is almost as if they do not matter, as no country in the world can or should spare the resources to manage all the sanctions.

But China is striking back hard.  In addition, the cotton manufacturers out of Xinjiang are bringing legal action against Adrian Zenz, who stitched together the rumors of forced labor, labor camps, forced sterilization, and many others.  If you do not want to watch this video, just take a scroll through the comments though.

The Chinese people got angry and a major market kerfuffle commenced and is still ongoing.  For Australia with their thoughtless comments against China, their trade (excluding iron ore) has dropped by 40%.

H&M’s agony, Nike’s fear, the market strikes back. H&M craters after saying it would not source cotton from Xinjiang. All e-commerce platforms removed it from their websites. Searches for ‘H&M’ and ‘HM’ yielded no results, celebrities cut ties, and 200 million Weibo users boycotted H&M’s 450 stores. Nike and Adidas are under attack for using the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), which stopped licensing farms in Xinjiang. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3126828/hm-under-fire-china-over-refusal-buy-xinjiang-cotton

A-list Uyghur stars Dilraba Dilmurat (Dílì Rèbā), an actress with a huge Han fan base, and Liú Yìfēi, who starred in Mulanended their business relationships with Adidas. Nike, Calvin Klein, and Converse have lost their Chinese brand ambassadors. https://supchina.com/2021/03/24/hm-faces-boycott-in-china-over-year-old-xinjiang-cotton-ban/

Japanese fashion retailer Muji, with 17% of its total sales from China, said its stores in China will continue carrying products made with Xinjiang cotton. The company has conducted due diligence on all companies in Xinjiang involved in its supply chain. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Retail/Muji-features-Xinjiang-cotton-as-Chinese-netizens-lash-its-rivals

“H&M, Nike, and others are now suffering heavy losses to their reputations in the Chinese market. Enormous investment in public relations has been destroyed instantly. They need to complain to Western society, because they know that, whether they are active or passive, they have indeed done something intolerable to Chinese consumers”. – Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times.  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1219413.shtml

Why this focus on the Chinese province Xinjian?  Is it really caring deeply about the Uyghurs?  Of course not.  This is not how empire conducts its business.

“The investments and the infrastructure development under the BRI will bring an explosion of growth in Xinjiang. It will not just become a wealthy region, it will become ‘Dubai wealthy,’ said engineer Robert Vannrox, “the West does not want this. The more Chinese investment pours into Xinjiang, the louder the anti-China propaganda becomes.”


Cover Image: Chinese archaeologists announced Saturday that some new major discoveries have been made at the legendary Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China, helping shed light on the unified, diverse origin of the Chinese civilization.  https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2103206280/

This is but a fraction of what I gleaned from the Here Comes China newsletter.  If you want to learn about the Chinese world, get Godfree’s newsletter here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe

Amarynth

Sayyed Nasrallah To the Saudis: Don’t Waste Your Time, Yemen is Victorious …The US is Declining

Sayyed Nasrallah To the Saudis: Don’t Waste Your Time, Yemen is Victorious …The US is Declining
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Zeinab Essa

Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassasn Nasrallah delivered on Wednesday a speech on the memorial ceremony held by the Association of Muslim Scholars to honor its late Chairman of the Board of Trustees, judge Sheikh Ahmad Zein.

As His Eminence renewed Hezbollah’s condolences on the demise of the great Sheikh, dear resistance fighter, father and teacher Sheikh Ahmad Zein, His Eminence hailed “Sheikh Zein as a sublime model of faith, religiosity, knowledge and sincerity.”

“Sheikh Ahmad Zein resembles a model of ethics, humility, transparency, tenderness, friendliness, love and kindness,” Sayyed Nasrallah added, noting that “Sheikh Ahmad Zein is a model of the revolutionary resistant who was clear in his stances, vision, and bravery.”

In parallel, the resistance leader underscored that “Sheikh Ahmad Zein was stable and solid in the path of [Muslim] unity and resistance.”

“Unlike Sheikh Ahmad Zein, other people’s stances changed due to personal desperation, Petrodollars and authority,” he confirmed, praising “Sheikh Ahmad Zein, who walked a path of an intellectual, juristic, and religious basis on which he remained firm.”

According to Sayyed Nasrallah, “Sheikh Ahmed placed before him the constants of Palestine, its people, Al-Quds and the occupied land from the sea to the river. He took upon himself the cause of confronting the ‘Israeli’-American scheme to dominate the region.”

“Sheikh Ahmed, from the beginning to the end, was with Palestine and against the liquidation of its cause and with everyone who stood with it,” His Eminence highlighted, recalling that “Sheikh Ahmad Zein stood from the beginning with the revolution in Iran, because it supported Palestine.”

Moreover, Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say: “Sheikh Zein backed and supported all resistance fighters and scholars. He offered all what he could for the sake of resistance.”

He further said that “The most difficult situation for Sheikh Ahmed Zein was in Syria, and he endured a lot for that stance.”

“The most important reason behind targeting Syria was because of Palestine and the resistance, which Sheikh Zein had been aware of,” His Eminence mentioned, reminding that “Sheikh Zein rejected the regime’s practices in Bahrain and the war on Yemen despite all the pressures, and he was one of the scholars who uncovered the fabrications and misleading regarding the talk of the so-called sectarian war in Yemen.”

Sayyed Nasrallah also hinted that “The most difficult level of Sheikh Zein’s and the resistance scholars’ political life was in this decade. Recently, stances made by Sheikh Zein and other scholars were of great importance.”

In addition, Sayyed Nasrallah underscored that “In the last stage, the position of Sheikh Zein and other scholars had great significance. One of the most dangerous and difficult problems was those who tried to turn the battles into a sectarian war.”

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah hailed the historic role of many scholars who buried the sectarian division long sought by conspiring states, noting that what happened in many countries was intended to be turned into a Sunni-Shia strife as in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, etc…

“Those who broke the strife in this war are the wonderful and distinguished Sunni elite,” he elaborated.

On another level, Sayyed Nasrallah underscored that “There is a new political and media war against the oppressed Yemeni people through showing that Saudi Arabia wants to end the war while Ansarullah refuses this.”

“What is proposed to the Yemenis is not an end to the war. It is just a ceasefire while all other forms of war continue such as blocking the airport, seaports, and borders,” he emphasized, noting that “What is proposed to Yemenis is a major deceit that neither Sayyed Abdul Malik Al-Houthi nor the Ansarullah movement or the Yemeni scholars will be deceived with, not even the Yemeni children will accept this.”

In addition, Sayyed Nasrallah hailed “The Yemeni people who are as great in politics as in resistance.”

He further advised the Saudis and the Americans not to waste time after they have touched the Yemenis could not be deceived. “Ceasing the fire without lifting the siege is misleading and reflects the desire to achieve what they were unable to score in the military field.”

To the Saudis, Sayyed Nasrallah sent a sounding message: “Don’t waste time as your game won’t deceive the Yemenis. Just stop the war and end the blockade.”

On the Palestinian front, His Eminence viewed that “Palestinian steadfastness is the reason behind ‘the deal of the century’s’ failure, particularly disappearance from circulation.”

“The axis of resistance passed and crossed the worst and most dangerous stage in its history, and it continues to meet threats with hard work and the accumulation of capabilities,” Sayyed Nasrallah stressed, underlining that “Iran will not give today what it didn’t give during the harshest stage of sanctions and the daily threat with war.”

Moreover, he underlined that “Iran is on the threshold of overcoming the blockade and sanctions, and it has proven its strength and abilities.”

“Biden’s admin is seeking not to let Iran be part of an alliance that includes Russia and China. However, what Iran did not offer amid the harshest sanctions and daily threats of war it won’t offer now. It’s on its way to overcome the blockade and sanctions. It [Iran] proved strength.”

On another level, Sayyed Nasrallah predicted that “The US is moving in decline, while the axis of resistance is moving in an upward progression.”

To the Lebanese, His Eminence sent the following advise:“Let us not wait for America, the world, and developments. Let us set internal and regional dialogues to solve our problems.”

“America’s allies should know that the current US administration’s priorities are not in our region anymore, and that the US is sinking,” he said, warning that “Everybody should learn that Lebanon has exhausted its time. And it is now that we must reach a solution.”

Report: Iran to Cease 20% Enrichment if US Lifts “All Sanctions”

Report: Iran to Cease 20% Enrichment if US Lifts “All Sanctions”

By Staff, Agencies

An unnamed senior Iranian official recently revealed that Iran will stop its 20% uranium enrichment “only if the US lifts all the sanctions” that were imposed under the Trump administration and have been kept in place by the Biden White House.

The Iranian official informed Press TV that “20% uranium enrichment is in line with Paragraph 36 of the [2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and will be stopped only if the US lifts all the sanctions.”

“The Biden administration is losing time, and if it fails to lift the sanctions soon, Iran will take the next steps, which will be further reduction” of its commitments to the nuclear deal, the senior official said.

In January, the Iranian parliament boasted that its scientist had produced 17kg of enriched uranium in less than a month at its Fordow nuclear facility. This exceeds their purported production timeline which listed Iran’s goal at a rate of 120kg of 20% enrichment uranium per year.

The unidentified individual’s remarks came as a response to the Monday report from Politico that the US was seeking to issue a new proposal that requires Iran to ease its nuclear practices in exchange for relief from US sanctions.

The proposal, which has not been confirmed by the Biden camp, is expected to request that Iran ceases its use of advanced centrifuges and the pullback on enrichment of uranium supplies to 20% purity, among other efforts.

A senior official to the Biden administration would not give details on the conversations leading up to the proposal, but insists that “we are ready to pursue a mutual return to the [Iran deal].”

Shahrokh Nazemi, the head of press at Iran’s mission to the United Nations, responded to the Politico revelation by indicating that “the [deal] needs no specific proposal,” and that the US needs to follow commitments to the 2015 agreement.

Sanctions placed on Iran have put the country in challenging situations over the years.

Mahmoud Jarafi, the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the Isna news agency that “because of [US] sanctions, we have problems with bank transfers, and if no solution is found, we will even be forced to stop work at the first unit of Bushehr.” Bushehr is a plant that operates as part of a joint nuclear program between Iran and Russia.

Moscow has argued for the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes in Iran, but US sanctions have plunged the country into an economic crisis. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program was meant for peaceful purposes and not for making bombs.

The Biden administration’s alleged proposal is slated to be set forth this week, setting the stage for future talks between the US and Iran. However, the lack of diplomatic ties is sure to be one of the greatest hurdles in reaching nuclear negotiations.

Iran has remained head strong in their use of nuclear energy, and has recently solidified an investment deal with China that is sure to cause reaction from the United States.

Related

Land day: Israel’s programme of Palestinian land theft goes on undisturbed

Palestinian protesters mark Land Day in the Umm Al-Hiran village in the Wadi Atir area of the Negev (Naqab) desert (AFP)
Ghada Karmi is a former research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. The family moved to England, where she grew up and was educated. Karmi practised as a doctor for many years working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. From 1999 to 2001 Karmi was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation.

Ghada Karmi

30 March 2021 13:32 UTC | Last update: 

For Palestinians, Land Day continues to be an inspiration and a tribute to the just struggle of an unbowed people for their land

The centrality of the struggle for land has always been fundamental to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is at the heart of two major events whose anniversaries fall due on 30 March. The first, Land Day, commemorates the surge of Palestinian resistance to the takeover of their land by Israel in 1976; and the second marks the start of the Great March of Return in 2018, when thousands of Palestinians in Gaza demonstrated for the right of refugees to return to their confiscated lands in Israel.

From the start the Zionist movement was predicated on the acquisition of an empty territory on which to establish a state exclusively for Jews. Since no such land was available in the Palestine of the time, it had to be carved out, first by purchase, and later by war.

The land-grabbing journey

As Jewish immigrants began to arrive in the country in increasing numbers after 1917, Zionist organisations such as the Jewish National Fund and the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association set about buying Palestinian land, provided it was untenanted at the time of purchase.

Today, Israel’s settlements have meant that Palestinian ownership of West Bank and East Jerusalem land has shrunk to under 13 percent

Many Arab landowners living outside Palestine, in addition to a minority of Palestinian peasants, sold them land. These sales were mainly motivated by economic necessity, since the Zionist organisations had access to foreign funds unavailable to Arabs.

Years of intense Zionist effort, however, yielded disappointing results. By 1947, and despite their funding and connections to powerful supporters of Zionism, these organisations had acquired no more than a meagre 6.7 percent of Palestine’s land.

But this disappointment was soon reversed by the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. In that war Israel captured 78 percent of Mandate Palestine, taking large swathes of Palestinian land, mostly untenanted thanks to population flight and expulsions in the war. 

After 1948 the new Israeli state swiftly enacted a series of laws designed to acquire more Palestinian land by pseudo-legal means. These included the 1950 Absentee Property Law, permitting the state to take over Palestinian land and property in their owners’ absence; and soon after, the 1953 Land Acquisition Law, which introduced a new category of “state lands” and “closed areas”.

This had the effect of making the state the majority owner of the land, which was to be permanently out of the reach of its previous Palestinian owners.

Subsequent events up to and including the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, that put Israel in occupation of the rest of Palestine, have been stages on the same land-grabbing journey. Today, Israel’s settlements have meant that Palestinian ownership of West Bank and East Jerusalem land has shrunk to under 13 percent. That is set to diminish further as the settlement process continues with further land loss. 

Palestinian children hold up pictures of keys, symbolising the homes they left behind (AFP)
Palestinian children hold up pictures of keys, symbolising the homes they left behind (AFP)

This is the background to the dramatic protests of Land Day in 1976. Their trigger at the time was the Israeli government’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunums of Arab land in the Galilee to build Jewish industrial villages. In line with the Israeli government’s 1975 “Galilee Development Plan” to expand Jewish settlement, it would accelerate Judaisation of what was a majority Arab area. 

A turning point

On 30 March a general strike was called, and widespread demonstrations in Arab towns erupted from the Galilee to the Negev. Thousands marched in protest, while solidarity demonstration were held in the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.Land Day: A potent symbol of the Palestinian struggle

Unexpected at the time from what had been a largely quiescent Arab population, Israel was alarmed and deployed thousands of police, army units and tanks to quell the protests. Six Arabs were killed, hundreds wounded, and hundreds more arrested.

Land Day, as it became known, was a turning point. It was the first time since 1948 that the Arabs in Israel acted as a national collective, refusing to accept the theft of their land after years of control by Israel’s military rule. Land Day was an expression of national pride and self-confidence. It marked the assertion of an Arab presence that Israel’s politics could no longer ignore, and the starting point for Arab political participation in Israel. 

From that time to this, Land Day has been commemorated annually by Palestinians everywhere. In 2018 it was marked by the start of another great Palestinian protest over land. The Great March of Return saw 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza demonstrate near the Israeli separation fence of electrified barbed wire and sensors. It was a peaceful protest, demanding the right of refugees to return to their lands and an end to the blockade of Gaza. Intended to last from 30 March to 15 May, Nakba Day, the same protests took place every Friday.

A double heroism

As in 1976 Israel retaliated with murderous violence. Between 30 March and 15 May 2018 an estimated 110 protesters were killed, and 13,000 wounded by a combination of sniper fire and drones. By the time the March of Return was halted by Hamas in December 2019, 214 people had been killed, and 36,000 wounded. Of these, 1,200 needed long term rehabilitation following bone infections and limb injuries. Israeli soldiers seemed to be using a “shoot-and-maim” policy, deliberately targeting the legs of protestors to cause maximum disability.

Land Day marked the assertion of an Arab presence that Israel’s politics could no longer ignore

Gaza’s health system, damaged by years of blockade, understaffing, and equipment and power shortages, has been unable to cope with the toll of so many injured. Yet that did not stop Palestinian youth braving death and injury each week for nearly two years, and creating a new Palestinian legend to commemorate on 30 March. 

Israel never changed course in the face of that double Palestinian heroism celebrated on Land Day. It went on to build “Development towns” for Jews, 26 by 1981, with the effect of altering the Galilee’s demography in favour of Jews.

In Gaza, likewise, the blockade continues, and Israel’s pretext of its brutality as self-defence against the Great March of Return has been accepted by many Western governments. Its programme of Palestinian land theft goes on undisturbed.  

But for Palestinians on 30 March, Land Day continues to be an inspiration, and a tribute to the just struggle of an unbowed people for their land.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Related

Historical References:

Blockbuster: Epstein, Aided by Mossad, Local Cops, Raped, Threatened to ‘throw woman to alligators’ – New Lawsuit

By VT Editors -March 30, 2021

  • …Epstein and Maxwell threatened and intimidated her by emphasizing Epstein’s influence over the FBI, the U.S. Office of Homeland Security’s Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Florida state and local law enforcement, according to the lawsuit….(through both Epstein’s and Maxwell’s Mossad connections)
  • ...Epstein also promised to help find her husband a job with the FBI…
  • …Epstein’s lawyers, including famed prosecutor turned defense lawyer Kenneth Starr, appealed to the Department of Justice in Washington, urging them to intervene in the South Florida case…
Ken Starr and George W Bush

Raw Story: In a new lawsuit, a woman identified as only “Jane Doe” claims that Jeffrey Epstein and his companion Ghislaine Maxwell repeatedly raped her in front of her 8-year-old son at a hotel in Naples, Florida, in early 2008, the Miami Herald reports.

The woman also claims the pair trafficked her to have sex with other men, including an unnamed local judge, and that Epstein forced her to undergo a vaginal medical procedure so he could market her as a virgin to one of his “high profile” clients.

The lawsuit says Doe was a real estate broker who met Epstein and Maxwell sometime in 2006 or 2007 and helped him find property to rent, for which he paid cash and instructed her not to identify him as a tenant or process his identification. He later offered her to work for him.

“About six months later, Doe, ‘persuaded by the persistent efforts of Maxwell,’ agreed to consider working for Epstein,” the Herald reports. “A trained hairdresser, Doe said she was hired to go to Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion in January 2008 to cut Epstein’s hair. When she arrived, Epstein was naked and, with Maxwell’s assistance, brutally raped her, according to the lawsuit.”

After he raped her, Epstein allegedly gave her $200.

When Doe threatened to call the police, Maxwell claimed that she had already called the police. Then, according to the lawsuit, two men who claimed to be police officers showed up and threatened to arrest Doe for prostitution, take away her son, and deport her.

“Epstein then ushered the plaintiff to the body of water and told her in explicit detail that — as had happened to other women in the past, according to the pair — she would end up in this body of water and be devoured should she ever reveal what Epstein had done to her,” the suit says.  From the Miami Herald:

The woman, who is identified only as “Jane Doe,” claims that Epstein and Maxwell repeatedly raped her in front of her 8-year-old son at a hotel in Naples, Florida, in early 2008; that they trafficked her to have sex with a number of other men, including an unnamed local judge; and that Epstein forced her to undergo vaginal surgery so that he could market her as a virgin to one of their “high-profile” clients.

The woman, who is identified only as “Jane Doe,” claims that Epstein and Maxwell repeatedly raped her in front of her 8-year-old son at a hotel in Naples, Florida, in early 2008; that they trafficked her to have sex with a number of other men, including an unnamed local judge; and that Epstein forced her to undergo vaginal surgery so that he could market her as a virgin to one of their “high-profile” clients.

Then Epstein and Maxwell ordered Doe to drive with them in Doe’s vehicle, picking up her son along the way. During the trip, they pulled off the side of the road to a waterway filled with alligators.

“Epstein then ushered the plaintiff to the body of water and told her in explicit detail that — as had happened to other women in the past, according to the pair — she would end up in this body of water and be devoured should she ever reveal what Epstein had done to her,’’ the suit says.

At a hotel in Naples, over a period of days, Doe was repeatedly raped by Epstein and Maxwell in the presence of her young son, she said.


…introduction by Jonas E. Alexis, VT Editor

JEA: It is well known that Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, was a double agent for the Israeli Mossad. Robert was a staunch supporter of Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He actually made a deal with the Czech communists at the time, who provided Israel with guns and bullets in order to fight the Arabs.[1]

Maxwell, who was called “a ruthless bully” by the Daily Mail,[2] was a Jew from Czechoslovakia who eventually became a flamboyant British mogul through various publishing empires such as the New York Daily News and Mirror Group newspapers.[3] In 1991, his body was mysteriously found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The Guardian later asked, “Was it murder? Suicide? Or just an accident?”[4] The newspaper moved on to say that there was “talk of suicide, or murder – perhaps by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.”[5]

Anyway, after his death, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a terrorist in the strict sense of the word,[6] declared that Robert “has done more for Israel than can today be told.”[7] The question is simply this: Were Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein Israeli spies, blackmailing and titillating politicians and preying on other people’s weakness?

In Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Dylan Howard and co-authors Melissa Cronin and James Robertson produce enough evidence showing that Jeffrey Epstein was indeed an Israeli agent, acting covertly and using sex rings to trap politicians and powerful people. This is one reason why Epstein constantly bragged that he “had dirt on powerful people…. some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.”[8]

James B. Stewart of the New York Times himself declared last year that “many prominent men and at least a few women must be breathing sighs of relief that whatever Mr. Epstein knew, he has taken it with him.”[9] In other words, those people had a vested interest in seeing Epstein dead.

We will discuss the full content of Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales next year. But what should be clear by everyone here is that there is more to the Jeffrey Epstein debacle than meets the eye and ear, and Philip Giraldi, a former intelligence officer for the CIA, is giving us an introduction of what this is all about.

The Maxwells: Mossad’s First Family of Spies

By Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer

The story of the deceased pedophile and presumed Israeli spy Jeffrey Epstein continues to enthrall because so little of the truth regarding it has been revealed in spite of claims by the government that a thorough follow-up investigation has been initiated. The case is reportedly still open and it is to be presumed that Justice Department investigators have been able to examine certain aspects of what occurred more intensively. A major part of the investigation has been a review of actions taken by the four government prosecutors who were most directly involved with the negotiations with Epstein and his lawyers in 2007-8. The 22 month-long review, carried out by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), finally produced a 350 page report which was released on November 12th.

The DOJ has now picked out a scapegoat for what many now think was gross prosecutorial negligence, possibly including corruption of senior government officials. He is not surprisingly Alexander Acosta, who was the U.S. Attorney for Miami when the Epstein case came up. Relying substantially on internal government emails as well as communications between the prosecutors and Epstein’s team of high-profile lawyers to reach its conclusion, the OPR review concluded that Acosta exhibited “poor judgment” in his handling of the Epstein deal. He did not inform the victims or their attorneys of developments in the case, as required by law, and overruled the lead prosecutor and FBI agents who argued that Epstein should face serious jail time. He even cut a deal with Epstein before the investigation into his crimes was completed. The OPR investigators also determined that many emails that would have materially aided the plaintiffs were not made available to their attorneys, a shortcoming that the report attributed to a “technological error.”

The email gap covers the time span from May 2007, when the prosecutor’s office prepared a 53-page draft indictment of Epstein, to April 2008, shortly before Epstein’s guilty plea and slap-on-the-wrist sentence in state court ended the federal investigation. Epstein’s defense attorneys had during that time period been engaged in an aggressive lobbying campaign to persuade the federal prosecutors to rescind the indictment and shut down the federal case. Epstein’s “sweetheart deal” with the federal government negated a possible conviction of serious crimes against 19 alleged victims, most of whom were minors. Instead of a possible sentence of between 14 and 17 years in federal prison, Epstein was encouraged by federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two prostitution-related crimes in state court to resolve the case. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a county jail on a liberal work release program, often sleeping in his own home, and the federal case was duly closed.

It is, of course, noticeable that neither Acosta, who has possibly now retired from public life, nor anyone else will be punished for what was clearly a gross miscarriage of justice. That is the way the government works these days. But there is also a much bigger problem with the report, which is that it essentially failed to follow up on an argument that Acosta made when the bungling of the Epstein case began to surface in the media last year.

There has, in fact, been a cover-up of a major element in the Epstein saga, namely his possible connection with Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad. Investigative reporter Whitney Webb has recently completed an exhaustive review of what we know about Epstein’s partner in crime, lover and accomplice Ghislaine Maxell, to include some consideration of the possible involvement of her sisters Isabel and Christine in activity initially directed by their father, known Mossad agent Robert Maxwell.

The evidence that Epstein was directly involved in intelligence work to include bribing or blackmailing prominent individuals to act on behalf of Israel, derives both from the statement made by Acosta in 2017 that “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” a comment that the Justice Department and FBI have apparently never sought to investigate further. It also derives from other external evidence. Epstein was found to be making videos of his guests having sex with his young girls, which is a version of a classic intelligence entrapment technique employed by every major spy agency worldwide and in his Manhattan mansion he had a large supply of diamonds, cash and an Austrian passport on hand if he should have to make a quick escape.

That Epstein would be linked to Israel rather than to some other intelligence service is inevitably due to his relationship with Robert Maxwell, which eventually included his daughter Ghislaine. Robert, a Czech Jew who became a naturalized British citizen, was believed by C.I.A. and other intelligence services to be a long-time agent of Mossad. After he died under mysterious circumstances, he was given a state funeral in Israel that was attended by every current and former head of the Jewish state’s intelligence service as well as by the country’s prime minister Yitzhak Shamir who eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.” Ghislaine reportedly became the principal procurer of Epstein’s young girl victims.

Also corroborating the tale of espionage even if it appears to be of no interest to the FBI and Justice Department, is a book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales written by a former Israeli intelligence officer who actually ran the “Robert Maxwell” operation, describing inter alia how Epstein and Maxwell were blackmailing prominent politicians on behalf of Mossad. According to Ari Ben-Menashe, the two had been working directly for the Israeli government since the 1980’s and their operation, which was funded by Mossad and also by prominent American Jews, was a classic “honey-trap” which used underage girls as bait to attract well-known politicians from around the world, a list that included Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton. The politicians would be photographed and video recorded when they were in bed with the girls.

But in spite of the evidence, the role of Ghislaine, currently in custody in a maximum-security Brooklyn prison, is less well known and is possibly being deliberately concealed by the Trump Administration, which is prone to do favors for Israel. Even less known is the possible roles of her two sisters. Webb details how Maxwell and his Israeli Mossad handlers compromised the top-secret information system then in use by the U.S. government. She observes that “While Ghislaine’s own ties to intelligence have…come to light in relation to her critical role in facilitating the Jeffrey Epstein sexual blackmail operation,…little, if any attention, has been paid to her siblings, particularly Christine and her twin sister Isabel, despite them having held senior roles at the Israeli intelligence front company that facilitated their father’s greatest act of espionage on Israel’s behalf, the sale of the bugged PROMIS software to the U.S. national laboratories at the heart of the country’s nuclear weapons system… Ghislaine herself also became involved in these [blackmail] affairs, as did Jeffrey Epstein following his first arrest, as they began courting the biggest names in the U.S. tech scene, from Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capital firms to its most well-known titans. This also dovetailed with Epstein’s investments in Israeli intelligence-linked tech firms and his claims of having troves of blackmail on prominent tech company CEOs during this same period.”

Upon Robert Maxwell’s mysterious death in 1991, his sons Kevin and Ian took control of many of the interlocking companies that their father had used both to conceal assets and to obtain access and information while Ghislaine remained in the New York area and two other daughters Isabel and Christine opted to exploit the internet as an intelligence resource to build upon their father’s “legacy.”

Isabel, in particular, moved aggressively and eventually became recognized as the self-styled liaison between Israel’s government and Silicon Valley. Whitney Webb recounts in considerable detail how she “mov[ed] in ‘the same circles as her father’ and vow[ed] to ‘work only on things involving Israel’ … [to become] a pivotal liaison for the entry of Israeli intelligence-linked tech firms into Silicon Valley with the help of Microsoft’s two co-founders, Paul Allen and Bill Gates.”

One has to suspect that a tale of Mossad running a major spy ring in the U.S. using a pedophile and young girls might just be too much for some folks in power to tolerate and they have made sure that the true story will never see the light of day. But the tale of how the prominent ostensibly British Maxwell family, acting for Mossad, may have systematically spied on the United States over a number of years, often pretty much out in the open, and the FBI and Justice Department saw fit to look the other way, is bigger still. That is the real story. Israel yet again spies and Washington denies.


  • [1] John Loftus, The Secret War Against the Jews (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), chapter 9. I don’t necessarily agree with Loftus’ assertions.
  • [2] Jane Fryer, “Misery of the Maxwells: Bankruptcy, sudden death, huge fortunes made and lost – the shattering legacy of all the children in thrall to their monstrous father Robert Maxwell,” Daily Mail, August 15, 2019.
  • [3] “The story of Robert Maxwell: Ghislaine’s disgraced media-mogul dad,” NY Post, July 3, 2020.
  • [4] Caroline Davies, “The murky life and death of Robert Maxwell – and how it shaped his daughter Ghislaine,” Guardian, August 22, 2019.
  • [5] Ibid.
  • [6] I have documented Shamir’s terrorist activities in the book Zionism vs. the West.
  • [7] Gordon Thomas, Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 23.
  • [8] James B. Stewart, “The Day Jeffrey Epstein Told Me He Had Dirt on Powerful People,” NY Times, August 12, 2019.
  • [9] Ibid.

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Sanaa Forces Resuming Their Progress: Marib Off the Barter

Sanaa Forces Resuming Their Progress: Marib Off the Barter

Translated by Staff, Al-Akhbar

Under the pro-Riyadh government’s attempt to make the battle of Marib a bartering material in the humanitarian dossier which has been separated from the political and the military dossiers by the Muscat negotiations, Sanaa forces resumed their progress in areas peripheral to the city. Over the past few hours, they were able to obtain strategically important areas on the western and northwestern fronts of the governorate center, moving the battle to areas near Sahn al-Jin in the city’s western neighborhoods.

The most recent military progress by the Yemeni army and the Popular Committees during the past 48 hours at the northwestern boundaries of Marib coincides with a similar progress that transported the battles to the city’s outskirts. The forces of ousted President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his loyal militias, also lost a number of strategic areas in the fronts in western Marib, as well as control over the courses of battle in more than one axis. Given this, a large number of military garrisons near the Sahn al-Jin military base in the western outskirts of the governorate center had fallen under the control of the Sanaa forces during violent confrontations on the fronts in East Kassara and Aydat al-Raa.

Yesterday’s [Monday, March 29] confrontations, in which the Saudi Air Force carried out more than 20 raids, ended with the loss of new areas at the Kassara front. Meanwhile, the army and the committees were able to control the strategic sites such as Tibab al-Fajwa, Tibat al-Haramla and Tibat al-Saytara. This progress coincided with similar developments in the western front of Marib, with more than 70% of Aydat al-Raa area falling under the control of the Sanaa forces, which also took control of Hama al-Ziab and al-Hama al-Hamra areas located in the northwest of the governorate center near the Marib–al-Jawf highway.

In parallel, the battles intensified in the strategic vicinity of al-Talaa al-Hamra, as dozens of the Hadi forces fell under the siege of the army and the committees south al-Talaa. While confrontations with Salafi militias, emerging from Abyan governorate, have intensified on the central al-Balqain and al-Qibli in the southwest fronts Marib over the past hours, withdrawing to the northern front. Accordingly, the Sanaa forces reported further progress in the Raghwan front, as the intensity of the battles decreased on the Murad and al-Alam fronts in the southern and northern parts of the city.

Related

حلفاء السعودية: سقوط مأرب خلال أيّام

اليمن

رشيد الحداد

الأربعاء 31 آذار 2021

حلفاء السعودية: سقوط مأرب خلال أيّام
تهاوت حاميات استراتيجية شمال غرب المدينة تحت سيطرة صنعاء خلال الـ24 ساعة الماضية (أ ف ب )

صنعاء تواصَل، في الساعات الأربع والعشرين الماضية، تهاوي الحاميات الاستراتيجية لمدينة مأرب من الجهة الشمالية الغربية، وسط تقدُّم إضافي لقوات صنعاء، من شأنه، إذا ما استمرّ خلال الساعات المقبلة، أن ينقل المعركة إلى البوّابة الشمالية الغربية لمركز المحافظة، وهو ما يعني، عملياً، تعطيل المنطقة العسكرية الثالثة وقاعدة “صحن الجن” الاستراتيجية، وبالتالي انفتاح صفحة تحرير المدينة. جرّاء كلّ تلك المعطيات، بدأت التحذيرات تتعالى، من داخل الأوساط القبَلية الموالية للتحالف السعودي ــــ الإماراتي، من أن سقوط مأرب أصبح أمراً مفروغاً منه، وأن ذلك قد يحدث في خلال أيام فقط، وخصوصاً في ظلّ حالة الانهيار المتواصلة في صفوف قوات عبد ربه منصور هادي


وسط تحذيرات أوساط قبَلية موالية للتحالف السعودي – الإماراتي من سقوط مدينة مأرب خلال أيّام، تهاوى عدد من الحاميات الاستراتيجية شمال غرب المدينة تحت سيطرة قوات صنعاء خلال الـ24 ساعة الماضية، فيما تمكّن الجيش و»اللجان الشعبية» من نقل المعركة إلى ما بعد مخيّم النازحين في منطقة إيدات الراء التي أصبحت تحت سيطرتهما بشكل شبه كامل، والوصول إلى مناطق متقدّمة شمال غرب مركز المحافظة، على رغم محاولة طائرات «التحالف» إعاقة تقدُّمهم باستهداف جبهات القتال بأكثر من 70 غارة جوية، أدّى البعض منها إلى مقتلة في صفوف قوات جنوبية موالية للرياض في أطراف وادي نخلا. ووفقاً لأكثر من مصدر، فقد دفعت تلك التطوُّرات القوات السعودية إلى سحب 5 عربات مخصَّصة للاتصالات العسكرية والتنصُّت من مدينة مأرب، باتجاه منفذ الوديعة الحدودي مع المملكة، بعد سحب غرفة العمليات المشتركة من قاعدة «صحن الجنّ» العسكرية قبل أسبوعين.

وأكّدت مصادر ميدانية، لـ»الأخبار»، تَمكُّن قوات صنعاء من نقل المعركة من أطراف منطقة إيدات الراء إلى شرق منطقة السويدا، وذلك بعد محاولة حكومة هادي استغلال الورقة الإنسانية لوقف تحرير المدينة. وأضافت المصادر أن الجيش و»اللجان» استطاعوا السيطرة على الحاميات القبلية والشرقية لجبال الخشب المطلّة على قاعدة «صحن الجنّ» العسكرية التابعة لقوات هادي، وتَقدّموا في محيط جبال الخشب خلال مواجهات أمس، مشيرة إلى انهيار خطوط الدفاع المضادّة في منطقة الصيب والحمم الثلاث ومناطق واسعة قرب جبل الأخشر في أقصى شمال وادي نخلا، واتّجاه المعارك إلى منطقة الصحري. وجاء هذا التقدُّم بعد سيطرة قوات صنعاء على منطقة الدشوش شمال إيدات الراء، واغتنامها عتاداً عسكرياً كبيراً، وتقدُّمها إلى تخوم السويدا. ولفتت إلى أن عدداً من التباب المنخفضة التضاريس صارت تفصل الجيش و»اللجان» عن الأحياء الغربية للمدينة.

استقبلت صنعاء خلال اليومين الماضيين نحو 200 ضابط وجندي من المنشقّين من قوات هادي


التقدُّم الكبير الذي حقّقته قوات صنعاء في جبهات شمال غرب مأرب على مدى الأيام الثلاثة الماضية، أرجعته قيادات مقرَّبة من حكومة هادي إلى انسحاب غير معلن نفّذته ميليشيات حزب «الإصلاح» ردّاً على إقصاء تلك الحكومة من مشاورات مسقط التي جرت بين المبعوثَين الأممي والأميركي من جهة، ووفد صنعاء المفاوض من جهة أخرى، خلال الأيام الماضية. وفي أوّل ردّ قبَلي على حالة الانهيار تلك، اعتبر الشيخ غالب ناصر كعلان، وهو من أبرز مشائخ مأرب الموالين لـ»التحالف»، ما يحدث في المواجهات التي تدور في نطاق سيطرة قبيلته «خيانة»، مُحذّراً من «سقوط المدينة في غضون أيّام». واتّهم بن كعلان، في منشور على حسابه في «فيسبوك» مساء أمس، «إعلام حزب الإصلاح بتضليل الرأي العام، وصُنع انتصارات وهمية بعكس ما يحدث على الواقع»، مؤكداً أن «قوات صنعاء تتقدّم باتجاه مأرب كلّ يوم، والحقيقة أن سقوط المدينة أصبح أمراً مفروغاً منه».
وتزامن تساقُط مواقع قوات هادي شمال غرب المدينة مع تصاعُد الخلافات في أوساط الصفّ الأوّل لتلك القوات، وخروج رئيس أركانها، اللواء صغير بن عزيز، المُقرّب من الإمارات، من مدينة مأرب صوب مدينة سيئون في وادي حضرموت جنوب البلاد، واعتكافه فيها منذ أكثر من أسبوع، فضلاً عن تصاعُد الاتهامات البينية بـ»الخيانة والغدر» على خلفية مقتل قائد «المنطقة العسكرية السادسة»، اللواء أمين الوائلي، فجر السبت، بقذيفة مدفعية في جبهة شمال غرب المدينة، وقيادي آخر محسوب على «الإصلاح» لا يزال مصيره غامضاً.
وتوازياً مع نجاح الجيش و»اللجان» استخبارياً في التوغُّل في أوساط قوات هادي في مأرب، استقبلت صنعاء، خلال اليومين الماضيين، نحو 200 جندي وضابط من المنشقّين من صفوف تلك القوات. وأفادت مصادر عسكرية مطّلعة، «الأخبار»، بأن «المنشقّين الجدد سلّموا مواقعهم في جبهات مأرب بعد التواصُل والتنسيق معهم ومع جهات أخرى تعمل لصالح صنعاء»، مشيرة إلى « توجيه القيادة العسكرية بتأمين التغطية النارية اللازمة لتأمين خروج العائدين بكامل أسلحتهم المستطاع حملها». ورحّب نائب وزير الخارجية في حكومة الإنقاذ، حسين العزّي، بعودة المنشقّين، داعياً مَن لا يزالون يقاتلون في صفوف « التحالف» إلى «الاستفادة من قرار العفو العام».

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BURNING U.S. CONVOYS FIESTA IN IRAQ

South Front

MARCH 30, 2021

One of the most common occurrences in Iraq in 2021 is a US supply convoy being blown up by an IED.

On March 29th, three separate supply consignments were targeted. The first one took place in the Al Diwaniyah province in central Iraq.

The two other attacks were reported in the provinces of Dhi-Qar and Babil.

No casualties were reported however, only damage. No loss of human life is an important fact, due to the fact that the convoys are largely carried out by Iraqi contractors, since US forces no longer take part in logistics.  The aim of the pro-Iranian groups that target the supplies is to force the US out of Iraq.

It is unlikely that these convoys will stop being targeted anytime soon, but strikes on US positions appear to have subsided in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, in northern Syria and Greater Idlib the chaos is here to stay.

Trying to improve the situation, Russia proposed to Turkey to reopen 3 humanitarian crossings into Greater Idlib, but that failed. Ankara, similarly to how it carries out its ceasefire commitments, put no effort towards attempting to contain any of the factions that it backs.

In northern Syria clashes between the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and the factions backed by Turkey continue.

On March 29th, a large explosion was reported in the town of Ras al-Ain, which is under the control of Turkish-backed forces.

Nearby, clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed militants were reported in the Sher district of Afrin.

According to the reports by the Syrian Observation for Human Rights, on March 28th, SDF forces carried out a successful operation in the Ras al-Ain countryside, killing 5 Turkish-backed militants and wounding 3 others.

It is a back and forth struggle, especially since the SDF stopped giving oil to the Turkish-backed factions to smuggle for Ankara.

In Greater Idlib, the Russian Air Force carried out an airstrike on a militant headquarters.  The attack reportedly took place near the town of Martin in the Western Idlib countryside.

These strikes, as well as shelling from the Syrian Arab Army will continue as long as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the other militant groups in Greater Idlib continue to regularly violate the ceasefire agreement.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, in Yemen, Ansar Allah (the Houthis) continue their largely successful operations against the Saudi-led coalition.

In the southern Taiz province, Ansar Allah repelled an attack of Saudi proxies. Reportedly, the Houthis destroyed 3 vehicles and the enemy lost a large number of fighters.

A missile was launched at a Saudi-led forces position in Marib, however no casualties or damage was reported.

At least two drones were used to attack the Khamis Mushait Airport.

Saudi Arabia, on its part, continues its heavy airstrike activity, but it seems to be achieving close to nothing.

The Story of Palestine’s Land Day

The Story of Palestine’s Land Day

By Staff

Palestine’s Land Day is commemorated on March 30 every year marking the day on which in response to the ‘Israeli’ occupations government’s announcement of a plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of Palestinian land in 1976.

A general strike and marches were organized in Arab towns from the Galilee to the al-Naqab. In the ensuing confrontations with the Zionist army and police, six unarmed Arab citizens were martyred, about one hundred were wounded, and hundreds of others detained.

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السفينة الانتحارية ومحاولة اغتيال قناة السويس .. الرومانسية الناصرية والحلم

نُشرت بتاريخ 2021/03/28 بواسطة naram.serjoonn

لن عرف الحكاية اذا عرفت بدايتها فقط او نهايتها او جزءا منها .. ومن يظن ان حكاية السفينة العالقة في قناة السويس عابرة فليعلم انه لايعلم .. فحكاية السفينة الانتحارية ايفرغرين التي انتحرت في وسط القناة – مثل اي انتحاري ارهابي يفجر حزامه الناسف لالحاق الاذى بخصومه – لتخريب فكرة قناة السويس .. يعود سرها الى عام 1956 عندما انتحرت سفينة استشهادية لغاية أخرى يقودها الاستشهادي ضابط البحرية السوري المسيحي جول جمال في بورسعيد .. ذلك العمل الاستشهادي كان دفاعا عن قناة السويس المصرية ابان العدوان الثلاثي على مصر .. وكان ذلك اعلانا لاغلاق قناة السويس الى اشعار آخر الى ان تصبح مصرية بالكامل ..


في تلك اللحظة عام 56 ظهرت أسرار القناة .. فالقناة تبين انها عزيزة على قلب بريطانيا وانها احدى اهم جواهر التاج البريطاني .. ولكن أخطر الأسرار ظهرت عندما تبين ان الجغرافيا هي التي تقرر ملكية الطرق الدولية .. في تلك اللحظة المصرية المصيرية الناصرية تنبه البريطانيون الى حقيقة الجغرافيا وهي ان هذه القناة ليست في انكلترة بل في مصر .. ومن يملك الجغرافيا يملك القرار على الجغرافيا .. ولذلك فان البريطانيين لم يمانعوا في ان تقفل او تقتل قناة السويس وتردم اذا لم تكن لبريطانيا او فلتخلق قناة سويس بديلة او استنساخ القناة في النقب الفلسطيني .. وهذا ماكان في صلب التخطيط الغربي .. لذلك ظهرت فجأة منذ الستينات مشاريع شق قناة بديلة من العقبة (ايلات) الى البحر المتوسط عبر النقب في فلسطين المحتلة تحت رعاية اسرائيل ..


العالم الغربي لايحب النوم في العسل كما بعض البسطاء من السياسيين في الشرق .. لأن قرار قتل قناة السويس ظهر ووضع أخرى تحت رعاية اسرائيل يعني ان القناة ستكون نقلت وكأنها صارت في بريطانيا .. لأن اسرائيل مربوطة بالسلاسل الى الغرب ولاتقدر الا ان تكون طوع بنان الغرب لحاجتها اليه .. فهي مخفر متقدم ونواطير من المستوطنين اليهود الذين يرتبط مصيرهم بجرة قلم من أوروبة .. واذا فكرت اسرائيل في التمرد فان الغرب سيتركها لمصيرها في هذا البحر العربي الهائل بل وسيوجهه لتحطيمها .. واذا كان الرئيس الامريكي يقول للملك السعودي انك لن تبقى اسبوعين اذا تخلينا عن دعمك فان نفس الكلام يقال لاسرائيل .. فهذه الاسرائيل ستقع في خمسة ايام اذا قرر الغرب تركها لمصيرها ..
هذه بداية الحكاية .. اي منذ لحظة تحرير القناة وظهور ضابط بحري انتحاري يحول سفينته الى سفينة انتحارية وتغلق القناة الى اشعار آخر .. ولكن مابعد هذه البداية نصل الى وسط الحكاية الذي يبدو مشطوبا وخفيا وجزءا لايراه أحد ولايلتفت اليه أحد بسبب زحمة الاحداث التي غطت بضجيجها على صوت الحكاية الحقيقية .. ففي وسط الحكاية حدثت بداية الانتقام من قناة السويس وبداية الجريمة لاغتيالها .. الى ان نصل الى نهاية القصة التي ظهرت منذ أشهر ..


مشكلة اي جريمة اغتيال انها تحتاج تحضيرا .. وجريمة اغتيال قناة السويس والانتقام منها كانت تحتاج تحضيرا جيدا لمسرح واسع .. وتحضير المسرح يعني تدمير السيطرة المصرية على منظومة الفكر الناصري والقومي التي صنعت ظاهرة جول جمال المواطن المشرقي الذي يستميت من اجل الدفاع عن كل الشرق وهي الظاهرة التي صنعها زمن الضباط الاحرار والرومانسية الناصرية .. وتم كسر الرومانسية الناصرية عام 1967 لاحلال الحلم الساداتي محلها والذي هو باختصار النوم في العسل .. الحلم الساداتي كان يحلم بالرفاه ودولة اللاحرب ولذلك كان عليه تفكيك المنظومة الفكرية الناصرية القومية المشاغبة بطموحها بكل رومانسيتها والتخلص من تلك التركة في مصر وحول مصر .. وبناء منظومة كامب ديفيد .. ونجح الحلم الساداتي في استئصال النزعة العسكرية من نفوس المصريين بمعاهدة كامب ديفيد التي كانت مخدرا قويا فيما يتم انجاز العمل بصمت لتجريد مصر من كل اسلحتها التي كانت تحمي قناة السويس .. وأهم أسلحتها كان القومية العربية التي جعلت ضابطا سوريا مسيحيا يفجر نفسه في سفينة فرنسية (مسيحية) والذي كان يعني ان قناة السويس صارت محمية ب 200 مليون عربي .. وهذا هو رعب الغرب الذي وجد نفسه ان الحلم الرومانسي المصري وضعه وجها لوجه مع كتلة 200 مليون عربي مستعدين للموت..


وبعد 12 سنة فقط من كامب ديفيد تم ضرب العراق حيث تدربت القوات الامريكية في الصحراء المصرية بتسهيلات كامب ديفيد عبر كثير من المناورات على حروب الصحراء في ماسمي بسلسلة (مناورات النجم الساطع) والتي كانت تحاكي حربا في الصحراء وفيها عرفت مشاكل الحروب الحديثة في الصحراء وتم تجنبها كلها في حرب عاصفة الصحراء التي كانت تدريباتها تتم في صحراء مصر .. والمصريون لايعرفون انهم يحضرون مسرحا لقتل العراق ومن ثم اضعاف مصر واغتيال قناة السويس ونهر النيل ..

وبعد عشر سنوات اخرى تم الاجهاز على العراق نهائيا في احتلال مباشر .. فيما محبو منظومة كامب ديفيد في مصر ينامون في العسل ويسمع شخيرهم الى المريخ وهم يحمدون الله ان السادات كان فطنا وذكيا انه جنبهم هذه الصراعات والحروب .. فرغم كل ماقيل عن أسباب حرب العراق فان هناك سببا لم يتم التركيز عليه وهو ان التجارة القادمة من الصين تفكر في طريق بري على طريق الحرير من ايران الى العراق الى سورية .. وهذه قد تكون قناة سويس برية ..

ولذلك وضع اميريكا داعش في وسط الطريق .. وكان المراد قطع الطريق البري .. ليس من أجل قناة السويس بل من أجل الا تموت القناة البديلة الاسرائيلية التي صارت تتحضر بمشروع مدينة نيوم السعودي .. الذي لايوجد اي سبب لبنائها الا انه ليخدم مشروعا اسرائيليا ما ..

بعد تدمير طريق الحرير بما يسمى (الثورة السورية) .. وميناء بيروت .. وتعطيل قناة السويس .. صار الحل الوحيد لتجارة أسيا والغرب في اسرائيل فقط .. فكل الطرق الدولية تمر من اسرائيل .. طريق حيفا – دبي البري .. وقناة ايلات -المتوسط .. وهذه الطرق كلها بيد الغرب طالما هي بيد اسرائيل حيث لايوجد ناصر ولارومانسية ناصرية .. والغرب موجود في الخليج المحتل والذي تم نشر جاليات غير عربية بشكل واسع فيه لاعلان هوية جديدة لاعلاقة لها بمنظومة الناصريين والقوميين العروبيين الذين قد يهددون الطرق الدولية ..


من جديد سيخرج علينا أصحاب النوم في العسل ويسخرون من نظرية المؤامرة لان وظيفتهم هي تطبيع المؤامرة .. اي جعل المنظر التآمري منظرا طبيعيا لا يد للانسان فيه .. فهم يرون ان داعش ليست مؤامرة امريكية لقطع التواصل الجغرافي وقاعدة التنف التي تجثم على الطريق الواصل من العراق الى سورية ليست الا بالصدفة .. والربيع العربي ليس مؤامرة بل بسبب توق الشعوب العربية الى الكرامة والحرية .. وليس لان الشعوب البسيطة صارت لها وظيفة تنفيذ المشاريع الغربية دون ان تدري .. والقذافي قتل بسبب غضب الجماهير وليس لأنه اراد تحقيق فكرة نكروما بالولايات المتحدة الافريقية وصك عملة ذهبية لها ..
واليوم وبعد مرور 130 سنة على افتتاح قناة السويس يتقرر ان باخرة عملاقة تنفذ عملية انتحارية في قناة السويس .. لأن السفن تحركها الامواج وليس الرياح .. فاين هي الامواج في قناة السويس كي تجنح بها سفينة .. ولايمكن ان تحرك الرياح هذا الجبل العملاق الذي طوله 400 متر ويحمل مايعادل 100 الف سيارة .. ليجنح بهذه الزاوية مالم تكن عملية انتحارية للسفينة التي ارتطمت بالضفة الشرقية للقناة .. فما هذه الصدفة في انها حدثت بعد تفجير ميناء بيروت وبعد تفعيل الاتفاق التجاري بين دبي وحيفا؟؟ وبعد تعطل طريق الحرير السوري؟؟
ماذا سيحل المصريون اليوم من مشاكل خلقها لهم الوهم الساداتي والحلم الساداتي الذي كان نوما في العسل؟؟ سد النهضة يسرق مياههم وقناة السويس تسرق منهم ..

النيل سرق في اثيوبية .. وقناة النيل كثرت سكاكينها .. بين حلمين تصارعا .. بين سفينتين انتحاريتين .. سفينة قادها جول جمال الضابط البحري السوري من أجل قناة السويس في الحلم الرومانسي الناصري .. وسفينة انتحارية صنعها زمن الحلم والنوم في عسل كامب ديفيد .. سفينة نعلم ان من أرسلها هو نفسه من أرسل الانتحاريين الى بغداد ودمشق والى ابراج نيويورك .. ونسف موكب الحريري .. ونسف ميناء بيروت .. ومن أراد ان يكسر الشرق .. ويقيد كل جرائمه ضد مجهول ..

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يذكرني هذا الحدث بفيلم مصري لمحمود ياسين (بعنوان وقيدت ضد مجهول) كأنه نبوءة عن اليوم لنوستراداموس .. كان يلعب فيه دور شرطي بسيط للحراسة ولكن في كل حي يحرسه كانت تزداد السرقات فقرر رئيسه وضعه لحراسة الاهرامات .. فلاشيء يسرق هناك .. ولكن الهرم الاكبر يختفي ويسرق .. فيقرر رئيسه وضعه في مناوبة حراسة على كورنيش النيل .. فماذا سيسرق هناك ؟؟ ولكن ينتهي الفيلم بتلفون مفاجئ لرئيس الشرطة ليبلغه بأن نهر النيل سرق !! في رمزية عن سرقة رمزية مصر ..

Israeli Politics and the Metaphysics of the Shtetl

 BY GILAD ATZMON

shtetl.jpg

by Gilad Atzmon

The ongoing political stalemate in Israel brings to mind an old recycled Jewish joke that reads as follows:

Q: How many synagogues are needed in a village with one Jew?

A: Two, one to go to and one to boycott!

Self identified Jews, and especially non-religious one, are hardly defined by what they are but mostly by that which they oppose. They are basically defined by means of negation: the list of ideas, thoughts, philosophies and people whom they reject, contest and boycott.

This unique state of being describes accurately the political paralysis in Israel. Roughly two-thirds of Knesset members are hard-core right wingers. They agree with PM Benjamin Netanyahu on pretty much every crucial political matter including the most radical chauvinist interpretations of Jewish nationalism. In a normal civilized democracy this would be enough to form the strongest possible government.  But in Israel they are already preparing for their fifth consecutive election, as they have failed to form a stable government in the last three years.

Like in the old Jewish joke they boycott each other. Netanyahu’s past allies such as Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Sa’ar, who are actually to the right of Netanyahu, are committed to one goal: stopping the most popular Israeli right-wing politician. They prefer to join Netanyahu’s bitterest enemies in the vanishing Israeli ‘left’ just to make sure that Netanyahu finally disappears from the political arena. They will use every political maneuver to topple the man who, more than anyone else, transformed Israel into a right-wing regional superpower. Not many can deny that it is Netanyahu who reduced some world decaying powers into Israel’s obedient remote colonies.

How are we supposed to interpret this animosity within Israeli politics? How is it possible that right-wingers are determined to destroy their political twins? The genius philosopher Otto Weininger observed in his book Sex and Character that what we hate in others is that which we despise in ourselves.  According to Weininger, this is why the most dedicated homophobes are often latent gays themselves. Similarly, according to Weininger, the most devoted Jews-haters are themselves Jews. 

It was Otto Weininger’s brilliant observation that helped me grasp that it was me whom I hate the most. It was Weininger who helped me realize that the most profound study of Jewish ID politics may be achieved by means of self-reflection. It was Weininger who explained why it is that the Jews who contributed to humanity the most (such as Jesus, Spinoza and Weininger himself) were often described by fellow Jews as ‘self-haters.’  It is more than likely that those who despise Netanyahu within the Israeli political realm actually hate in Netanyahu that which they despise in themselves. They are all deeply compromised; Netanyahu is just slightly more gifted in being compromised. He harnessed this gift into an astonishing political career.  

Netanyahu, in the most peculiar way, has brought to light everything the state has tried to conceal and suppress. It is Netanyahu that transformed Israel into a ‘Jewish State,’ understanding already in the 1990s that it is actually ‘Jewishness’ that unites Israeli Jews, as opposed to an ‘Israeliness’ that means less and less as time goes by. It was this realization that created that most resilient bond between Netanyahu and the Israeli orthodox parties. But Netanyahu is an elastic political character; when he realized that a coalition of ‘the Jews’ is not enough to win him the election he successfully bonded with the Islamic Party (Ra’am).

In a very short time ahead of the last election, Netanyahu managed to break the Israeli-Arab’s rising political power, with Ra’am separating from the United Arab List.  If Netanyahu manages to form a government at this stage, it is almost certain that he will do this with the support of the Islamic Party. Some Jewish nationalist parties on the far right of Bibi’s ‘potential’ coalition have declared that governing with the Islamist party is unimaginable. Yet the Jewish orthodox party Shas announced that the possibility of uniting with Ra’am isn’t at all a remote option. Again we see a repetition of the synagogue joke above. The Jewish Orthodox prefer to sit with pious Muslims rather than with Jewish LGBTQ enthusiasts of the pseudo-Left type.  

The Israeli Left is obviously made of the exact same material as their orthodox twins.  The so-called ‘Left’ party Meretz already signaled that it is willing to sit in a coalition with the ultra-right Sa’ar and Bennett just to make sure that Netanyahu is ousted. They will join one Synagogue just to boycott the other.

One may wonder at this stage whether this absurd theater is a manifestation of some tribal irrational behavior. I don’t believe it is. The entire Israeli political establishment benefits from the current political chaos. Netanyahu knows that his lawyers will manage to postpone his trial indefinitely as long as Israel is heading towards elections. His Likud Party members also know that without Netanyahu at the helm, their party would evaporate into dust.

Netanyahu’s enemies in the Right know that the public do not believe in them or their abilities, and with good reason. Centrist parties are also a vanishing political power. The disappearance of Netanyahu and the rise of a wall-to-wall right-wing coalition is a death sentence for them. The Israeli Left doesn’t even deserve our attention as it is nonexistent by now and what is left out of it is treacherous to every recognized left value. Israel’s Left is more concerned with Identitarian matters and LGBTQ fights than anything that is remotely working class-related, labour and social oriented or concerned with Israeli-Arab reconciliation.

The truth of the matter is that everybody around Netanyahu expected him to win this election and form a coalition. The image of ‘success’ in the ‘fight against Covid’ was orchestrated by Netanyahu in the most profound manner and even this didn’t translate into a victory. The truth of the matter is that for Netanyahu and the rest of the Israeli political world, the continuing paralysis is a survival strategy.  

This detachment between the masses and their oligarchs is not new to the Jewish universe. This is exactly how the Shtetl, the Diaspora Jewish town, was run. In the Shtetl, the rich and the oligarchs married their daughters to the young rabbinical protégés just to form a very successful bond between wealth and authority. Consequently, the history of the Jewish Ghetto is a story of a great divided society of a cognitive and social partition between the people and the elite, between the ‘Rothschilds,’ so to say, and the rest: “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

Israel was born to amend the Jewish fate and correct the Jewish Diaspora’s destiny. It was made into a reality by left-leaning Zionist ideologists and agitators who vowed to equalize Jewish society, to make Jews ‘people like all others.’ They tried to defy capitalism with labour, agriculture and new ethics. But the reality of the Jewish State proves the complete opposite. In just a few decades Israel has morphed into the worst shtetl of them all.  It manifests every aspect Zionism vowed to eradicate. It is corrupted, divided and run by an aloof society that cares for itself and itself alone. 

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Crashing Saudi Oil Economy Explains Urgent Yemeni Peace Offer

Crashing Saudi Oil Economy Explains Urgent Yemeni Peace Offer - Islam Times
Finian CUNNINGHAM
Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

Finian Cunningham

March 26, 2021

The Saudi rulers are facing a humiliating defeat as the Yemenis take revenge and Uncle Sam washes his hands of blood.

After six years of blowing up Yemen and blockading its southern neighbor, the Saudi rulers are now saying they are committed to finding peace. The move is less about genuine peace than economic survival for the oil kingdom.

The Saudi monarchy say they want “all guns to fall completely silent”. Washington, which has been a crucial enabler of the Saudi war on Yemen, has backed the latest “peace offer”. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week endorsed the initiative from the Saudi rulers, saying he had spoken with them “on our work together to end the conflict in Yemen, facilitate humanitarian access and aid for the Yemeni people”.

The Saudi foreign ministry stated: “The initiative aims to end the human suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people, and affirms the kingdom’s support for efforts to reach a comprehensive political resolution.”

Can you believe this sickening duplicity from the Saudis and the Americans?

So, after six years of relentless aerial bombing in Yemen causing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations, the Saudis and their American military supplier, seem to have developed a conscience for peace and ending suffering.

The real reason for trying to end the conflict is the perilous state of the Saudi oil-dependent economy. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil, gas and petroleum industry, recently announced that its profits have slumped by nearly half in 2020 compared with the year before. Down from $88 billion to $49 billion.

Given that its oil economy provides nearly 90 per cent of state budget that is a stupendous hit on the Saudi finances. The Saudi rulers rely on hefty state subsidies to keep its 34 million population content. With income from the oil industry nosediving that means state deficits will explode to maintain public spending, or else risk social unrest from dire cutbacks.

Saudi Arabia remains the biggest oil exporter, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic and world economies going into recession crude oil prices have plummeted. At one point oil prices fell to around $20 a barrel. The Saudi economy needs an oil price of around $70 a barrel to reel in a profit.

The upshot is the Saudi war in Yemen has become a critical drain on state finances and potentially jeopardizing the superficial stability of the absolute monarchy.

Of further alarm is the increasing missile and drone attacks by the Houthi rebels in Yemen on key Saudi locations, including the capital Riyadh.

The Yemeni rebels are escalating airstrikes on Aramco installations at its headquarters in Dhahran and Dammam in Eastern Province, as well as in the cities of Abha, Azir, Jazan, and Ras Tanura. The targets include oil refineries and export terminals. The Saudis claim they have intercepted a lot of the missiles with U.S.-made Patriot defense systems. Nevertheless, the mere fact that the Yemenis can hit key parts of the Saudi oil economy over a distance of 1,000 kilometers is a grave security concern undermining investor confidence.

The first major strike was in September 2019 when Houthi drones hit the huge refinery complex at Abqaiq. That caused Saudi oil production to temporarily shut down by half. It also delayed an Initial Public Offering of Aramco shares on the stock market as investors took fright over political risk.

At a time when the Saudi oil economy is contracting severely due to worldwide circumstances, an additional debilitating threat is the intensifying campaign of Houthi airstrikes. They are taking the war into Saudi heartland.

The Biden administration has condemned the Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia as “unacceptable”. Such American concern is derisory given how Washington has been providing warplanes, missiles and logistics for the Saudis to indiscriminately bomb Yemen causing tens of thousands of deaths. The Americans also enable the Saudis to impose a blockade on Yemen’s sea and airports, which has prevented vital food and medicines from being supplied to the country. Nearly 80 per cent of Yemen’s 30 million population are dependent on foreign aid deliveries. The blockade is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and the Americans are fully complicit.

President Joe Biden has said he is ending U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. It was an election promise. However, it is not clear what military support the U.S. has actually stopped, if at all. The Saudi bombing of food depots continues and the blockade on the country could not be maintained without essential American logistics.

More cynically, the Biden administration realizes that the Saudis started a war back in March 2015, when Obama was president and Biden was vice-president, that has turned into an un-winnable quagmire whose horrendous human suffering has become a vile stain on America’s international image.

That’s why Biden and his diplomats have been urging the Saudi rulers to sue for peace. Now it seems the Saudi monarchy realizes that the reckless war launched by “defense minister” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has come with a price that they can’t afford to sustain if they want to preserve their rickety house of cards, known as the House of Saud.

On the latest peace proposal, the Yemeni rebels have rejected it out of hand. They say it contains “nothing new”. The Houthis say the only way to end the war is for the Saudis and their American sponsors to end the aggression on their country. There is no “deal”. It is a case of the Saudis and the Americans just getting out.

Meantime, the airstrikes on Saudi oil infrastructure are going to continue with ever-increasing damage to the royal coffers. Thus, the Saudi rulers have no choice but to unconditionally surrender in this criminal war. They are facing a humiliating defeat as the Yemenis take revenge and Uncle Sam washes his hands of blood.

China affirms support for Syria’s efforts to protect its national sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity

Chinese UN ambassador urges India, Pak to avoid unilateral action on Kashmir

30 March، 2021

New York, SANA -China has renewed its support for the efforts of Syrian government to protect its national sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, stressing its opposition to the intentions and actions that endanger the Syrian national security.

“The terrorist groups positioned in Syria which are on the list of the Security Council could create chaos at any moment and threaten the security and stability of the country and even the whole region, thus the international community must remain vigilant, strengthen cooperation and firmly fight terrorism in accordance with international law and the Security Council resolutions,  “Zhang Jun, China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations said during the Security Council’s session last night .

Zhang added that countless facts have proven that with regard to the issue of combating terrorism, politicization and double standards do not benefit anyone and might cause endless harm, noting that working to achieve a political solution to the crisis in Syria is the hope that the Syrians need the most and it is in the interest of the countries of the region, and the international community as a whole.

He called for adhering to the right track to achieve a political solution to this crisis, improve the humanitarian situation, end the foreign occupation and fight terrorism, stressing the support to the Syrian people in independently determining the future of their country and within a process led by the Syrians themselves.

We must take full advantage of the leading role of Syrian Government in order to fundamentally improve the humanitarian situation on the ground, and with regard to the severe epidemic and food security issues in Syria, targeted relief assistance must be provided with a focus on the humanitarian needs of women، children and other vulnerable groups,” Zhang added.

He added that the Syrian Government is cooperating with the UN, non-governmental organizations and other partners in promoting humanitarian operations and bringing medical supplies, expressing China’s appreciation for those efforts.

Zhang stressed that the need to lift unilateral sanctions and the economic blockade to help Syria restore its activity, calling on the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs “OCHA” to comprehensively evaluate the humanitarian repercussions of the unilateral coercive measures and submit a report to the Security Council.

Hybah Sleman / Ruaa al-Jazaeri

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US Occupation Agenda: QSD Kidnap Dozens of al-Houl Refugee Camp Residents, Seizes Houses in Vicinity of US Helicopters’ Helipad in Hasaka,

QSD Militia Kidnap Dozens of al-Houl Refugee Camp Residents

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on 

29 March، 2021
Hasaka, SANA

The US occupation-backed QSD militia has continued to impose a siege on al-Houl refugee camp, which is controlled by the militia backed by the occupation forces in Hasaka eastern countryside since last Friday, in coincidence with launching widespread raid campaigns against the residents’ tents in the camp and kidnapping dozens of them.

Local sources told SANA reporter in Hasaka that after imposing a siege on al-Houl camp in the eastern countryside of refugees which is inhabited by more than 70,000 people for the fourth straight day, dozens of QSD militants on Monday carried out massive raid campaigns inside the camp and kidnapped dozens of its residents among them women, under different pretexts, and took them to an unknown destination.

The sources added that two days ago, QSD militia cut off all roads between Hasaka city and al-Houl refugee camp, whose residents live in tragic conditions that threaten a humanitarian catastrophe in light of the severe shortage of survival requirements such as water, medicine, food, security…etc., in addition to preventing the residents from moving inside the camp.

On Sunday, dozens of QSD militants began deploying to the vicinity of al-Houl refugee camp and they set up 15 armed checkpoints around it, in preparation for storming it with the help of the US occupation forces and carrying out large-scale kidnapping operations in the camp.

Nisreen Othman/ Ruaa al-Jazaeri

US Occupation Agenda: QSD Seizes Houses in Vicinity of US Helicopters’ Helipad in Hasaka

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on 

28 March، 2021
Hasaka, SANA

The US occupation-backed QSD militia has displaced the owners of houses in the vicinity of the occupation helicopters’ helipad in Ghwairan neighborhood by force of arms, and issued eviction warnings to the owners of other houses.

Although the homeowners have documents and property deeds, they found themselves homeless without housing amid the silence of all humanitarian organizations about the crimes committed against the locals in Hasaka.

The QSD militia, which seeks to empty the civilian areas surrounding the whereabouts of the American occupation forces, had previously emptied three storey buildings in the al-Jabsah dwellings between Ghwairan and al-Zouhor neighborhoods to the south of the occupation helicopters’ helipad and expelled their people from them by force of arms.

Mahmoud, a young man from the locals of al-Zouhor neighborhood, told SANA reporter that the militia has started to tighten the noose on the locals in the area extending from the areas where the US occupation forces are deployed till al-Zouhor neighborhood as its militants have closed the road leading to the neighborhood with berms, and the locals are currently forces to travel for long distances to reach the city center.

The militia has also notified a number of the owners of nearby houses to evacuate them.

Mahmoud added QSD militia has turned the residential buildings which it has completely occupied into military sites to fortify and reinforce the positions of the US occupation forces.

Citizen Khudir whose house was seized by force, says “These actions are against the law and all international norms which the QSD militia doesn’t recognize as it seeks to implement US occupation schemes to completely empty the area of its original inhabitants.”

The locals in the region believe that the practices and violations of the QSD militia are not much different from the attacks of the Turkish occupation mercenaries in Ras al-Ayn in the northwestern countryside of the province, as it practices a policy of displacement and forcing the people to leave their property and it displaces them and seize their properties to use them for military purposes.

Bushra Dabin/ Ruaa al-Jazaeri

‘Split in half’: Gaza mother’s years-long wait to reunite with her children in West Bank

Source

Rights groups say Israel’s ‘separation policy’ is keeping apart dozens of families

Niveen Gharqoud has submitted five exit permit requests to Israeli authorities since 2018 in the hope of joining her husband and children (MEE/Mohammed A Alhajjar)

By Maha Hussaini in Gaza

Published date: 29 March 2021 08:23 UTC

Niveen Gharqoud has only seen one of her five children in the past four years. She has been cut off from the others since sending them to live with their father, roughly 100 kilometers away in Qalqilya, a city in the occupied West Bank.

Niveen and Ameer on a call to the rest of their family in the West Bank, March 2021 (Mohammed A. Alhajjar)
Niveen and Ameer can only interact with the rest of the family in the West Bank through the phone, March 2021 (Mohammed A. Alhajjar)

Gharqoud, 39, who lives with her parents and youngest son in the Juhr al-Deek village, in the central Gaza Strip, has submitted five separate exit permit requests to Israeli authorities since 2018 in the hope of joining her husband and children in the West Bank.

None have been approved.

“It has been four years since I last saw my children. I used to sleep with the five of them on one bed, and now I cannot see them except through a mobile phone screen,” Gharqoud told Middle East Eye.

“It is painful to accept the idea that my four children are taking care of themselves without a mother, while their father is working most of the time.”

Policy of separation

In 2007, a year after it won legislative elections, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. Israel soon imposed a suffocating blockade on the coastal enclave, restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, under what the Israeli government calls “the separation policy”.

According to the Israeli government, the policy aims to restrict travel between Gaza and the West Bank to avoid transferring “a human terrorist network” out of the Strip.

“Even if the Israeli government wants to reduce what it calls the transfer of terrorists into the occupied territory, its separation policy imposed on over two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is simply collective punishment that is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Mohammed Emad, director of the legal department of the Stockholm-based advocacy group Skyline International for Human Rights, told MEE.

“Such restrictions are imposed arbitrarily on random civilians and are resulting in the separation of dozens of families.”

Families like the Gharqouds.

A family divided

Niveen married Sami Gharqoud in Gaza 18 years ago. He has been working various labourer jobs in Israel throughout their marriage.

“He used to move between Gaza and the West Bank,” Niveen said. “He worked there and used to come to visit me every now and then.

“He has not witnessed any of the births of our five children, and has never seen me pregnant except in photos and video calls,” Niveen told MEE.

“I used to go to the hospital with my mother, go through all the pain [of labour] alone, give birth and return home. He would visit us only after the delivery of each child, stay a couple of weeks then leave to the West Bank again.”

Niveen and Sami Gharqoud. March 2021 (Mohammed A. Alhajjar)
Niveen and Sami Gharqoud, March 2021 (MEE/Mohammed A Alhajjar)

But since the start of the ongoing blockade, Sami has only visited his family in Gaza once.

“Before the last war on Gaza [in 2014], I visited him in the West Bank, stayed for about six months, and got pregnant with my last child, Ameer,” said Niveen. This turned out to be the only time she could visit Sami.

“I then had to come back to Gaza, because the [Israeli authorities] only allowed me to take two of my four children with me to the West Bank. They intentionally did not allow me to take all four children. They wanted to force me to return to Gaza. So I was obliged to come back.”

‘They [Israel] intentionally did not allow me to take all four children. They wanted to force me to return to Gaza’

– Niveen Gharqoud, Gaza 

Sami has never met his youngest child, Ameer, who is now six years old.

Niveen has been trying to rejoin her husband since the birth of their last child, in 2014, but Israeli authorities have not allowed her to travel to the West Bank.

She decided in 2016 to send her children to their father first, after her relatives and friends told her that this would help her get a permit to join them all later on.

“My father took my four children and travelled via the Rafah border [with Egypt] to Jordan. But he left them at the Allenby Bridge [that connects Jordan to the West Bank] because he could not cross – his ID states that he lives in Gaza, unlike my children and their father, whose IDs state that they live in the West Bank.

“Now I cannot send Ameer to join his four siblings. My eldest daughter, who is now 17, already shoulders the responsibility of her three brothers and takes care of them. She is still a child, but she is overwhelmed with all those responsibilities.”

Niveen’s four children in Qalqilya see their father barely once or twice a week due to his work, and spend the rest of the week alone. Whenever they need anything, the children call their mother in Gaza.Covid-19: US announces $15m aid package for Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza.

“About two years ago, my daughter called me screaming,” Niveen Gharqoud recalled. “She said that boiling water had spilled onto her younger brother’s face while she was boiling some eggs for him to eat. I did not know what to do – I called their neighbour and begged her to go help them.”

“This was not the last time that such a thing happened,” Niveen continued. “A few days ago, Malak [the eldest sister] called me, scared. She told me that someone was trying to open their apartment door. I could not do anything but tell her to lock the door very well and turn the television on to make noise.”

“I have their neighbours’ numbers in cases of emergency because I am helpless here, while their father is absent most of the time.”

Gharqoud is still hopeful that she will make it to her children and husband in Qalqilya, but says that the Israeli authorities “do not even respond to my exit permit applications, they leave them pending”.

When an exit permit is denied or pending, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have to wait for three months until they can submit another request.

A long history of separations

In July 2003, the Israeli parliament passed a law that prevents family unification for Israeli citizens married to Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory.

According to Amnesty International, the law constitutes a “further step in Israel’s long-standing policy aimed at restricting the number of Palestinians who are allowed to live in Israel and in East Jerusalem.”

Israel has long been criticised for separating Palestinian children from their families, including those from the Gaza Strip who are referred for medical treatment in the occupied Palestinian territory.

‘Since he saw his siblings leave, he has become so needy that he follows me everywhere – to make sure I don’t abandon him’

– Niveen Garqoud

Figures collected by NGO Physicians for Human Rights Israel revealed that more than half of the applications filed in 2018 by parents attempting to accompany their children for medical treatment in the occupied territory were rejected. 

In 2019, around a fifth of the children referred for medical treatment from the Gaza Strip travelled without their parents.

A position paper released by the Israeli human rights group Gisha in 2020 said that by isolating the Gaza Strip and imposing movement restrictions on Palestinians between cities and villages, Israel has “pursued a divide and conquer strategy” to disrupt the ability of Palestinians to maintain unified social and family life.

Israeli authorities didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Traumatic separation

The Garqouds’ youngest son, Ameer, accompanied his grandfather and siblings to the Rafah border crossing when he was three years old. Once they arrived at the border, he realised that his closest brother, Muhammed, and three other siblings, were leaving without him. Unlike them, Ameer was too young to travel without a parent.

“A few months ago, I went to attend a relative’s wedding. When I left, he kept screaming and fainted, thinking that everyone was lying to him and that I had gone to the West Bank and left him behind.”

Fearing her son Ameer's anxiety might worsen, Gharqoud now teaches him at home. March 2021 (Mohammed A. Alhajjar)
Fearing her son Ameer’s anxiety might worsen, Gharqoud now teaches him at home. March 2021 (MEE/Mohammed A Alhajjar)

To avoid leaving him alone at school, and fearing his anxiety might worsen, Gharqoud now teaches him at home.

“Since he saw his siblings leave, he has become so needy that he follows me everywhere – to make sure I don’t abandon him.”

‘Missing mum’s dishes’

“Your sister told me that you did not go to school the other day, why is that?” Niveen asked her 10-year-old child Muhammed during a video call.

“I woke up and looked for my pants and couldn’t find them, so I could not go,” he answered.

“If he had a mother living with him, this would never happen,” Niveen, sitting in her living room, told MEE.Palestine elections: Gaza voters sceptical about upcoming pollsRead More »

With Sami still in quarantine after testing positive for coronavirus, Niveen also made sure her children had eaten their lunch.

“We usually eat sandwiches or order food deliveries because we have nobody to cook for us. But Malak sometimes calls mum and asks for some food recipes to feed us,” Muhammed, 10, the Gharqouds’ fourth child, told MEE.

Niveen said that she avoids sending photos of family gatherings to her children so that they do not feel they are missing out, or crave “food they cannot have”.

“Malak cooks well,” said Muhammed, “but I am missing mum’s dishes, that only she can make this good.”

Malak, who celebrated her 17th birthday in February, has taken on her mother’s role: keeping an eye on her brothers’ studies and helping with their day-to-day needs.

“A few weeks ago, her 23-year-old neighbour asked for her hand in marriage,” said Niveen. “In the normal situation, I would never accept the idea of allowing my daughter to get married at this age. But since she has no one to take care of her, I want her to feel emotionally stable with someone she can rely on.

‘What is so hard about allowing me and my six-year-old son to reunite with our family?’

– Niveen Gharqoud

“We initially agreed on her engagement, but Malak still refuses to proceed with it until I can join them and meet the man.”

Niveen says her children could easily come back to Gaza, but she refuses to bring them back to live away from their father. She is unsure if they would get a permit to leave again if they did return, and the trip, via Jordan and Egypt, is too expensive.

“My children are growing up and they need their father in their life. I am split in half; I want them here with me, but I also want them to live in a healthy environment with me and their father together,” she told MEE.

Recommended

Yair Lapid Meets Mansour Abbas in Bid to Reach Coalition Agreement

March 29, 2021

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid on Sunday met with Head of the Ra’am Party Mansour Abbas to discuss forming a coalition government, Israeli media reported.

Abbas, according to Ynet News, presented his movement’s demands to Lapid. The demands included scrapping the Nation-State Law, having the freedom to vote on pro-LGBT bills, freezing the Kaminitz Law, recognizing unrecognized Arab towns in the Negev, and fighting crime among the Arab community in Israel.

Both Abbas and Lapid issued brief statements following their meeting, stating that they had agreed to continue their communications.

Following Tuesday’s election, Ra’am has emerged as a kingmaker as both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lapid’s Yesh Atid lacked enough seats in the Knesset to enable either party to form a coalition government.

Right-wing pro-Netanyahu hardliners, including Head of the Fascist Religious Zionism Party Bezalel Smotrich, have rejected joining a coalition including Arab MKs or reliant on an Arab party.

This also came following a Likud meeting with Abbas, during which they discussed prospects of the latter’s participation in a Likud-led government.

Ynet News reported that Abbas met with Lapid after realizing that joining a right-wing government may not be a viable option, pointing out that his meeting with Lapid came after several postponements.

The bloc consisting of Likud and its pro-right-wing parties have 59 seats out of 120. The left-wing, along with the anti-Netanyahu parties, has 57. Abbas, the current kingmaker, has five seats.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)

Faced with ICC Investigation, Apartheid Israel Asserts Moral Superiority Over The Victims of Its Terror

Having created enemies by its own criminal behavior, Israel then claims the right to protect itself from the very people it alienated through these criminal acts.

Source

March 29th, 2021

By Miko Peled

Israel ICC Feature photo

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — Israel’s army chief of staff, General Aviv Kochavi, recently commented on the International Criminal Court (ICC) decision to investigate Israel for war crimes. In his speech, General Kochavi said:

There is a moral abyss that exists between us and our enemies. They do everything in order to target civilians; we do everything to prevent hurting their civilians. They rejoice when our civilians are killed; we investigate when theirs are killed.”

Sounds like a pretty good opening statement for his defense once the trial at The Hague commences. The only problem is, none of what he said is true.

As these words are being written, Israel is in the process of figuring out the results of its fourth elections in two years. These elections mark what could be the final step in a political strategy that would make Machiavelli proud. This strategy is one that was planned and executed brilliantly by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that brought about the total disintegration of his opposition. 

All that is left of those who ran against him are tiny fragments. The hungry politicians who lead these fragments cannot possibly compete with Netanyahu’s domestic political acumen. 

Similarly, no Israeli politician is able to compete with Netanyahu’s gravitas in the international arena. This is something that was clearly demonstrated by the recent visit to Tel-Aviv by the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, to discuss cooperation among the three countries.

“A moral abyss”

The speech given by the Israeli army chief represents a righteous indignation that is typical of Israeli officials. He says that “a moral abyss” exists between Israel and its enemies, and that is a very interesting choice of words. One might think it is self-defeating for the Israeli military and political officials to bring up morality. And yet, here is yet another general who made a career of killing civilians and maintaining a brutal military regime claiming moral superiority.

In truth, a moral abyss does exist between Israel and the Palestinian people. A quick comparison shows the following: From its very founding, Israel had invested billions of dollars in developing and maintaining its military; Palestinians have never had as much as a tank, much less a military force.

For decades Palestinians have been searching for ways to make Palestine peaceful again. Palestinians had suggested establishing a secular democracy with equal rights. When that was rejected, they had agreed to end their resistance and recognized the State of Israel. Then the Palestinian Liberation Organization entered negotiations with Israel and accepted that all it would receive was a small Palestinian State on less than one-quarter of historic Palestine.

When this proved to be impossible, the Palestinians initiated a peaceful, dedicated, and morally just campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanction against the State of Israel. The demands set out by this call are all remedial and are all rooted in international law.

During these same decades, Israel had been engaged in dispossession, land theft, and violence. Palestinians are targeted by Israel regardless of their status or geographic location. Be they citizens of Israel, residents of the West Bank or Gaza, internally displaced, or refugees in camps outside of Palestine, Palestinians are living without rights — pushed off of their lands, prevented from access to basic resources like water, roads, and health care — and are killed on a daily basis.

Israel will not even provide Palestinians with a Covid vaccine. So yes, General Kochavi is right about the moral chasm. However, he and his army have nothing to be proud of.

“Our enemies”

One constantly hears that Israel is surrounded by enemies and that therefore it has no choice but to maintain a strong military force and strike whenever and wherever it sees a threat.

This is not unlike criminals who steal and are then afraid of retribution from their victims or the authorities. The criminals are constantly in need of more weapons, more recruits, and they must always hit first in order to strike fear into their potential enemies.The Anti-Semitic Birth of the Zionist State: A History of Israel’s Self-Hating FoundersSelf-Hating Jews: Miko Peled dives into the history of Zionism and its founder’s prosperity for racism and their disdain for non-secular JewsMintPress News Miko Peled | Mar 24

The Anti-Semitic Birth of the Zionist State: A History of Israel’s Self-Hating FoundersSelf-Hating Jews: Miko Peled dives into the history of Zionism and its founder’s prosperity for racism and their disdain for non-secular JewsMintPress News Miko Peled | Mar 24

The State of Israel was established by acts that constitute crimes. Killing, mass displacement of a civilian population, theft of property and money, and the creation of an apartheid regime. Israel then built a military force that to this day continues to terrorize Palestinians and occasionally its neighboring countries, referring to them all as “enemies.”

One could argue, and indeed should argue, that Israel created enemies by its own criminal behavior. Then Israel feels it has the right to protect itself from the very people it alienated through criminal acts.

The State of Israel was established by acts that constitute crimes. Killing, mass displacement of a civilian population, theft of property and money, and the creation of an apartheid regime. Israel then built a military force that to this day continues to terrorize Palestinians and occasionally its neighboring countries, referring to them all as “enemies.”

One could argue, and indeed should argue, that Israel created enemies by its own criminal behavior. Then Israel feels it has the right to protect itself from the very people it alienated through criminal acts.

They rejoice

Driving south from Jerusalem towards Gaza, one reaches an intersection just north of the first entry point into Gaza, called Erez. Then you drive down a road that goes along the Gaza Strip just east. At one intersection there is a gas station and a dirt road that winds from behind the gas station and up a sandy hill.

At the top of the hill, there are a few trees — one can see the Mediterranean from there, and also Gaza City. When Israel drops bombs on Gaza one can see the smoke and hear the explosions from that spot. Someone dragged up a couch and a few chairs, turning this spot into a favorite for Israelis who enjoy the spectacle.

A Danish news report shows Israelis watching the 2009 bombing of Gaza. TV2 Denmark | YouTube

In fact, a piece in the British paper The Guardian describes the place and the scene during the 2014 assault on Gaza: “People drink, snack and pose for selfies against a background of explosions as Palestinian death toll mounts in ongoing offensive.”

It goes on, describing what I too personally witnessed:

A group of men huddle around a shisha pipe. Nearly all hold up smartphones to record the explosions or to pose grinning, perhaps with thumbs up, for selfies against a backdrop of black smoke…Some bring their children.”

“We investigate”

Kochavi claimed the army investigates, though clearly Israel’s investigations of its own crimes are few, far between, and rarely end up with the violators being held accountable.

“We do everything to prevent killing their civilians,” he says, which should make us wonder in what world General Kochavi lives. Israel not only does not do anything to prevent the death of civilians but for decades has been targeting civilians in both Palestine and Lebanon. This is obvious because, as stated earlier, Palestinians have never had an army.

As the world wonders what the next Netanyahu government will look like, it is clear that Palestinians will continue to live in fear of Israeli terrorism. One has to wonder at what point the world is likely to end the destruction of Palestine and its people by Israel.

Feature photo | Palestinians block Israeli soldiers targeting peaceful protesters near a Jewish settlement Beqa’ot in Jordan Valley in the West Bank, Feb. 29, 2020. Majdi Mohammed | AP

Miko Peled is MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

U.S. A FRIEND WITH WHEAT IS A FRIEND INDEED

South Front

29.03.2021 

The current state of affairs in northeastern Syria is bordering on the absurd.

In an unexpected twist, US-backed militants seized a shipment of US-made missiles that were en route to other militants also supported by America. The shipment included 2 TOW anti-tank guided missiles, 24 AK-type assault rifles, a designated marksman’s rifle, two gun tubes and ammo.

On March 28th, the Syrian Task Force, a joint force of the Turkish Police, Counterterrorism Unit and the National Syrian Army (SNA) took the weapons shipment.

Most SNA factions were once backed by the US, which supplied them with TOW ATGMs until late 2017. They are also currently and continually supported by Turkey.

Turkey said that the weapons consignment was seized because it was heading towards the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).  The SDF is the most important US ally in Syria, but it is comprised of the PKK and YPG, whom Ankara deems as terrorist organizations.

US forces in Syria need all the support they can get, and as such they are delivering supplies to its presumed allies.

On March 27th, in addition to smuggling oil, a large US convoy smuggled 38 trucks of Syrian wheat from the Hasaka governorate into northern Iraq. Just days earlier, on March 25th, 18 more trucks with wheat were taken out of Syria.

In Hasaka, the SDF is carrying out its expansionist work, displacing home-owners in the vicinity of a helipad. The positions are to be used to counter the attacks and movements of Turkish-backed militants coming from Ras al-Ayn and Afrin.

And sure enough, Turkish forces, as well as militants backed by Ankara, renewed shelling on the Hasaka countryside. They shelled the two villages of al-Khashma and al-Dardara to the north of the town Tal Tamer on March 27th.

In response to Turkey’s shelling and attacks, the SDF carried out an operation towards Raqqa. As a result, eight Turkish-backed militants were either killed or wounded. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, SDF fighters blew up a militant position near the town of Umm al-Manajir in the northern outskirts of the town of Ain Issa.

Still, even without the SDF attacking any positions, in Afrin the Turkish-backed militants continue fighting even amongst themselves. On March 27th, militants of the Hamza Division clashed with a group which recently defected from the division and joined the al-Sham Corps. At least 11 were either killed or injured.

Northern Syria appears to be in a perpetual state of chaos, with several sides attempting to steal away resources to forward their own interests. Turkey, the US, and the militants that they back are taking the chance to do so, since the Damascus government and Russian support are more focused on Greater Idlib, and the ISIS-infested central region.

Related

Iran-China: the 21st century Silk Road connection

Newly announced China-Iran strategic partnership deal shatters US sanctions while paving the Belt and Road from East to West

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi sign a historic partnership agreement between the two sides in Tehran on March 27, 2021. (Photo by Tasnim)
Iran-China: the 21st century Silk Road connection

March 29, 2021

By Pepe Escobar posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times

The timing could not have been more spectacular, following what we examined in three previous columns: the virtual Quad and the 2+2 US-China summit in Alaska; the Lavrov-Wang Yi strategic partnership meeting in Guilin; and the NATO summit of Foreign Ministers in Brussels – key steps unveiling the birth of a new paradigm in international relations.

The officially named Sino-Iranian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was first announced over five years ago, when President Xi Jinping visited Tehran. The result of plenty of closed-door discussions since 2016, Tehran now describes the agreement as “a complete roadmap with strategic political and economic clauses covering trade, economic and transportation cooperation.”

Once again, this is “win-win” in action: Iran, in close partnership with Chibrlna, shatters the glass of US sanctions and turbo-charges domestic investment in infrastructure, while China secures long-term, key energy imports that it treats as a matter of national security.

If a loser would have to be identified in the process, it’s certainly the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” drive against all things Iran.

As Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran described it to me, “It’s basically a road map. It’s especially important coming at a time when US hostility towards China altogether is increasing. The fact that this trip to Iran [by Foreign Minister Wang Yi] and the signing of the agreement took place literally days after the events in Alaska makes it even more significant, symbolically speaking.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed the deal was indeed a “roadmap” for trade, economic and transportation cooperation, with a “special focus on the private sectors of the two sides.”

Marandi also notes how this is a “comprehensive understanding of what can happen between Iran and China – Iran being rich in oil and gas and the only energy-producing country that can say ‘No’ to the Americans and can take an independent stance on its partnerships with others, especially China.”

China is Iran’s largest oil importer. And crucially, bill settlements bypass the US dollar.

Marandi hits the heart of the matter when he confirms how the strategic deal actually secures, for good, Iran’s very important role in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI):

The Chinese are getting more wary about sea trade. Even the incident in the Suez Canal reinforces that, it increases Iran’s importance to China. Iran would like to use the same Belt and Road network the Chinese want to develop. For Iran, China’s economic progress is quite important, especially in high-tech fields and AI, which is something the Iranians are pursuing as well and leading the region, by far. When it comes to data technology, Iran is third in the world. This is a very appropriate time for West Asia and East Asia to move closer to one another – and since the Iranians have great influence among its allies in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Hindu Kush, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, Iran is the ideal partner for China.

In a nutshell, from Beijing’s point of view, the astonishing Evergreen saga in the Suez Canal now more than ever reiterates the crucial importance of the overland, trade/connectivity BRI corridors across Eurasia.

JCPOA? What JCPOA?

It’s fascinating to watch how Wang Yi, as he met Ali Larijani, special adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, framed it all in a single sentence:

“Iran decides independently on its relations with other countries and is not like some countries that change their position with one phone call.”

It’s never enough to stress the sealing of the partnership was the culmination of a five-year-long process, including frequent diplomatic and presidential trips, which started even before the Trump “maximum pressure” interregnum.

Wang Yi, who has a very close relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, once again stressed, “relations between the two countries have now reached the level of strategic partnership” and “will not be affected by the current situation, but will be permanent”.

Zarif for his part stressed that Washington should get serious about its return to the Iran nuclear deal; lift all unilateral sanctions; and be back to the JCPOA as it was clinched in Vienna in 2015. In realpolitik terms, Zarif knows that’s not going to happen – considering the prevailing mood in the Beltway. So he was left to praise China as a “reliable partner” on the dossier – as much as Russia.

Beijing is articulating a quite subtle charm offensive in Southwest Asia. Before going to Tehran, Wang Yi went to Saudi Arabia and met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The official spin is that China, as a “pragmatic partner”, supports Riyadh’s steps to diversify its economy and “find a path of development that fits its own conditions”.

What Wang Yi meant is that something called the China-Saudi Arabia High-Level Joint Committee should be working overtime. Yet there have been no leaks on the absolutely crucial issue: the role of oil in the Beijing-Riyadh relationship, and the fateful day when China will decide to buy Saudi oil priced exclusively in yuan.

On the (Silk) road again

It’s absolutely essential to place the importance of the Iran-China deal in a historical context.

The deal goes a long way to renew the spirit of Eurasia as a geo-historic entity, or as crack French geopolitician Christian Grataloup frames it, “a system of inter-relations from one Eurasian end to another” taking place across the hard node of world history.

Via the BRI concept, China is reconnecting with the vast intermediary region between Asia and Europe through which relations between continents were woven by more or less durable empires with diverse Eurasian dimensions: the Persians, the Greco-Romans, and the Arabs.

Persians, crucially, were the first to develop a creative role in Eurasia.

Northern Iranians, during the first millennium B.C., experts on horseback nomadism, were the prime power in the steppe core of Central Eurasia.

Historically, it’s well established that the Scythians constituted the first pastoral nomadic nation. They took over the Western steppe – as a major power – while other steppe Iranians moved East as far away as China. Scythians were not only fabulous warriors – as the myth goes, but most of all very savvy traders connecting Greece, Persia and the east of Asia: something described, among others, by Herodotus.

So an ultra-dynamic, overland international trade network across Central Eurasia developed as a direct consequence of the drive, among others, by Scythians, Sogdians and the Hsiung-Nu (who were always harassing the Chinese in their northern frontier). Different powers across Central Eurasia, in different epochs, always traded with everyone on their borders – wherever they were, from Europe to East Asia.

Essentially Iranian domination of Central Eurasia may have started as early as 1,600 B.C. – when Indo-Europeans showed up in upper Mesopotamia and the Aegean Sea in Greece while others journeyed as far as India and China.

It’s fully established, among others by an unimpeachable scholarly source, Nicola di Cosmo, in his Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge University Press): pastoral nomadic lifestyle on horseback was developed by Iranians of the steppe early in the first millennium B.C.

Jump cut to the end of the first century B.C., when Rome was starting to collect its precious silk from East Asia via multiple intermediaries, in what is described by historians as the first Silk Road.

A fascinating story features a Macedonian, Maes Titianos, who lived in Antioch in Roman Syria, and organized a caravan for his agents to reach beyond Central Asia, all the way to Seres (China) and its imperial capital Chang’an. The trip lasted over a year and was the precursor to Marco Polo’s travels in the 13th century. Marco Polo actually followed roads and tracks that were very well known for centuries, plied by numerous caravans of Eurasian merchants.

Up to the caravan organized by Titianos, Bactria – in today’s Afghanistan– was the limes of the known world for imperial Rome, and the revolving door, in connectivity terms, between China, India and Persia under the Parthians.

And to illustrate the “people to people contacts” very dear to the concept of 21st century BRI, after the 3rd century Manicheism – persecuted by the Roman empire – fully developed in Persia along the Silk Road thanks to Sogdian merchants. From the 8th to the 9th century it even became the official religion among the Uighurs and even reached China. Marco Polo met Manicheans in the Yuan court in the 13th century.

Ruling the Heartland

The Silk Roads were a fabulous vortex of peoples, religions and cultures – something attested by the exceptional collection of Manichean, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Christian manuscripts, written in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Syriac, Sogdian, Persian and Uighur, discovered in the beginning of the 20th century in the Buddhist grottoes of Dunhuang by European orientalists Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot, following the steps of Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang. In the Chinese unconscious, this is still very much alive.

By now it’s firmly established that the Silk Roads may have started to slowly disappear from history with the Western maritime push to the East since the late 15th century. But the death blow came in the late 17th century, when the Russians and the Manchu in China divided Central Asia. The Qing dynasty destroyed the last nomadic pastoral empire, the Junghars, while the Russians colonized most of Central Eurasia. The Silk Road economy – actually the trade-based economy of the Eurasian heartland – collapsed.

Now, the vastly ambitious Chinese BRI project is inverting the expansion and construction of a Eurasian space to East to West. Since the 15th century – with the end of the Mongol Empire of the Steppes – the process was always from West to East, and maritime, driven by Western colonialism.

The China-Iran partnership may have the capacity to become the emblem of a global phenomenon as far-reaching as the Western colonial enterprises from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Geoeconomically, China is consolidating a first step to solidify its role as builder and renovator of infrastructure. The next step is to build its role in management.

Mackinder, Mahan, Spykman – the whole conceptual “rule the waves” apparatus is being surpassed. China may have been an – exhausted – Rimland power up to the mid-20th century. Now it’s clearly positioned as a Heartland power. Side by side with “strategic partner” Russia. And side by side with another “strategic partner” that happened to be the first historical Eurasian power: Iran.