The Second Round of Retaliation Between Israel and Iran Has Just Begun

Joe Biden is caught in a trap caused by his own weakness

APRIL 19, 2024

PHILIP GIRALDI

Given the lying and fact twisting that have routinely been part and parcel of accounts of what is occurring in the Middle East, the past several weeks have nevertheless been shocking in terms of how an abysmally low standard of truth can be reduced even farther. Looking at developments objectively, one comes up with a series of facts. First of all, Israel was not at war with either Syria or Iran during the first weeks in April. Iran had never attacked Israel prior to that point and Syria last fought Israel in 1973, over fifty years ago. Israel, however, has regularly been assassinating Iranian officials and scientists and it has been frequently been bombing Syria since 2017, increasing the pace to weekly and sometimes even daily attacks over the past six months paralleling the Gaza fighting. A particularly devastating attack took place on March 29^th when the Israeli military launched massive strikes against a weapons storage depot in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo which killed at least 40 people, most of them Syrian soldiers. The air strikes produced a series of explosions that also killed six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

But three days later on April 1^st a very damaging and unprovoked attack was directed against the Iranian Embassy’s Consulate General, which was located in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The building was completely destroyed by missiles fired from F-35 fighter planes that had crossed over the Syrian border from Israel, killing Iranian diplomats as well as Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi, and also Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the chief of general staff for the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon. Syria subsequently confirmed that a total of 13 people were killed in the attack, including six Syrians and a Lebanese Hezbollah militiaman. Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge.

Attacking a diplomatic mission is considered a major war crime according to the Vienna Convention, but there was no condemnation of the incident coming from the US and the usual suspects in Western Europe. Instead of doing what was right by pressuring Israel to stop attacking its neighbors and thereby possibly preventing a major war in the Middle East, President Joe Biden repeated his pledge that the United States would regard as “ironclad” its commitment to guarantee Israel’s security if Iran were to strike back. This guaranteed to Israel that any action taken by it would be supported by Washington. The Biden Administration also predictably voted against a Russian and Chinese drafted UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate, which was a clear violation of international law and an act of war committed by Israel. The US reportedly cast its veto vote “no” after “Diplomats said the US told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear.” What was actually unclear was the fog that generally surrounds the Biden foreign policy and national security team since it was pretty transparent who was the aggressor in terms of means, motive and outcome.

When Iran did retaliate on April 13^th, it carried out a carefully calibrated moderate strike against military targets intended to do damage but not cause a large number of casualties. It reportedly hit several airbases from which the Israeli fighter bombers had begun their attack on Damascus as well as an Israeli Air Force intelligence center in the formerly Syrian Golan Heights. No one was killed in spite of the 300 estimated drones and missiles that were launched, most being intercepted by Israel and its allies. But the attack nevertheless sent a message from Tehran that next time it could be much worse, both immediate in timing and “considerably more severe” than its response on Saturday night had been. Iran also claims that it attempted to prevent an escalation by warning the US about their plans, which would be passed on to Israel, that a “controlled” retaliation was coming. The Pentagon denied that it had been told anything, which may mean that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asleep at his desk once again.

Not content with the outcome, Israel inevitably struck back on Friday, hitting a major airbase near Isfahan, and, to make sure no one was missed, targets in both Iraq and Syria. Iranian military sources advise however that the loud explosions heard by local residents were Iranian air defenses shooting at some flying objects, presumably drones. Per the New York Times and other accommodating media, the strike was a warning that Israel could penetrate Iranian airspace and not intended to do serious damage. The Pentagon was apparently informed shortly before the Israeli action. Iran’s counter-counter retaliation is now pending, but it is clear that Netanyahu will not be deterred by electoral considerations in the United States to stay his hand in his own counter-counter response.

And how does the United States fit into the story? The White House response to the Iranian attack on Israeli territory was inevitably completely unlike the previous uncritical response to Israel’s Consulate General attack, namely condemnation of Iran and the repetition of the usual tripe about “Israel has a right to defend itself” and the sanctity of the “ironclad” defense arrangement. Biden also attempted to cover himself against political blowback due to his licking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes in the upcoming November election by making it known that he had spoken with and advised Netanyahu, recommending not carrying out a reprisal of the reprisal, which Washington would be unable to support as it could/would lead to major escalation. Netanyahu, not fearing Biden’s displeasure, blew the advice off and he and his war cabinet made clear that they were working on a response as well as setting a timetable for invading Rafah in south Gaza, which Biden had also recommended against.

The White House completed its groveling to Netanyahu by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on April 18^th that would have advocated full UN membership status for the state of Palestine, demonstrating that kicking the Palestinians is always a good way to maintain Israeli favor! The vote was 12 (including France, Japan and South Korea) in favor, two abstentions (the shameless United Kingdom and, surprisingly, Switzerland) and an American veto. The US insisted that elevation of Palestine’s diplomatic status can only be obtained after negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield absurdly raised another objection: “Right now, the Palestinians don’t have control over a significant portion of what is supposed to be their state. It’s being controlled by a terrorist organization.” She was referring to Hamas but the comment actually more correctly is applicable to Israel. In any event, a leaked White House memo had previously revealed that Biden opposes full UN membership and statehood for the Palestinians without Israel’s approval, which, of course, will not be forthcoming.

So we have Israel as the aggressor against two countries that were not declared enemies and had not attacked the Jewish state in any way in many, many years. But when Israel attacked them, committing a major war crime Joe Biden and company preferred to sit on their hands and mumble, saving their vituperation for when Iran staged a deliberately mild counter-attack as a warning. That is called hypocrisy, to turn things on their head to provide the answer that one wants to see and it applies equally to Biden accusing the Russians of “illegal occupation” in Ukraine while Israel’s theft of Syria’s Golan Heights and ongoing seizure of the West Bank goes unchallenged by Washington. And the pushback against Iran is unlikely to diminish very soon as the Jewish controlled US Congress also has the bit between its teeth to demonstrate how much it loves Israel. Congressman Steve Scalise, GOP House Majority Leader, has announced that “In light of Iran’s unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable. The House of Representatives stands strongly with Israel, and there must be consequences for this unprovoked attack.” Over at the Senate Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is advocating punishing Iran by beating on its possible friends in the US, physically attacking folks who are demonstrating in support of the Palestinians. Cotton said that the “pro-Hamas criminals” should be confronted by angry citizens who “take matters into [their] own hands” and confront the offenders, endorsing the use of force against peaceful demonstrators.

But there is also the back story behind why Israel likely attacked the Iranians in Syria in the first place. I and a number of other observers immediately after the Israeli attack assumed that the Jewish state had staged a deliberate over-the-top provocation to draw Washington into its wars. Just as in the case of the October 7^th Gaza attack by Hamas, which Israel had full knowledge of and let happen, Netanyahu sought to create a situation in which it would goad Iran into being forced to retaliate to force an “ironclad” Biden to protect its “ally” by taking on Iran directly.

Why did Israel do it beyond the obvious desire to destroy Iran just like it is destroying the Palestinians? It was done because Israel has likely become aware that it is viewed as the world’s greatest pariah state due to its genocide in Gaza, to include the recent horrific killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as well as the targeted assassination of seven employees of a charity that was bringing in food to those starving due to Israel’s blocking the entry of relief supplies. And also because Israel is actually not winning its war against Hamas, it needed to shift the narrative to something different. That would be using its time-honored technique of making itself once again the “victim” in confronting a powerful new enemy, Iran, which would make the problem of bad public relations with the world over Gaza be in part mitigated.

A shift in the story would also presumably bring with it the expected help from the United States and its European allies to do the hard work in killing Iranians. And the trick seems to have worked, predictably. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain has been recently facing demands to cut off arms shipments to Israel because of the devastating death toll in Gaza, but on the following Monday, he was able to salute the British warplanes that had shot down some Iranian drones sent by Iran to attack Israel. It was a telling example of how Israel has been able to scramble the equation in the Middle East. Faced with a intensively publicized barrage of Iranian missiles, Britain, the United States, France and others rushed to help the Israelis who had in fact started the conflict. The United States is also currently planning on increasing the pressure on Iran through a series of tough new sanctions being prepared by Treasury Secretary Janice Yellen, saying “Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity.” Yellen notably did nothing when Israel committed a major war crime in its attack on the Iranian Consulate General in Damascus, nor has she supported sanctions over the Israeli Gaza genocide. She is, of course, Jewish. More aid for the Jewish state is also still waiting for a congressional vote to approve the $14 billion currently in the pipeline, with Washington Report claiming that this year’s total US aid to Netanyahu will likely exceed $25 billion “in direct costs related to its fervent support for Israel.”

Right now, the dilemma for the US government will be that it must pull out all the stops in supporting Israel or face inter alia retaliation by the Israel Lobby working through its donors and media resources to defeat Biden in November. And there hovers in the peripheries of one’s mind the worse grim possibility that Israel, if rebuffed by its “allies,” will use its secret nuclear arsenal to blow up the Middle East and presumably a large chunk of adjacent areas in Europe and Asia as well. There are stories already circulating suggesting that the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona might have been an Iranian target and that Israel is right now preparing to take out Iranian nuclear research sites. Netanyahu is calling the shots while a befuddled White House looks on. Israel has baited a trap and Joe Biden has stepped right into it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

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From the ‘Battle of Dignity’ to the shield of shame: How Jordan has fallen

APR 16, 2024

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Amman’s collaboration with Tel Aviv peaked last Saturday with its shocking defense of Israeli territory from Iranian drones and missiles, a move that may prove fateful for the future of the Hashemite Kingdom.

(Photo Credit: The Cradle)

Khalil Harb

The most dangerous development during Iran’s massive 13 April retaliatory strike against Israel last weekend was the defensive military alliance – comprising the US, Britain, Jordan, and France – that coalesced to defend the occupation state.

Jordan has jumped to Israel’s full defense at a time when Arabs have never been more collectively outraged by its crimes.

Particularly notable was Jordan’s role in thwarting Iran’s incoming drones and missiles. The Hashemite Kingdom was the only Arab or Muslim state to act as Israel’s “firewall,” providing direct military protection for Tel Aviv within a multilateral, regional military framework.

Despite Amman’s long-standing pro-Israel stance, this sudden reassertion of its position is indicative of some broader shifts in military strategies across West Asia. 

Patterns and calculations of confrontations across West Asia will be readjusted to adapt to this new equation and others that have emerged in the region as alliances shift to and away from the west. 

That includes the Axis of Resistance, which will likely reassess the expected range of responses in a future confrontation, given that western anti-missile capabilities are well spread throughout strategic locations – strategic sites from the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar, Iraq, to the Al-Tanf base at the Syrian–Jordanian–Iraqi border and from the Mashabim base in the Negev desert to the King Faisal base in northwestern Jordan.

Strategic shifts

Over the years, the Jordanian government has dramatically shrunk its commitments to the Palestinian cause and “Arabism.” 

This can be traced from its 1968 “Battle of Dignity” against Israel to 5 November, when King Abdullah II boasted of his country’s “success” in airdropping medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in the Gaza Strip, and now, quite stunningly, employing its air force to protect Israel’s security from retaliatory Iranian strikes. 

This shift is not merely a reactionary measure but the culmination of years of extensive security and military coordination with the occupation state, as highlighted by a Jordanian opposition activist speaking to The Cradle. This deep-seated integration into anti-missile and drone operations reflects a strategic evolution rather than a spontaneous response.

Eyewitness reports from multiple sources to The Cradle describe the audible presence of warplanes over the Amman region, followed by the sound of explosions hours later when overhead projectiles were intercepted and downed. 

One Jordanian witness relays that the suburb of Marj al-Hamam saw the most interceptions against Iranian drones and missiles, with debris reported across the area.

Jordanian writer and journalist Rania Jabari informs The Cradle that “citizens in Jordan have felt jammed on the GPS for about two weeks,” that is, since after the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus. 

Amid rising concerns about a swift Iranian counterattack through drone incursions, Israel reportedly initiated GPS jamming operations across several regional countries, including Jordan. 

Jabari suggests that this electronic interference might have precipitated the Jordanian Air Force’s readiness to intercept any unauthorized aerial objects in its airspace, given the potential risks to national security from mistakenly guiding Iranian drones into Jordanian territory.

However, the Jordanian opposition activist casts doubt on the capability of Jordan’s Air Force – equipped with only about 60 older F-16 and F-5 aircraft – to single-handedly manage the response against hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles destined for Israel.

Regional repercussions 

Supporting these suspicions, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Israeli fighter jets had intercepted drones launched by Iran in the airspace of Jordan and Syria. 

The day after the Iranian Operation True Promise, the Jordanian government issued a vague statement, only saying that “some unidentified flying objects that entered our airspace last night were dealt with and intercepted to prevent endangering the safety of our citizens and inhabited areas.”

The statement conspicuously omitted any mention of the scale of involvement of the Israeli Air Force or the nature and role of US fighter jets participating in the operation.

Given the limitations of Jordan’s aerial fleet and the extensive geographic area these planes need to cover – a “firewall” stretching approximately 1,500 kilometers from western Iran to the occupied territories of Palestine – the involvement of international forces seems credible. 

Additionally, Iraqi sources inform The Cradle that coalition forces had shot down about 30 drones and missiles over Iraq, with explosions heard in regions like Erbil, Najaf, Wasit, and Anbar. This indicates that a significant number of the drones and missiles traversed Jordanian skies, where they were intercepted before reaching their intended targets in Israel.

The role of the Jordanian Air Force is so significant that the Iranian Mehr news agency quoted an Iranian military source as saying, “Iran will monitor Jordanian movements, and if they cooperate with Israel, Jordan will be our next target.”

The source is said to have “warned Jordan and other countries in the region before the start of the attack against cooperating with the occupying entity.”

This statement seems to have aroused the ire of the Jordanian government. On Sunday, authorities summoned the Iranian ambassador in Amman to warn against Tehran’s “questioning of Jordan’s position.”

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also issued a statement saying that his government would “intercept any drone or missile that breaches our airspace, whether Iranian or Israeli.” 

However, the Jordanian oppositionist questions the accuracy of Safadi’s statement, especially about his country’s readiness to confront a similar threat coming from Tel Aviv, noting numerous occasions when Israeli fighter jets infiltrated Jordanian airspace to carry out raids on Syria. 

A history of betraying Palestine  

Jordan’s historical antagonism towards Palestinian resistance dates back to the “Black September” massacres of 1970, aimed at expelling the PLO from the country – allegedly with the support of former King Hussein bin Talal, who reportedly received backing from Israel and the US.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s Air Force shot down and destroyed dozens of Jordanian aircraft. Following the 1994 Amman–Tel Aviv peace agreement, the two states have struck multiple defense deals, including Israel supplying Jordan with F-16 jets and Cobra helicopters.

Since the 1970s, when Israel supported Jordan during the Palestinian revolt against King Hussein, the two air forces have not engaged in combat. Israeli belligerence persists despite this. On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, when asked about potential opposition from the Jordanian Air Force should Israel strike Iraq, then-retired Air Force Commander Avihu Ben-Nun boldly stated, “There would be no more Jordanian Air Force.”

It is very likely, moreover, that the western militaries involved in Israel’s defense last weekend utilized Jordanian bases. For example, US troops are stationed at the Mashabim air base in the Negev desert, supporting operations like the Iron Dome system. 

Similarly, UK and French military forces are present at multiple strategic locations within Jordan, including the King Faisal Air Base in Al-Jafr and the Humaymah base near Aqaba, where they play roles in regional defense and run intelligence operations.

There are also French troops at King Faisal Air Base, known as Al-Ruwaished Base, which is close to Al-Tanf. From this base, activities involving espionage operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran are carried out through a state-of-the-art reconnaissance center, and its airport is believed to be used by both Israeli and US drones. 

Sacrificing Jordan’s stability for Israel’s security 

But Jordan’s relations and collaboration with Tel Aviv remain deeply unpopular among the country’s citizenry, with protestors amassing for weeks near the Israeli embassy in Amman – many of them subsequently subjected to repression and tight security restrictions by Jordanian authorities. 

Adding to the pressure on Amman, the Iraqi resistance faction, Kataib Hezbollah, announced earlier this month its readiness to arm “12,000 fighters with light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles, millions of bullets and tons of explosives, so that we can be united to defend our Palestinian brothers,” adding that it would seek to “cut off the [Jordan] land route that reaches the Zionist entity.”

By participating in the interception of Iranian drones, Jordan has made a significant contribution to alleviating some pressure off Israel, but one that comes with a much more significant domestic consequence for the stability of the kingdom. 

Will Amman’s blatant alignment with Tel Aviv in this context prove to be politically detrimental for its monarch? In years to come, this decision may be viewed as a strategic error of gargantuan proportions. For now, Jordan’s political future and its position in regional politics remain uncertain – certainly as Tel Aviv and Tehran gear up for further confrontations. 

King Abdallah can jump into the fray as he did last weekend and suffer through further waves of domestic and Arab outrage, or he can resolve to stay neutral and quiet – as many larger, more powerful neighbors chose to do – and let Iranians and Israelis adversaries fight their own battles.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

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Germany joins Israel in dock for genocide… Western imperialism’s perverse evolution

April 12, 2024

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Germany and the United States along with other Western powers are continuing deep-seated historical crimes by way of their proxy war against Russia.

The repeating of history might seem tragic, even farcical. One may wonder how such apparent madness can be repeated. But the explanation is straightforward when it is understood that the motive force is the same.

The charge against Germany at the International Court of Justice this week of aiding genocide in Gaza is truly shameful. Germany was brought to court by Nicaragua for facilitating Israel’s genocide in Gaza in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

That convention was created in the aftermath of Nazi Germany’s mass murder of six million Jews during World War Two. Only 79 years after the end of that war, the German state is again in the dock for complicity in an ongoing genocide in Gaza committed by a self-declared Jewish state of Israel.

It seems a shocking and deplorable twist in history. Within living memory, Germany stands accused again of abominable crimes against humanity.

What is even more disgraceful, the German authorities are denying that Israel is committing genocide and that Germany is nobly defending Israel’s security out of a special obligation owing to its heinous World War Two holocaust.

Germany’s supposed rationale for supporting Israel is an astounding perversion of history.

The case against Germany this week is incontestable as was the earlier case brought against Israel by South Africa in January before the same United Nations court at The Hague. A definitive ruling by the court on both cases is pending.

Nevertheless, already world public opinion is in concurrence with numerous international legal and human rights experts that Israel’s military siege of the Gaza Strip amounts to genocide and incorporates multiple violations of international law. Ergo, Germany’s culpability.

Over the past six months, Israel’s wanton destruction of the Palestinian territory has resulted in over 33,000 deaths, including more than 14,000 children and 10,000 women among the victims. The actual death toll is probably more than 46,000 given that 13,000 people are missing under rubble or buried in unmarked graves. It is feared that there will be up to 100,000 dead in the coming months as famine and disease intensify.

Germany is the second biggest supplier of weapons to Israel after the United States. Germany accounts for nearly one-third of all Israeli arms imports.

Israel’s murderous, indiscriminate siege of Gaza involving a deliberate policy of mass starvation of more than two million people would not be happening if it were not for crucial military support from the United States and Germany.

But just as important as the killing machines and ammunition is the unwavering political support provided by Germany, the United States, and all of their Western allies. Unbelievably, Berlin, Washington, London, Paris, and other Western capitals continue to assert that Israel is not committing genocide. Like U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz repeats the cynical and mendacious mantra about Israel’s right to self-defense.

What is going on in Gaza is a bloodbath enabled by Western imperialist powers. The U.S. and all its Western allies are accomplices in egregious war crimes. Live on television every day, and yet the contemptible Western media assiduously sanitize and mitigate the horror. In any sane world, the Western governments and their corporate-controlled “news media” should be irredeemably condemned for their complicity.

However, Germany’s culpability takes on a profoundly disturbing and disgraceful significance, as does the Zionist regime’s. In the name of millions of victims of Nazi Germany, the genocide in Gaza is being perpetrated with a truculence and self-righteousness that is despicable beyond words. It is utterly diabolical that the historic mass murder of Jews by Germany is now being repeated on others by a state that claims to be Jewish – and enabled by Germany. You could hardly make this obscenity up.

It should be understood too that the horror being perpetrated in Gaza is but one element in a toxic eruption of imperialist crimes currently underway across the globe.

In Ukraine, the Western imperialists in the NATO axis are waging a proxy war against Russia utilizing a corrupt NeoNazi regime headed up by a nominally Jewish puppet president who is up to his eyes in money laundering, fraud, and swindling. Germany is the second biggest supplier of weapons to the Ukrainian regime after the United States.

Eight decades ago, Nazi Germany deployed Ukrainian fascists to exterminate Jews and Slavs with a death toll of up to 30 million Soviet citizens. The contemporary Ukrainian regime glorifies these Nazi collaborators. The United States deployed the same Ukrainian fascists after the Second World War to wage covert war against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Thus, Germany and the United States along with other Western powers are continuing deep-seated historical crimes by way of their proxy war against Russia.

The same imperialist rogue states are enabling Israeli aggression against Iran, Syria and Lebanon. Israel’s deadly bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus earlier this month was a particularly brazen violation of international law. The barbarity of the Israeli fascist regime is fully enabled and incentivized by its Western patrons. The bitter irony is Washington and Berlin remonstrating with Iran to exercise “maximum restraint” while Israel openly attacks its sovereignty and assassinates its citizens.

Meanwhile, the United States, Australia and Britain are cajoling Japan to join their military alliance to provoke China. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was feted in Washington this week where he signed bellicose new military measures aimed at China and Russia. Kishida linked Ukraine with Asia, claiming that if Russia were to win the war in Ukraine, then China would take over East Asia. The Japanese minion gets its half right. The regions are indeed linked, not by alleged Russian and Chinese misconduct, but by the U.S.-led imperialism that Japan is cravenly serving.

Western imperialism and fascism have come full circle in a staggeringly short span of history. Nearly 80 years after Japan was defeated in the Pacific War in which it was responsible for up to 20 million deaths in China, Tokyo is at the forefront of new plans to wage a potential nuclear war on China. The perversion of Japan joining with the United States in this venture after the latter dropped two atomic bombs on its people in 1945 is yet another sickening twist in history.

The monstrous crimes of Nazi Germany and fascist Japan are today rehabilitated because the same forces serve the imperialist geopolitical interests of today.

The twists and contradictions of history are, however, crystallized in one historical force. All the crimes, barbarity, bloodshed and danger of catastrophic world war are the cause of imperialist powers – chief among them the United States and its insatiable quest for hegemonic domination.

Historic failure and systemic collapse of Western capitalism is the motive engine driving the world to war again, as it was in previous periods of the modern age. Colonialist genocide, World War One, World War Two, and now the abyss of World War Three.

Germany in the dock for genocide with Israel is not as incongruous as it might seem. Because imperialism and fascism are on the rampage again across the world. Both Germany and Israel are gang members in the crime syndicate, each with their specific justifying myths and alibis.

Russia and China are arguably the two nations that suffered the most in history from fascism. It is entirely consistent – if not lamentable – that Russia and China today are once again confronted by the same forces.

Germany is once again on the wrong side of history. And so too are the United States and all its Western vassals. Eternal shame on them.

CHRIS HEDGES: THE CRUCIFIXION OF JULIAN ASSANGE

MARCH 28TH, 2024

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CHRIS HEDGES

Washington DC — (Scheerpost) — Prosecutors representing the United States, whether by design or incompetence, refused — in the two-day hearing I attended in London in February — to provide guarantees that Julian Assange would be afforded First Amendment rights and would be spared the death penalty if extradited to the U.S.

The inability to give these assurances all but guaranteed that the High Court — as it did on Tuesday — would allow Julian’s lawyers to appeal. Was this done to stall for time so that Julian would not be extradited until after the U.S. presidential election? Was it a delaying tactic to work out a plea deal? Julian’s lawyers and U.S. prosecutors are discussing this possibility. Was it careless legal work? Or was it to keep Julian locked in a high-security prison until he collapsed mentally and physically?

If Julian is extradited, he will stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, which carries a potential sentence of 170 years. Another charge for “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” carries an additional five years.

The court will permit Julian to appeal minor technical points — his basic free speech rights must be honored, he cannot be discriminated against on the basis of his nationality, and he cannot be under threat of the death penalty.

No new hearing will allow his lawyers to focus on the war crimes and corruption that WikiLeaks exposed, permit Julian to mount a public interest defense, or discuss the political persecution of a publisher who has not committed a crime.

The court, by asking the U.S. for assurances that Julian would be granted First Amendment rights in the U.S. courts and not be subject to the death penalty, offered the U.S. an easy out — give the guarantees and the appeal was rejected.

It is hard to see how the U.S. can refuse the two-judge panel, composed of Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, which issued on Tuesday a 66-page judgment accompanied by a three-page court order and a four-page media briefing.

The hearing in February was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and many of the rulings of District Judge Vanessa Baraitser in 2021.

If Julian is denied an appeal, he can request an emergency stay of execution from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is possible the British court could order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction, or decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard there.

Julian has been engaged in a legal battle for 15 years. It began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified military files from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including footage showing a U.S. helicopter gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad.

Julian took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London for seven years, fearing extradition to the U.S. He was arrested in April 2019 by the Metropolitan Police, who were permitted by the Embassy to enter and seize him. He has been held for nearly five years in HM Prison Belmarsh, a high-security prison in southeast London.

The case against Julian has made a mockery of the British justice system and international law. While in the embassy, the Spanish security firm UC Global provided video recordings of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the CIA, eviscerating attorney-client privilege.

The Crucifixion of Julian Assange | Mr. Fish

The Ecuadorian government — led by Lenin Moreno — violated international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permitting police into their embassy to carry Julian into a waiting van. The courts have denied Julian’s status as a legitimate journalist and publisher. The U.S. and Britain have ignored Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty, which prohibits extradition for political offenses. The key witness for the U.S., Sigurdur Thordarson — a convicted fraudster and pedophile — admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian in exchange for immunity for past crimes..

Julian, an Australian citizen, is being charged under the U.S. Espionage Act, although he did not engage in espionage and was not based in the U.S. when he was sent the leaked documents. The British courts are considering extradition, despite the CIA’s plan to kidnap and assassinate Julian, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London, with involvement by London’s Metropolitan Police.

Julian has been held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial, although his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions after he obtained asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador. This should only entail a fine.

Finally, unlike Daniel Ellsberg, Julian did not leak the documents. He published documents leaked by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The judges accepted three of the nine legal grounds as potential points for appeal, and they denied the other six. The two-judge panel also rejected Julian’s lawyers’ request to present new evidence.

Julian’s legal team asked the court to introduce into the case the Yahoo! News report that revealed, after the release of the documents known as Vault 7, that the then-director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, considered assassinating Julian. Julian’s lawyers also hoped to introduce a statement from Joshua Dratel, a U.S. attorney, who said that Pompeo’s use of the terms “non-state hostile intelligence service” and “enemy combatant” were phrases designed to give legal cover for an assassination. The third piece of evidence Julian’s lawyers hoped to introduce was a statement from a Spanish witness in the criminal proceedings underway in Spain against UC Global.

The CIA is the engine behind Julian’s extradition. Vault 7 exposed hacking tools that permit the CIA to access our phones, computers and televisions, turning them — even when switched off — into monitoring and recording devices. The extradition request does not include charges based on the release of the Vault 7 files, but the U.S. indictment followed the release of the Vault 7 files.

Justice Sharp and Justice Johnson dismissed the report in Yahoo! News as “another recitation of opinion by journalists on matters that were considered by the judge.” They rejected the argument made by the defense that Julian’s extradition would be in violation of Section 81 of the U.K. Extradition Act of 2003, which prohibits extraditions in cases where individuals are prosecuted for their political opinions. The judges also dismissed the arguments made by Julian’s attorneys that extradition would violate his protections under the European Convention of Human Rights — the right to life, the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to a free trial and protections against punishment without law respectively.

The U.S. largely built its arguments on the affidavits of U.S. prosecutor Gordon D. Kromberg. Kromberg, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, has stated that Julian, as a foreign national, is “not entitled to protections under the First Amendment, at least as it concerns national defense information.”

Ben Watson, King’s Counsel, who represented the U.K. government during the two-day hearing in February, conceded that if Julian is found guilty under the Espionage Act, he could receive a death penalty sentence.

The judges urged the U.S. and the U.K. Secretary of State to offer the British court assurances on these three points by April 16.

If the assurances are not provided, the appeal will proceed.

If the assurances are provided, lawyers for both sides have until April 30th to make new written submissions to the court. At that point, the court will convene again on May 20 to decide whether the appeal can proceed.

The goals in this Dickensian nightmare remain unchanged. Erase Julian from the public consciousness. Demonize him. Criminalize those who expose government crimes. Use Julian’s slow-motion crucifixion to warn journalists that no matter their nationality, no matter where they live, they can be kidnapped and extradited to the U.S. Drag out the judicial lynching for years until Julian, already in a precarious physical and mental condition, disintegrates.

This ruling, like all of the rulings in this case, is not about justice. It is about vengeance.

How the “Fight Against Antisemitism” Became a Shield for Israel’s Genocide

MARCH 7, 2024

Source

Jonathan Cook

Western capitals no longer treat Israel like a state, a political actor capable of slaughtering children, but rather as a sacred cause. So any opposition has to be a blasphemy

If you read the establishment media, you might conclude that a serious battle is being waged by Israel and its most ardent supporters to tackle an apparent new wave of antisemitism in the West.

In article after article, we are told how Israel and western Jewish leadership bodies are demanding our concern, and outrage, at a rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents. Organisations such as the Community Security Trust in the UK and the Anti-Defamation League in the US produce lengthy reports on the relentless increase in antisemitism, especially since 7 October, and warn that action is urgently required.

Undoubtedly, there is a real threat of antisemitism and, as ever, it comes largely from the far right. Israel’s actions – and its false claim to be representing all Jews – only help to stoke it.

This moral panic is transparently self-serving. It directs our attention away from the pressing, all-too-concrete evidence that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza – one that has slaughtered and maimed many tens of thousands of innocents.

It redirects our attention instead towards tenuous claims of a deepening antisemitism crisis, one whose tangible effects appear limited and for which the evidence is all too clearly exaggerated.

After all, a rise in “Jew hatred” is all but inevitable if you redefine antisemitism, as western officials have recently done via the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s new definition, to include antipathy towards Israel – and at the moment when Israel appears, even to the World Court, to be carrying out a genocide.

The logic of Israel and its supporters runs something like this:

Many more people than usual are expressing hatred of Israel, the self-declared state of the Jewish people. There is no reason to hate Israel unless you hate what it represents, which is Jews. Therefore, antisemitism is on the rise.

This argument makes sense to most Israelis, to its partisans, and to the overwhelming majority of western politicians and career-minded establishment journalists. That is: the very same people who interpret calls for equality in historic Palestine – “from the river to the sea” – as a demand for a genocide against Jews.

The singer Charlotte Church, for example, found herself accused of antisemitism by the entire establishment media after a “pro-Palestinian chant” to raise money for Gaza’s children being starved by an Israeli aid blockade. The offending song had included the lyric “From the river to the sea”, calling for the liberation of Palestinians from decades of Israeli oppression.

At the weekend, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt once again suggested marches calling for a ceasefire were antisemitic because they supposedly “intimidated” Jews. In fact, Jews are prominent at those marches. He was referring to Zionists who excuse the slaughter in Gaza.

A BBC News correspondent tried to stop me from calling Israel’s onslaught on Gaza a genocide because it might “offend” people.

Since when did we worry about “offending” génocidaires? I will never accept such attempts at censorship. pic.twitter.com/RLkIRU4Zmz

— Chris Williamson (@DerbyChrisW) March 1, 2024

Similarly, in the wake of George Galloway’s overwhelming byelection win “for Gaza” in Rochdale last week, a BBC reporter berated former Labour MP Chris Williamson for using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions.

The reporter was worried that the term “might offend some people”, despite the World Court finding the accusation of genocide plausible.

A ghoulish phenomenon

But the ambition of these Israel zealots runs much deeper than mere deflection. Israel’s leaders and most of its citizens are not ashamed of their genocide, it seems, and neither are their overseas backers.

If my social media feeds are any guide, the slaughter in Gaza is not discomfiting these apologists, or even giving them pause for thought. They appear to revel in their support for Israel as the world looks on in horror.

Every Palestinian child’s bloodied body, and the outrage it provokes from onlookers, fuels their self-righteousness. They entrench, they do not retreat.

They appear to be finding a strange reassurance – comfort even – in the wider public’s anger and indignation at the extinguishing of so many young lives.

It mirrors very precisely Israeli officials’ own reaction to the International Court of Justice’s verdict that there is a plausible case Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Many observers assumed that Israel would seek to placate the judges and world opinion by toning down its atrocities. They could not have been more wrong. In defying the court, Israel became even more brazen, as attested to by its horrifying assault on the Nasser hospital last month and its lethal attack on Palestinians scrambling to reach an aid convoy last week.

Israel’s war crimes – broadcast on every social media platform, including by its own soldiers – are even more in our faces than before the World Court ruling.

This phenomenon needs explaining. It looks ghoulish. But it has an internal logic that shines a light on why Israel has become an emotional crutch for many Jewish people, both inside the country and abroad, as well as for others.

It is not just that Jews and non-Jews who strongly subscribe to the ideology of Zionism identify with Israel. It runs deeper still. They are utterly dependent on a worldview – long cultivated in them by Israel and by their own community leaders, as well as by oil-grabbing western establishments – that places Israel at the centre of the moral universe.

They have been drawn into what looks more like a cult – and a very dangerous one at that, as the horrors of Gaza are revealing.

Albatross, not sanctuary

The claim they have internalised – that Israel is a necessary sanctuary in a future time of trouble from the supposedly innate, genocidal impulses of non-Jews – should have come crashing down on their heads over the past five months.

If the price of reassurance – of having a “just-in-case” bolthole – is the slaughter and maiming of many tens of thousands of Palestinian children, and the slow starvation of hundreds of thousands more, then that bolthole is not worth preserving.

It is not a sanctuary; it is an albatross. It is a stain. It must go, to be replaced by something better for Jews and Palestinians in the region – “from the river to the sea”.

So why have these Israel partisans not been able to reach a conclusion so morally self-evident to everyone else – or at least those not suborned to the interests of western establishments?

Because like all cult members, hardcore Zionists are immune to self-reflection. Not only that, but their reasoning is inherently circular.

Israel, Zionism’s creation, is not in the least concerned with providing a solution to antisemitism, as it professes. Quite the reverse. It feeds on antisemitism and needs it.

Antisemitism is its lifeblood, the very reason for Israel’s existence. Without antisemitism, Israel would be redundant, there would be no need for it as a sanctuary.

The cult would be over, and so would the endless military aid, the special trading status with the West, the jobs, the land grabs, the privileges and the sense of importance and ultimate victimhood that allows for the dehumanisation of others, not least the Palestinians.

Like all true believers, Israel’s partisans overseas – who proudly call themselves “Zionists” but are now pressuring social media platforms to ban the term as antisemitic, as the movement’s goals become more transparent – have too much to lose from self- and communal doubt.

The fight against antisemitism means nothing else can take priority – not even genocide. Which, in turn, means no greater evil can be acknowledged, not even the mass murder of children. No bigger threat, however pressing, however urgent, can be allowed to come to the fore.

And to keep the doubt at bay, more antisemitism – more supposed existential threats – must be generated.

Racism in new garb

In recent years, the biggest difficulty facing Zionism has been that the true racists – on the right, often in power in western capitals – have also served as Israel’s strongest allies. They have dressed up their traditional racist ideologies – that once fed antisemitism, and could again – in new garb: as Islamophobia.

In Europe and the United States, Muslims are the new Jews.

Which is ideal for Israel and its partisans. A supposed “global, civilisational war” – ideological cover to justify continuing western domination of the oil-rich Middle East – always places Israel, the regional attack dog, on the side of the angels, firmly alongside the white nationalists.

Because Israel and its apologists cannot expose the true racists and antisemites in power, they must create new ones. And that has required changing antisemitism’s definition beyond recognition, to refer to those who oppose the colonial domination project into which Israel is profoundly integrated.

In this upside-down worldview, one that prevails not only among Israel partisans but in western capitals, we have arrived at a nonsense: to reject Israel’s oppression of Palestinians – and now even its genocide of them – is supposedly to reveal oneself as antisemitic.

Palestinians dehumanised

This was precisely the position in which Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, found herself last month after she criticised French President Emmanuel Macron.

Israel has, as a consequence, declared it is banning her from entry to the occupied territories to record its human rights abuses.

But notably, as Albanese pointed out, nothing has changed in practice. Israel has excluded all UN rapporteurs from the occupied territories for the past 16 years, during its siege of Gaza, so they cannot witness the crimes that foregrounded the attack on 7 October.

Last month, Macron made a patently preposterous statement, though one promoted by Israel and treated seriously by the western media. He described Hamas’ attack on Israel as the “biggest antisemitic massacre of our century” – that is, he claimed it was driven by hatred of Jews.

One can criticise Hamas for how it carried out its attack, as Albanese has done: undoubtedly, its fighters committed many violations of international law that day in killing civilians and taking them hostage.

Exactly the same kind of violations, we should note in the interests of balance, that Israel has committed day in, day out for decades against the Palestinians forced to live under its military occupation.

Palestinian prisoners, seized by an occupying Israeli army in the middle of the night, held in military jails and denied proper trials, are no less hostages.

But to ascribe antisemitism as Hamas’ motivation is intended to scrub out those many decades of oppression. It airbrushes out the very abuses faced by the Palestinians that Hamas and the other Palestinian militant factions were established to resist.

That right of resistance to belligerent military occupation is enshrined in international law, even if the West rarely acknowledges the fact.

Or as Albanese put it: “The victims in the October 7 massacre were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israeli oppression.”

Macron’s ridiculous remark also wiped out the past 17 years of the siege of Gaza – a slow-motion genocide that Israel has now put on steroids.

And he did so precisely because western colonial interests – just like Israel’s interests – must rationalise the dehumanisation of Palestinians and their supporters as racists and barbarians, in the West’s pursuit of domination and old-fashioned resource control in the Middle East.

But it is Albanese, not Macron, now fighting to save her reputation. She is the one being smeared as a racist and antisemite. By whom? By Israel and the genocide-supporting leaders of Europe.

Sacred cause

Israel needs antisemitism. And armed with a ludicrous redefinition adopted by western allies that classifies as Jew hatred any opposition to its crimes – any rejection of its bogus claims of “self-defence” as it crushes resistance to its occupation and its oppression of Palestinians – Israel has every incentive to commit more crimes.

Every atrocity produces more outrage, more resentment, more “antisemitism”. And the more resentment, the more outrage, the more “antisemitism”, the more Israel and its supporters can present the self-declared Jewish state as a sanctuary from that “antisemitism”.

Israel is no longer treated as a state, as a political actor capable of committing crimes and slaughtering children, but as an article of faith. It is transformed into a belief system, one immune to criticism or scrutiny. It transcends politics to become a sacred cause. And any opposition must be damned as wicked, as blasphemy.

Which is precisely the state to which western politics has devolved.

This battle against “antisemitism” – or rather, the battle being waged by Israel and its partisans – is to turn the meaning of words, and the values they represent, on their head. It is a fight to crush solidarity with the Palestinian people, and leave them friendless and naked before Israel’s campaign of genocide.

It is a moral duty to defeat these “antisemitism” warriors and assert our shared humanity – and the right of all to live in peace and dignity – before Israel and its apologists pave the way to an even greater slaughter.

Al Mayadeen congratulates George Galloway on sweeping Rochdale victory

March 2, 2024

Source: Al Mayadeen English

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al Mayadeen Media Network, Mr. Ghassan Ben Jeddou, congratulates the newly-elected MP George Galloway on his sweeping victory, on March 1, 2024. (Illustrated by: Hady Dbouk/ Al Mayadeen English) 

By Al Mayadeen English

In a letter addressed to newly-elected MP George Galloway, Mr. Ghassan Ben Jeddou praises his unwavering support for freedom, Palestine, and Gaza’s Resistance.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al Mayadeen Media Network, Mr. Ghassan Ben Jeddou, congratulates the newly-elected MP George Galloway on his sweeping victory in the Rochdale by-election on Friday. 

Hereunder is the full letter: 

From Al Mayadeen, the voice of free Arab and international public opinion, to George Galloway, the voice of freedom and progressivism in the Western world;

Congratulations on your resounding victory in the elections!

Your win is not only well-deserved but also a testament to your unwavering dedication to progress and freedom in the West.

Your triumph resonates as a beacon of hope for all those who resist oppression and for Gaza which is resisting a brutal genocide and extermination. It symbolizes a triumph of humanitarian values and political integrity over the forces of aggression, hostility, slaughter, and injustice prevailing in Britain and the West – those who were instrumental in establishing “Israel”.

Your victory is a testament to your strength as a fighter and a reminder that justice prevails over defamation, arrogance, and exclusion.

Well done, George, on this momentous achievement!
 
We extend our heartfelt pride to you, George Galloway, esteemed activist, intellectual, politician, and media luminary.

Your unwavering support for freedom, Palestine, and Gaza’s Resistance embodies utmost solidarity with the oppressed.

Congratulations once more! We are certain you will continue to champion justice, confront challenges, and stand in solidarity with the downtrodden and vulnerable worldwide.
 
Your Brother,
Ghassan Ben Jeddou

Galloway dedicates victory to Gaza

George Galloway swept to victory in the Rochdale by-election in Greater Manchester, making a major comeback to the UK parliament after garnering around 40% of the total count.

He secured an impressive victory with 12,335 votes – 39.7% of the total – surpassing predictions and establishing a significant 5,697-vote majority.

Independent candidate David Tully came in second, while Conservative Paul Simon Ellison came in third and the former Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, came in fourth after losing support from the opposition party over accusations against “Israel”.

“[Labout Party leader] Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Galloway said in his victory speech. Throughout his campaign, he criticized both Labour and the Conservatives for their support of the Israeli occupation entity in its war on Gaza.

“You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging, and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Gaza, in the Gaza Strip,” he stressed, addressing the incumbent Labour leader.

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This marks the leftist Member of Parliament’s seventh parliamentary win and poses a challenge to Labour, a party he was once part of but was expelled from for criticizing then-Prime Minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.

Galloway’s victory marks the inaugural representation of his left-wing Workers Party of Britain in parliament.

His unwavering support for Palestine and Gaza throughout his career has naturally caused tension between him and both American and British politics. He has spoken publicly during conferences and events to remind the public of the atrocities being carried out in Gaza and Palestine by “Israel”, and he has walked out during multiple meetings in refusal of debating with Israelis. 

He currently hosts a talk show on YouTube called Mother of All Talk Shows (MOATS), in which he tackles global political matters, but the main highlight concerns Gaza. Galloway also hosts a show on Al Mayadeen called Kalima Horra, in which he also talks about the same matters.

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War on Gaza

‘This is for Gaza’ Galloway says after victory in Rochdale byelection

March 1, 2024

Source: Agencies

British legislator George Galloway is welcomed after his arrival in Gaza at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

By Al Mayadeen English

The former Labour MP secures an impressive victory with 12,335 votes – 39.7% of the total.

Former Labour MP George Galloway secured the position of lawmaker for the English town of Rochdale on Friday.

Galloway secured an impressive victory with 12,335 votes – 39.7% of the total – surpassing predictions and establishing a significant 5,697-vote majority.

He surpassed the second-placed independent candidate David Tully, while the former Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, came in fourth after losing support from the opposition party over accusations against “Israel”.

“[Labout Party leader] Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” he said in his victory speech. During his campaign, Galloway criticized both Labour and the Conservatives for their support of the Israeli occupation entity in its war on Gaza.

“Keir Starmer. This is for Gaza.”
George Galloway victory speech. He says his victory is a warning for Keir Starmer that Labour has lost the confidence of their voters. #RochdaleByElection pic.twitter.com/wNPMs96cwN

— Darshna Soni (@darshnasoni) March 1, 2024

“You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Gaza, in the Gaza Strip.”
This marks Galloway’s seventh parliamentary win and poses a challenge to Labour, a party he was once part of but was expelled for criticizing then-Prime Minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.

Galloway’s victory marks the inaugural representation of his left-wing Workers Party of Britain in parliament.

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Galloway has pledged to be a vocal advocate for Gaza in parliament, challenging Labour’s evolving stance on the war that initially included full backing for the Israeli occupation, followed by a shift toward calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

“Labour is on notice that they have lost the confidence of millions of their voters who loyally and traditionally voted for them generation after generation,” he said following his victory.

He expressed his aspiration to form a “grand alliance” with Rochdale councilors to address local issues. He had advocated for the reinstatement of maternity services in the town.

Galloway’s support for Palestine

The Palestinian cause is not new to Galloway’s political career and identity. Back in 1977, after he made a visit to Beirut, he said: “Although it was a difficult decision for me to make the journey back to Scotland, barely a week after my return I made a pledge, in the Tavern Bar in Dundee’s Hawkhill District, to devote the rest of my life to the Palestinian and Arab cause, whatever the consequences for my own political future.”

Since then, Galloway formed the British Trades Union Friends of Palestine and became its first General Secretary in 1980. Two years later, in 1982, he founded the Emergency Committee against the invasion of Lebanon.

I'm proud of my support for #Palestine for 50 years. I'd rather die than recant it. As long as God gives me breath I will support them and after me my six children. And their children. Anyone who imagines otherwise is a fool. pic.twitter.com/p6ZBn2ehto

— George Galloway MP (@georgegalloway) February 27, 2024

When he was a young Labour Party activist, he called for his home town of Dundee in Scotland to be twinned with Nablus in the Occupied West Bank.

His unwavering support for Palestine and Gaza throughout his career has naturally caused tension between him and both American and British politics. He has spoken publicly during conferences and events to remind the public of the atrocities being carried out in Gaza and Palestine by “Israel”, and he has walked out during multiple meetings in refusal of debating with Israelis. 

He currently hosts a talk show on YouTube called Mother of All Talk Shows (MOATS) in which he tackles global political matters, but the main highlight concerns Gaza. He also has a show on Al Mayadeen called Kalima Horra in which he also talks about the same matters.

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War on Gaza

Regional war Netanyahu’s safety net, Amir-Abdollahian says: Exclusive

 February 27, 2024

Source: Al Mayadeen

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bouhabib in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024 (AP)

By Al Mayadeen English

In an interview with Al Mayadeen, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian gives insight on regional and international issues, ranging from the Gaza genocide to the nuclear agreement.

The performance of the United Nations is unfortunate, and Iran cannot leave space for recognition of the Israeli entity, because it does not acknowledge its legitimacy and considers it an occupation power over Palestinian lands, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Al Mayadeen on the sidelines of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Throughout the interview, the Iranian Foreign Minister discussed topics such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, particularly in light of what is happening in Gaza, the events unfolding in the Strip and the Middle East region, and Iran’s current foreign policy and nuclear program.

UN being used by those in power

Upon being asked in what light Iran viewed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva taking all that is going on in Gaza into consideration, Amir-Abdollahian referred to his speech during the 55th UNHRC meeting, wherein he said the UN’s performance and behavior regarding what was happening in Gaza and the West Bank was “unfortunately unacceptable.”

“The Security Council did not fulfill its duty as the United States continuously, unilaterally, and arrogantly exploited its veto power. Every prospect and proposal of a ceasefire resolution in Gaza has been rejected by the American veto, exhibiting a contradictive behavior to the banners of primary human rights. Even at the UNHCR, we still have not seen any adequate mobilization in this regard,” he said.

“During the first month of the war and the start of the genocide in Gaza, I visited Geneva and met with prominent officials at the United Nations, including the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and frankly told them that the commotion made, in the same council, when claims circulated the death of an Iranian woman, would not be forgotten.

“[Does the UNHCR] not want to create a special committee that relays the facts and investigations into war crimes, genocide, and human rights violations being committed in Gaza? So far, we have not witnessed a singular decisive measure taken by any of the organizations that fall under the UN.

“Of course, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Antonio Guterres, has taken some fairly good and appropriate measures, such as visiting the borders of Rafah, loudly demanding the opening of the Rafah Crossing, and the prohibition of the killings of more children, women, and people deprived of food and medicine. However, he could not efficiently and corporeally help the people of Gaza using the UN’s mechanisms. Meanwhile, at the UNHRC, we clearly see that everything succumbs to the will and control of those in power, the lying pretenders of human rights advocacy,” he stressed.

South Africa ICJ lawsuit

“There are two simultaneous lawsuits raised against the Israeli apartheid and criminal occupation. The first one is a South African lawsuit filed against Israel and is currently being adjudicated. We hope the judges announce their charges in the upcoming days for them to be transformed into principles and foundations for all UN organizations, including the UNHRC,” Amir-Abdollahian said when asked about whether South Africa’s lawsuit at the ICJ could have a different outcome from the ICJ deliberations, taking into account that there is no veto power within the ICJ.

The second lawsuit, he clarified, “Was raised by the UN requesting judicial guidance regarding the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, based on a decision made a few weeks ago. The ICJ’s guidance, in this case, could become a precedent that presents a solution to the Palestinian cause.”

While the foreign minister maintained Iran’s support for South Africa’s case as one of justice and bravery, recalling how Tehran championed it at the political and legal levels while providing extensive media coverage for the case, he said Iran had one caveat regarding the case

“One criticism we have is that, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, we have to work under the paradigms that do not leave space for recognition of the Israeli entity, because we do not acknowledge its legitimacy and consider it an occupation power over Palestinian lands.

“The occupation is not sustainable, and it will dissolve after all, just like its precedent in Algeria, despite its extension for several decades, it was defeated by the resilience of the Algerian people and their Resistance,” he stressed.

Expanding circle of fire?

Commenting on the Israeli attacks on Baalbek, northeastern Lebanon, which is a precedent since the 2006 July War, and whether it would make for an escalation that could ignite an all-out war that extends beyond the Lebanese front in the south, Amir-Abdollahian stressed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “thinks the solution to his extremist government’s and his own salvation is war.”

“The Zionist entity itself is sustained by war and insecurity in the region. However, today, what is the situation we are experiencing? Israel was unable to achieve any of its goals from the war in Gaza,” he said.

The Iranian top diplomat explained that the Israeli occupation “could not defeat Hamas, or demilitarize it. It failed to locate and retrieve its captives, and many of its other goals, including capturing Yahya al-Sinwar, despite the mass bombing and the full-on genocide it perpetrated on the Gaza Strip, and the massive funding the US has supplied it with.”

“Our intel and satellite images we obtained, also show that weaponry and military gear suppliance operations from the US bases and ships to Tel Aviv have been active round-the-clock,” Amir-Abdollahian revealed. “This is what we discussed with several regional leaders, whose countries comprise US military bases, and told them the lands of Islamic nations must not be transformed to grounds that allow the extension of weapons to the Israeli entity, which allows it to kill more Palestinians.”

“What is Netanyahu looking for now, and why did he attack east Lebanon? Notably, not a single Israeli attack passed without a consequential response, and the region and Hezbollah have both responded strongly and appropriately to all Israeli aggression,” he said, leaving it up to the Resistance to escalate how it sees fit.

Threat of regional war?

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In a follow-up question regarding his commentary on the presence of foreign powers in the region, the Iranian Foreign Minister was asked about Iran’s opinion on the increased Western presence in the region in light of the growing number of US and other Western naval entities and whether this could signify an escalation that could affect and reach Iran, Amir-Abdollahian simply answered: “No.”

“Our evaluations indicate that Netanyahu wants to expand the war and wants to implicate the United States in conflicts and wars, now more than ever, at a rate that surpasses the holistic support the US and its allies have been supplying the Israeli entity with… But the main point is that the US and other Western nations are seemingly encountered with specific conditions,” he said.

“There are several points to consider regarding the latest updates and lineups toward Palestine. The first is that the US backs “Israel’s” war and genocide. Americans are facing special conditions in light of the upcoming elections which spike the need for the Israeli lobby’s support. We realize that they do not possess the will to end the war, but they have simultaneously expressed, through letters and statements, their aversion to an expanded war.

“They are very well aware of the dangers that could follow if the war is expanded. On the other hand, they are part of the expansion operation through their joint aggression with Britain in Yemen. The Americans discuss the de-escalation of the war, not stopping it. In my opinion, that signifies their malicious behavior embodied by giving Netanyahu the green light. Today, in Europe, everyone is discussing the need to end the war. But Britain, in this case, is jumping a double rope. It seeks to proceed with its regional foreign policies alongside the US. 

“Islamic and Arab nations also advocate for the end of the war. But in all cases, we must not forget “Israel’s” forceful displacement policies of Gazans to the Sinai desert, and people of the West Bank to dispersed parts of the Jordanian lands.

“This is certainly what Netanyahu is striving for, and we vivaciously declare that if it weren’t for the Palestinian Resistance and the resilience of the Palestinian masses, the reality of the regions aligned with the occupied Palestinian territories would have been completely different,” he stressed.

Displacement into Sinai

“Around two weeks ago, I visited the region and met with several Resistance leaders and the Resistance leadership. According to the reports they provided, the Resistance is at its best. Regarding its morale, despite all the hardships and the challenges, it remains spirited, be it in Lebanon or Palestine,” Amir-Abdollahian said of the regional tour he made in early February.

“The Resistance affirmed that they possessed the material and human capabilities necessary to maintain all acts of resistance in the lengthiest war yet,” he added.

“The spirits of the people of Gaza and the West Bank deserve to be commended. They have indeed inter-moved in Gaza, but based on our accurate information, more than 600,000 Palestinians remain in the north, in afflicted and destroyed areas, and refuse to leave, despite all the difficult conditions,” he said.

Asked about whether the displacement of the Palestinian people to Rafah was feasible, he said the Israeli plans “will not be materialized and will not be able to direct people to Egypt and enforce their displacement.”

“We frankly announced that the US cannot proceed with its hypocritical discourse that urges de-escalations on one hand, and then imposes measures that intensify the war and allow Israel to carry out its crimes by providing it with the necessary intelligence and logistics,” he added.

“Indicators show that the West, regional countries, Islamic nations, the Palestinian leadership, and the Resistance, all agree that if the US ceased all military aid to Israel, then Netanyahu would not be able to carry on with the war, not even for an hour. What happened over the past five months in Gaza is depicted in scenes that portray the pride of its Resistance, its women, and its men.”

Red Sea confrontations

The Iranian Foreign Minister revealed that he talked with his British counterparts about the joint US-UK aggression on Yemen, calling it a “strategic mistake” and underlining that Yemen has “proven that they do not trifle with any party regarding the security of their lands. They have been able to sound this message and clearly relayed that ships carrying military cargo to Israel will be stopped,”

“Remarkably, they kept their vows to the fullest. If you take a satellite look at the Red Sea, you will find hundreds of ships on that route. We realize that shipping and insurance costs have soared, but trade ships that do not carry any supplies to the Israeli occupation cross the Red Sea safely,” he clarified, commending the Yemeni leadership for its steadfastness and for adhering to its principles.

“The National Salvation Government has addressed that maritime and the Red Sea security is of its highest interests. In Iran, we also sail this route for international trade, and the entire world would benefit if it were safe, but the root of the issue lies in Gaza, not the Red Sea. 

“If the genocide in Gaza ended, then the situation in the Red Sea would return to normal. We appreciate Yemen’s brave support of Palestine, and Yemenis continue taking that road to champion Gaza, without jeopardizing the safety of certain shipments and maritime security. 

“In constant reminders, the general maritime security has not been jeopardized, but ships headed toward the occupation are,” he said, once again stressing that Yemen is not targeting any ships that are not affiliated with the Israeli occupation.

Iranian ‘regional proxies’?

“We do not have any proxies in the region,” the Iranian Foreign Minister underlined. “Hezbollah and the Resistance in Palestine work as they see fit, based on their own interests. Yemen follows the same framework as well. In Iraq and Syria, groups to fight ISIS were formed and still operate for their countries’ interests and considerations.”

“It would be best if the United States focused on finding a political solution instead of throwing accusations and fabricating false scenarios,” he said of the Western accusations that Iran is using regional Resistance movements, whether in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, or elsewhere, as regional proxies and tools to further its interests. “Five months of war proved that warfare is not the solution, thereby emphasizing the need for political resolutions realistically and from a Palestinian-centric lens.”

“I told David Cameron that following 80 years of occupation, it is about time for Palestinians to determine their own fate and the future of their nation. It is good that countries meet and propose suggestions to resolve the Palestinian issue, but what is better and more appropriate is the focus on Palestinian solutions that stem from the unity of Palestinian groups and factions, regardless of their political direction.

“I realized, through my meetings with all Palestinian Resistance leaders, that they have been holding meetings for weeks to suggest recommendations and ideas related to different topics, and we believe that now is their chance to democratically propose their ideas on negotiation tables. In turn, all related countries should consider purely Palestinian notions to aid the people of Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank. 

No difference between Biden, Trump

The Iranian Foreign Minister, asked for a comment on the US election slated for the year-end, underlined that Tehran does not see a significant difference between both US President Joe Biden and candidate Donald Trump.

“Over the past 45 years, the US saw several democratic and republican presidents. What is of significance to us is their behavior. If they treated Iran with mutual respect and forego their errors and hostility, then we would return the respect,” he said.

“If they continue employing this hostility, then our response would be direct and appropriate, whatever the party and political direction they might belong to and have,” Amir-Abdollahian stressed.

Iranian nuclear file

“Under President Ebrahim Raisi’s government, we held serious talks with nuclear negotiators, but unfortunately, at a certain point, the war in Ukraine cast its shadows on them,” he said.

“Letters are still being exchanged between Tehran and Washington regarding several topics. The American side sometimes hints at its desire for all participating parties to revert to their previous obligations as per the nuclear agreement. On our part, we frankly expressed our readiness to welcome recommendations that would allow reversion to previous commitments, but also annul the unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran,” he clarified.

“The Iranian government affirmed from the start that it does not consider the nuclear agreement as an approach to resolving the country’s issues, but Iran has proven that it is one of the countries most committed to its international pledges,” he once again said of Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran has maintained for years is solely peaceful.

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War on Gaza

YEMEN’S UNENDING NIGHTMARE: THE HIDDEN CONSEQUENCES OF US AND UK AIRSTRIKES

FEBRUARY 9TH, 2024

Source

Ahmed Abdulkareem

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

When confronted with international appeals for humanitarian aid due to the ongoing crises in Gaza and Yemen, the United States and the United Kingdom have chosen instead to turn Yemen’s Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden into a combat zone, initiating an ariel bombing campaign against the war-torn country already suffering immensely from nine years of deadly conflict spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and backed by the U.S.

For weeks, U.S. and British naval vessels have been perched on the outskirts of Yemen’s territorial waters in the Red Sea, not only to protect ships carrying goods to Israel but to launch a series of airstrikes against Yemen, the poorest country in the world. In recent weeks, at least 320 airstrikes have been launched by warplanes that seem never to leave the skies over Yemen’s major cities. The latest strikes hit Friday morning, targeting Al-Jabana, Al-Taif, and Al-Kathib and followed renewed calls by U.S. officials for regional actors not to escalate conflict in the Middle East.

According to Yemeni citizens who spoke to MintPress, the U.S. bombing campaign, which has struck targets in crowded residential neighborhoods, is the last thing that Yemenis expected. Twenty-seven-year-odl Ibrahim al-Nahari lives with his family near Hodeida International Airport, which was targeted by US airstrikes on Monday afternoon. He said of the bombings: “I never expected we would be attacked because of our solidarity with hungry people in Gaza. Are these America’s morals?”

Last Monday, U.S. airstrikes targeted Yemen’s Al-Katnaib Coast Park, frequented by hundreds of visitors daily, and not only caused damage to nearby homes, hotels and shops but spread panic and fear among civilians. “We need food and medicine, not the ugly American bombs that we have tasted for nine years,” Al-Nahari told MintPress, waving a Palestinian flag at a massive demonstration in support of Gaza on Friday in central Hodeida.

Al-Nahari was among tens of thousands who took to the streets of Hodeida on Friday to condemn U.S.-British attacks on their country and renew their support for the Palestinian people. Massive protests featuring hundreds such as these have become a hallmark in Yemen’s northern provinces and beyond since Israel launched its attack on Gaza following Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7, 2023. In Al-Sabeen Square, south of the capital, Sanaa, officials estimate that an area of 100,000 square meters was packed with demonstrators standing shoulder to shoulder to express their outrage.

“We came here to prove that Palestine is the cause of the Yemeni people, and the world must know this,” Malik Almadani, a prominent writer and human rights activist, told MintPress. “We will not stop the demonstrations, and we will continue weekly. It is our sacred duty, rooted and deep in our souls,” he added. Almadani sees Palestine as a cause dear to Yemen’s people, not something that any authority in the country has the authority to negotiate on their behalf. He warned Western powers that any ground invasion of Yemen due to its support for Gaza would be a war against all of Yemen’s people, not against an institution, state, or party.

RED SEA TENSIONS ESCALATE

U.S. and British leaders have repeatedly stated that their bombing campaign in Yemen is intended to end Ansar Allah’s (known in the West as the Houthis) attacks on international shipping and naval vessels. They claim the strikes are necessary to limit the Houthis’ ability to launch further attacks. Yet, there is little to suggest the attacks are having their intended effect. Ansar Allah has maintained that U.S. and UK strikes have not achieved their military objectives and have done little more than incite terror in the hearts of Yemeni civilians. Indeed, nearly every bombing campaign has been met with renewed attacks by Ansar Allah against Israeli, British and U.S. interests in the region, often more extensive and brazen than the last.

This tit-for-tat is escalating too. This week alone saw at least 86 airstrikes against targets in Yemen, with populated regions of Hodeida hit particularly hard, including Al-Katheib, Ras Issa, Al-Zaidiyah, Al-Hawk, Al-Salif, and Al-Lahiya, which saw 28 separate strikes. Sanaa was targeted with 13 strikes, Taiz with 11, Al-Bayda with 7, Hajjah with seven raids, and Saad with over twenty. Despite the scale of the attacks, Yemeni officials maintain they’ve had little effect on the military capabilities of Ansar Allah.

“There have been casualties from U.S. and UK raids, and there is varying damage to some sites and camps. However, most of the military sites were already evacuated before the airstrikes began. Some of them had already been subjected to bombings in previous years,” Deputy Head of Moral Guidance for the Yemeni Army, Brigadier General Abdullah Bin Amer, told MintPress. “We can deal appropriately with these developments, benefiting from past experiences that began in 2015.”

By all accounts, the U.S.-led aerial campaign in Yemen is a violation of the tenets of just war, which dictates that nations must not only have a just cause for going to war but also resort to military force only after all other options have been exhausted. Despite White House claims to the contrary, the intervention in Yemen is clearly not a case of self-defense. The notion that Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, represents a military threat to International trade is absurd, especially as Ansar Allah officials have made it clear through both rhetoric and action that any nations not directly involved in supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza have been able to pass through the Red Sea unmolested.

The US-owned Genco Picardy after it came under attack from drone launched by Ansar Allah in the Gulf of Aden, Jan.18, 2024. Photo | AP

AN INEFFECTUAL CAMPAIGN

Despite the U.S. feckless bombing campaign and its specious justification, the leader of Ansar Allah, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has confirmed that operations in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait against Israel-linked ships will continue. In a televised speech on Tuesday, he said, “Our actions will escalate as long as the Israeli aggression and siege on the Palestinians continues. The correct solution is to bring food and medicine into Gaza, and continuing airstrikes will not benefit America, Britain, or Israel in any way.”

Al-Houthi blamed the actions of the White House for forcing Ansar Allah to target U.S. and British Naval ships near Yemen, saying, “The U.S. and UK’s involvement in Yemen will not protect Israeli ships, and for the first time since World War II, the Americans are exposing their battleships to being targeted.”

“The continued U.S. and UK aggression constitutes a violation of the sovereignty of an independent state, Muhammed AbdulSalam, the official spokesman for Ansar Allah, added, confirming that attacks will not prevent the Yemeni armed forces from continuing their support mission to Gaza, nor will the aggression be able to provide security for Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine. “It is this American-British aggression that threatens international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Gulf of Aden,” he added.

ORIGINS OF A BLOCKADE

In a campaign they maintain is aimed at forcing Israel to allow food and medicine to be allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip, Ansar Allah’s forces have continued to target Israeli-owned, flagged or operated ships in the Red Sea and Arabian Seas, or those destined for Israeli ports. The latest such attack came last Tuesday when the Ansar Allah’s Naval Forces carried out two military operations in the Red Sea, the first against the American ship Star Nasia and another targeting the British ship the Morning Tide, according to the official spokesman for the Yemeni army, Yahya Saree.

Since November 19, when Ansar Allah’s maritime campaign began, the group has conducted at least 20 naval operations. More than 20 ships have been targeted, including three that were Israeli-owned, eight belonging to the U.S., four belonging to Britain, and ten that were en route to Israeli ports. Israel itself was not exempt; at least 200 drones and 50 ballistic and winged missiles have been launched against Israel from Yemen. These include sophisticated long-range ballistic missiles and drones such as the Toofan, a recently unveiled variant of the Zolfaghar mid-range ballistic missile, the Quds cruise missile, and the Samad drone. While relatively inexpensive to manufacture, these projectiles have challenged Western forces, who spend millions on sophisticated missiles to shoot them down, threatening to exhaust their stocks and incur a high financial cost in defense of Israeli interests.

It’s worth noting that Yemeni operations against American and British ships began in earnest only after Western forces started bombing Yemen. In its initial days, Ansar Allah’s campaign strictly targeted Israeli interests in support of Gaza, with Ansar Allah’s arsenal pointed at Israel’s Eliat Port. Washington responded by sending a massive naval flotilla to the Red Sea and with a slew of fiery statements by American officials. In the wake of this failed strategy of intimidation, the U.S. and Britain began launching missiles against Yemeni targets. It was only then that Ansar Allah began actively targeting U.S. and British naval assets.

Ansar Allah officials have reiterated their unwavering stance that the Red Sea is off-limits only to Israeli ships until Israel ensures the unfettered delivery of essential aid to Gaza. It remains open to international maritime shipping for countries not involved in supporting what the International Court of Justice has ruled in genocide in Gaza. Ansar Allah has also stated that operations will stop immediately as soon as medicine and food enter Gaza. Until this humanitarian goal is achieved, Ansar Allah officials maintain, the armed air, sea, and land forces will not only continue to target Israeli, American, and British ships but also escalate, even if it ultimately leads to a ground invasion of Yemen.

“THE CEMETERY OF INVADERS”

Asked about a possible U.S.-led ground invasion of Yemen, Brigadier General Bin Amer, who is also the author of the book “Yemen is the Cemetery of Invaders,” currently the most widely circulated book in Yemen, said, “The decision to invade a country like Yemen is certainly a difficult decision for any power. There are many factors and reasons that make those powers hesitate to make such a decision.”

Yemen’s terrain is the most rugged in the Middle East, posing a significant challenge to foreign invading forces. The country’s topography is characterized by steep mountains, deep valleys, and arid plateaus, creating a complex and challenging environment for foreigners, which complicates military operations and hinders the establishment of military infrastructure.

“Throughout history, Yemen has been the target of the ambitions of invaders, but the Yemeni people fiercely resisted all invasion campaigns and were able to defeat them and triumph over them in the end. The invaders on this land suffered great losses, and thus Yemen was nicknamed the cemetery of invaders.” General Bin Amer added.

According to Bin Amer, the Yemeni people do not accept occupation. They have a deep-rooted culture of independence. In addition, their battle today is a battle of principles and values ​​that have religious, moral, and humanitarian considerations, adding, “There is a popular consensus on this battle, and the Yemeni people, in addition to being natural fighters and an armed people, have an additional factor, which is leadership that expresses this. [This factor] certainly has its importance regarding organization and management under such exceptional circumstances.”

Both in the streets and among the highest echelons of Ansar Allah’s leaders, there is a feeling in Yemen that its military actions in support of Gaza have been validated by the International Court of Justice’s ruling ordering Israel to permit the entry of “humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza.”

But the likelihood of a Western-led ground invasion is still being taken seriously. Ansar Allah has undertaken an unprecedented military mobilization on a massive scale, including holding military courses, conducting maneuvers, and bolstering stocks of military equipment.

Volunteer fighters march during a rally of support for Palestinians in Gaza Strip and against the US strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa, Jan. 22, 2024. Photo | AP

A DOCTRINE OF RESISTANCE

Although Yemen has garnered headlines in recent months for its defiant stance towards Israel, its support for Palestinians long predates October 7. MintPress spoke to Yemeni historical researcher Dr. Hammoud Al-Ahnoumi about the nature of Yemeni support for Palestine

In the wake of the second Palestinian intifada and the events of September 11 following the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, an indigenous Yemeni tribal group in the northern country began openly voicing its opposition to what it saw as the unjust colonial ambitions of  Israel and the United States in the region. The group traces its roots to the Arab Hamdani tribe residing in northern Yemen and is a subdivision of the larger Banu Hamdan tribe.

Over the years, many northern Yemenis joined the group known now as Ansar Allah. It wasn’t until Ansar Allah’s power began to gain momentum that it was given the moniker “Houthis” by the West and dismissed as an Iranian proxy in a bid to demoralize the movement and alienate it from the local population. Yet Ansar Allah’s on the Palestinian issue cannot be understood without understanding its history and political formation.

The political doctrine of Ansar Allah has its roots in the eighth century, particularly in Imam Zayd (695–740 CE), the son of Ali ibn al-Hussain ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib. Imam Zayd initiated a revolution against the repressive Umayyad Caliphate that became a symbol of resistance to oppression that permeates Yemeni culture to this day.

Over the years, Yemenis internalized and embraced these ideals to such a degree that they became a central tenant in what would become known as the Shia Islamic sect of Zaydis. According to Zaydis, Imam Zayd became the second Imam (leader) after his grandfather, Imam Hussain ibn Ali, who was also killed in a struggle against an oppressive government in Karbala, southern Iraq, on the tenth of Muharram in 680 CE.

Loyalty, resistance to oppression and solidarity with the oppressed have become the main principle of their faith and how they see their duty to God, according to Dr. Al-Ahnoumi. For them, he explained to MintPress, standing in support of Palestine is compliance with their doctrine, which calls for resistance against oppressors and supporting the oppressed.

“Though they may coincide with Iranian Revolutionary ideals of resistance against tyrants and oppressors, and oppose [what they view as] American and Israeli arrogance and tyranny,” Ansar Allah act entirely independently, Dr. Al-Ahnoumi insisted.

A TINDERBOX

The fact that Ansar Allah’s operation in the Red Sea has been reduced by Western power to a binary question of freedom of navigation and framed in an Iran-centric geopolitical context bodes poorly for the chances of a peaceful resolution to the conflict. To avoid another disastrous war in Yemen and a U.S. quagmire in the Middle East, western political leaders and media alike must come to terms with the reality that is the tinderbox in Yemen.

Zaid Al-Gharsi, Head of the Media Department at the Presidency of the Republic of Yemen, blames Western leaders and media for distorting Yemen’s position. He urged media outlets and activists on social media, particularly in Western countries, not to take the White House’s narrative, which frames its bombing campaign as self-defense and protection of global navigation, at face value. The reality, he told MintPress, is “that America is an aggressor and an occupier that came from across the oceans to dominate, plunder, and destroy.”

Britons participating in Israel’s war crimes must be held accountable

 5 January 2024

Source

British police have behaved in a repressive manner toward Palestine solidarity activists but have never prosecuted anyone for taking part in Israel’s war crimes. 
 Andy SolomanUCG/Universal Images Group

Ayesha Khan

In 2015, Shamima Begum, a British national of Bengali descent, was groomed online to join ISIS at the age of 15. She was then trafficked over the border from Turkey into Syria by a Canadian spy.

Just days after arriving, she became the child bride of an ISIS soldier from the Netherlands. She bore him three children.

All died from malnutrition and disease before they reached 5.

ISIS is a proscribed terrorist group in the UK. Supporting it is a criminal offense and joining it is an automatic crime.

As such, the UK government stripped Shamima Begum of her British citizenship, making her stateless.

She sits in a refugee camp in Syria, a victim of the brutal West which created her and a brutal regime which tricked her.

The case of Shamima Begum is just one of the great hypocrisies of the British government when dealing with Muslims and the routine denial of their rights.

Despite the Special Immigration Appeals Commission confirming in February 2023 that there was credible suspicion that Begum “was recruited, transferred and then harbored for the purpose of sexual exploitation,” it stated that it was for the home secretary to make the decision on the revocation of her citizenship.

Shamima Begum is not accused of committing any violence in ISIS. Her crime alone was, while still a minor, to join.

While Shamima Begum lost her citizenship without firing a shot, British-Israeli dual nationals have been allowed to join the Israeli military and commit war crimes in Gaza with impunity.

Not a single one of these British nationals has been arrested by UK police forces. Not a single one has been charged and not a single one has lost their British citizenship.

In contrast to Shamima Begum, who has not harmed any person, Israeli forces are actively bombing residential apartment blocks in Gaza. Credible accounts have shown them executing civilians sheltering in a school.

They have forced medical workers and parents to evacuate hospitals, leaving babies in incubators to die. They are targeting and murdering journalists at an unprecedented rate.

International consensus

The UN has stated as fact that since 7 October, Israeli forces have indisputably been committing war crimes in Gaza. Alarmingly, UN experts have also recognized the overt intent of genocide of the Israeli state towards the Palestinians and is desperately urging the international community to take action to prevent it.

What is also indisputable is that despite its claims, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have a right in international law to defend itself against the Palestinians it is occupying.

Under Int'l Law,Israel has the right to PROTECT itself,not to WAGE WAR (i.e. self-defense under art 51 UNCharter) agst the people it has kept under belligerent occupation since'67. Gaza IS "occupied" given Israel's effective control,regardless of Hamas' existence.

ICJ (2004):👇 https://t.co/s3gLF9WhwK pic.twitter.com/goDj2bhADk

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 16, 2023

However, under international law, as an occupied people, the Palestinians have a full right to defend themselves with armed struggle and to resist that occupation.

As such, any individual who is taking part in the current military campaign on behalf of the Israeli state is participating in war crimes and genocide. This includes any British national currently serving with the Israeli army.

The British police make clear that war crimes are indeed crimes, and that the police will investigate and prosecute any British national or resident who has committed these crimes.

The London Metropolitan Police website states: “War crimes are crimes that come under the collective name of ‘core international crimes.’ Core international crimes are some of the gravest crimes in international law; examples of them can include the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture.”

The police point out that “through international treaties the UK has a responsibility to investigate and prosecute those who have committed core international crimes. If a UK resident has been responsible for core international crimes anywhere in the world, they may be investigated and prosecuted in the UK.”

This means British nationals who are Israeli soldiers and who have committed war crimes can be investigated and prosecuted in the UK. More importantly, however, the UK has a responsibility in international law to investigate and prosecute those who have committed these crimes.

Though the UK has not actively sought out Britons currently serving in the Israeli military and who have since returned, South Africa has made clear to its own citizens serving in the Israeli army that it is able to prosecute them for violations of international law including war crimes. This includes the threat of any naturalized citizen having their citizenship revoked should they engage “under the flag of another country in a war that the Republic does not support or agree with.”

Compare and contrast

Since then, however, South Africa has not only maintained its position on the so-called war, but has intensified its stance. On 29 December, it made an application to the UN’s International Court of Justice against Israel for genocidal acts and what it considers as Israel’s violations of its obligations under the Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the only state thus far to have done so.

In contrast to South Africa’s commitment to international law, UK politicians have instead raised concerns about the actions of the UK police in assisting the International Criminal Court in gathering evidence for that court’s investigation into Israeli war crimes, initiated in 2019.

In an extraordinary instance of projection, Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, criticized the police’s actions as a “worrying politicization of the Met police” despite his own political attempts to oppose investigations into Israeli war crimes during his tenure as prime minister.

While the proactive involvement of the police in aiding the ICC is commendable, no prosecutory action has yet been taken by the police under UK law.

Like much of the support for a free Palestine and for a ceasefire, it is the power of the people which is making waves. While the British government tries to ban public bodies from boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel, individuals around the world are choosing not to buy pro-Israeli goods, causing profits of major companies to plummet. Starbucks alone has reported a loss of $11 billion.

In the same vein, if the British government will not take action, it is up to us, the public, to do so. We can bypass the government and take matters into our own hands and go directly to the police ourselves.

So, should you encounter any British citizen or resident currently serving in the Israeli military, then you can report them to the police.

It is remarkably easy to find these individuals. If you are on social media, you have probably seen them on your timelines where they are surprisingly active and often show off their military actions.

"They're gonna start teaching Hebrew at this school soon…."

British citizen Simon Levi boasts from an occupied school in Gaza.pic.twitter.com/IOVBeSmKA5

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) December 6, 2023

The British government cannot have one rule for a child bride and another for adults who intentionally and willfully serve in an army that has declared its explicit intention to commit genocide. They all need to be brought to justice in British courts.

International core crimes are the worst crimes that can be committed on earth. People should not be able to commit them with impunity just because the victims are Palestinians.

Related

• Britons participating in Israel’s war crimes must be held accountable
• HOW CORPORATE MEDIA WHITEWASH ISRAELI CRIMES: A PERSONAL NARRATIVE
• Gaza destroys western divide-and-rule narratives

THESE ARE WESTERN COUNTRIES AIDING ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE IN GAZA

NOVEMBER 22ND, 2023

Source

Jessica Buxbaum

Now into its second month, Israel’s war on Gaza has left the strip’s northern section in shambles and killed over 14,000 Palestinians, with the majority being women and children. While Israel is launching the attacks on Gaza, several Western powers are also involved in the assault behind the scenes. MintPress News takes a deep dive into the countries sustaining Israel’s war.

WHO IS SENDING ISRAEL WEAPONS?

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, several rights groups have initiated legal proceedings regarding arms exports to Israel.

On Nov. 6, Palestinian human rights organizations, Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights launched legal action in the Federal Court of Australia to access all arms export permits that have been granted to Israel since Oct.7.

“We know that hundreds of permits have been issued in recent years, but the Australian government keeps the basic details secret: what items are being exported, who is making them, what are they used for?,” Rawan Arraf, executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, whose organization is supporting the Palestinian groups’ application, said in a press release.“

Australia’s arms exports are shrouded in secrecy and have come under additional scrutiny after a Senate hearing in October found that 52 defense permits were granted to the Israeli government in 2023, with more than 350 being granted since 2017.

On Nov. 13, Palestinians sued United States President Joe Biden for failing to prevent genocide in Gaza and to stop the administration’s military and diplomatic support. Three days later the plaintiffs filed an urgent motion to immediately halt U.S. support for Israel.

“Palestinian children in Gaza are undoubtedly targets as repeated Israeli military offensives destroy their homes, schools, and neighborhoods, as Israeli forces use U.S.-made and funded weapons to kill them and their families with impunity,” Khaled Quzmar, general director at Defense for Children International – Palestine, and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a press release.

Bloomberg revealed a U.S. Defense Department document entitled “Israel Senior Leader” requests, dating to late October, listing the weapons Israel is seeking for its ongoing war on Gaza. According to Bloomberg, the weapons arsenal is already being shipped. The arms are listed below:

• 2,000 Hellfire missiles for Apache attack helicopters manufactured by U.S. weapons firm Lockheed Martin
• 30mm chain gun ammunition for Apache attack helicopters manufactured by U.S. arms corporation General Dynamics
• 57,000 155mm shells for artillery guns
• 400 120mm mortars
• PVS-14 night vision monoculars from U.S. manufacturer Night Vision Devices
• M141 shoulder-fired bunker-busters
• 75 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, manufactured by U.S. firm Oshkosh Defense
• More than 300 Tamir interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome system, and made by U.S. arms manufacturer Raytheon

As previously reported by MintPress News, photos have shown that U.S.-manufactured weapons containing white phosphorus are being used in Israel’s assault on Gaza. These artillery shells were made by Pine Bluff Arsenal, an army facility based in Arkansas known for supplying white phosphorus ammunition. The U.S. army did not respond to requests verifying if Pine Bluff Arsenal artillery is being used in Gaza.

The U.S. has already sent over several arms shipments since the beginning of the war in October, as shown on the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s social media platforms.

המטוס ה-45 ברכבת האווירית של מערכת הביטחון נחת הבוקר בישראל. כ-1,000 טונות של חימושים ואמצעי לחימה הובאו עד כה לתמיכה בפעילות צה"ל.

הבוקר נחת בנמל התעופה רמון שליד אילת מטוס מטען ועליו משלוח צבאי נוסף, הכולל אמבולנסים צבאיים, ציוד רפואי..
להמשך קריאה: https://t.co/IYPTj2lkyZ pic.twitter.com/bbB7HNUpfS

— משרד הביטחון (@MoDIsrael) October 20, 2023

On Telegram and LinkedIn, the Defense Ministry mentioned how its Mission to the U.S. based in New York City helped procure the arms and equipment.

Open-source data has also indicated Western military aircraft and warships in the Eastern Mediterranean region over the last month.

.@TheCVN69 & the #IKESCSG transited the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, Oct. 28.

As a part of the @USNavy's 🇺🇸 globally-deployed forces, IKECSG will join the @Warship_78 CSG in support of the defense of Israel and to deter aggression throughout the region. pic.twitter.com/DVAuqhfBu4

— U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet (@USNavyEurope) October 30, 2023

U.S. warships — the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike groups — sailed to the Mediterranean in October to support Israel’s military. The Eisenhower carrier is last known to be in the Red Sea while the U.K.’s navy’s Argus ship is docked in Cyprus.

#ReadyOnArrival✅
#ICYMI #MightyIKE has passed through the Suez Canal and has entered the Red Sea, November 4th. IKE and @csg_two are deployed to the @US5thFleet / @CENTCOM area of operations to support maritime security and stability in the Middle East region.#GreaterEachDay pic.twitter.com/4pX3vu6Xzd

— USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (IKE) (@TheCVN69) November 5, 2023

At least six German Air Force planes have arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport in the last week along with two planes from the British Air Force and aircraft from the Polish Air Force and  U.S. Navy.

In the last month, military aircraft from France and Australia have also all traveled to Tel Aviv. Australia’s Defense Department acknowledged its in deployed aircraft to the region in press releases.

A press release from Oct. 27 stated:

The deployment of Australian aircraft and supporting Defence personnel is a precautionary measure to support whole-of-Australian Government contingency planning and delivery of support to Australian citizens and approved foreign nationals, in the region, if required.

The Czech Air Force landed at the Israeli Hatzerim Air Base on Oct. 22. Military aircraft from the U.S. and Italy landed at Israeli Netavim Air Base in the last month. And a U.S. Air Force plane arrived to the Israeli Tel Nof Air Base on Nov. 16.

Several British Air Force planes have traveled to Tel Aviv from the U.K.’s Akrotiri military base in Cyprus in the last week. A plane belonging to arms manufacturer BAE Systems also arrived to the airbase recently.

The aforementioned militaries did not respond to MintPress News’ requests for comment on why their aircraft landed in the region and what kind of cargo or personnel it was transporting. Only Australia’s Defense Department responded, referring MintPress News to its previous press releases on the matter.

New from @CAATuk: "Israel is using UK arms exports in a genocide against the Palestinian people. The UK government is complicit in these crimes not just by supplying these weapons for decades, but by repeatedly inciting Israel to commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians". pic.twitter.com/zbO7WE2NVp

— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) November 14, 2023

While it remains unclear the exact kind and amount of equipment Western governments are sending to Israel during this time, activist groups have deemed these states complicit in Israel’s ongoing war against Gaza.

“Since 2018, Britain has approved arms exports to Israel worth at least £147 million (or roughly $183 million),” the U.K.-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said in a statement to MintPress News. “Because of the nature of Britain’s arms export licensing, the true value is likely to be substantially higher. This includes exports for military aircrafts, helicopters and drones. It also includes components for armored vehicles and bombs.”

“The British government is therefore providing material support for Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip,” PSC said.

According to U.K.-based Campaign Against Arms Trade, British companies provide 15% of the materials for the F35 stealth combat aircraft, which Israel is currently using to bomb Gaza. Suppliers for the F35 stealth fighter jets also include: U.S., Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Netherlands, and France.

Also sections on Spain, Belgium, and South Africa! Plus a spreadsheet of the international supply chain for the US F-35 stealth fighter, one of the aircraft Israel is using to bomb Gaza. https://t.co/qgPMhSIksT

— CAAT (@CAATuk) November 8, 2023

Lockheed Martin’s MLRS M270 rocket launcher, which was used inside Gaza for the first time since 2006, was built in Europe by an international consortium of companies from France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute provided data on arms sales from Europe to Israel between 2013 to 2022 to EuroNews, showing Italy and Germany had supplied Israel’s military with weapons now being used on the ground in Gaza. It also said Germany had sent more than 1,000 tank engines to Israel. As of Nov. 2, Germany’s government has exported $323 million in arms to Israel — nearly 10 times more than it sent to Israel last year.

During a NATO meeting in Brussels in October, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius confirmed that Israel was also requesting munitions for its navy.

“We will discuss with the Israelis how exactly that will now proceed,” Pistorius said, suggesting the weapons pipeline to Israel may increase.“

WHO IS SENDING TROOPS?

Media reports have suggested that foreign soldiers are assisting in Israel’s current war operations.

Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, revealed that a Spanish mercenary is assisting Israeli forces in Gaza. Pedro Diaz Flores has been pictured there with the Israeli occupation forces. He previously fought in Ukraine, having become involved in the war through the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade.

Through his involvement with the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade, Pedro was absorbed in to the Charlie One Unit of Ukrainian Military Intelligence. pic.twitter.com/Ah9SwghOoT

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 5, 2023

“So I came for economy, for money. They pay very well, they offer good equipment and the work is calm. It is 3,900 euros [$4,187] per week, complementary missions aside,” Flores told El Mundo.

In October, British newspaper Socialist Worker — along with other publications — received an “advisory notice from the Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee to not publish information related to British special forces operating in the Middle East.

“Reports have started to appear in some publications claiming that UK Special Forces have deployed to sensitive areas of the Middle East and then linking that deployment to hostage rescue/evacuation operations,” the D-notice said.

The Socialist Worker noted how the Daily Mail reported that the U.K.’s Special Air Service is on “standby in Cyprus” to rescue British hostages held captive in Gaza.

Additionally, Palestinians in Gaza have disclosed they’ve encountered soldiers with American flags on their uniforms. In the below video clip from Quds News Network, a Palestinian man tells an Al Jazeera reporter that his brother spoke in English to a male soldier donning an American flag on his uniform while trying to flee the strip. These claims remain unsubstantiated and it’s possible that soldiers with dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship are wearing an American flag patch without the Israeli military’s permission.

This is just one of a growing number of accounts and reports that US troops are directly participating in the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Last week, Bloomberg reported discussions of “a multinational force that may involve American troops." pic.twitter.com/ruAUTYShlY

— Andre Damon (WSWS) (@Andre__Damon) November 12, 2023

Forward Observations, a volunteer group founded by former U.S. infantry soldier Derrick Bales, who fought in Afghanistan, has posted footage from Gaza and southern Israel on social media.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Forward Observations Group (@forwardobservations2.0)

In one Instagram post, Forward Observations is seen in Be’eri, a community attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, being guided by members of the Israeli military’s Lotar unit which responded to the violence.

According to Foreign Policy, Forward Observations began as a lifestyle brand selling tactical gear. Then, the group traveled to Ukraine, where it started sourcing medical supplies, gear, and money for Ukrainian soldiers. Bales has been criticized for associating with Vadim Lapaev, a member of the far-right Azov Battalion. He apologized for his connections to Lapaev but said the brigade isn’t as radical as alleged.

Forward Observations did not respond to MintPress News’ inquiries to verify if its personnel are indeed in Israel and what it’s doing there.

U.S. Department of Defense official (DoD), Christopher P. Maier, told The New York Times this month that U.S. special operations forces are stationed in Israel and “actively helping the Israelis” with various efforts including to “identify hostages, including American hostages.”

While Maier declined to tell the Times how many Special Forces are currently in Israel, former Pentagon adviser, Douglas MacGregor, said in a television news interview that 2,000 Marines and 2,000 Special Forces have been deployed to the region. MacGregor also mentioned how U.S. Special Forces embedded with Israeli Special Forces entered the Gaza Strip in October to carry out reconnaissance but were then ambushed and suffered grave casualties.

On the television program Palestine Declassified, British sociologist David Miller told host Chris Williamson, a former U.K. parliament member, that this operation is “an indication that the American soldiers are directly involved in confronting the resistance.”

And a White House photo shared on Instagram and then subsequently deleted shows President Joe Biden meeting with members of the Delta Force during his Oct. 18 visit to Israel. A senior Arab source familiar with the Palestinian groups in Gaza told Middle East Eye — before Israel’s ground invasion — that Palestinians expected Israel to flood Hamas tunnels with a kind of nerve gas or chemical weapon under the supervision of U.S. Delta Force commandos. Israel has begun its ground campaign into Gaza, but there have been no reports of nerve agents being used as of yet.

Despite these reports, the Pentagon told MintPress News “the U.S. has no boots on the ground in Israel.”

So as Western populations continue to flood the streets for Palestine, their governments appear to be supporting the aggressor.

THE MASK HAS FALLEN: KING CHARLES SUPPORTS ISRAEL

NOVEMBER 2ND, 2023

Source

Kit Klarenberg

One of the most extraordinary – yet unremarked upon – developments since Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza began has been the British monarchy’s brazen jettisoning of any pretense of “political neutrality.” Queen Elizabeth II, publicly at least, rigidly refrained from commenting on current affairs or giving the vaguest appearance of taking a particular “side” on any issue throughout her 70-year reign. However, her recently coronated heir has comprehensively consigned that convention to ashes.

Within hours of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood commencing, King Charles viciously condemned Hamas, saying that he was “profoundly distressed” and “appalled” by the “horrors inflicted” by the group and its “barbaric acts of terrorism.” Hamas is not recognized as a terrorist entity by the majority of countries, and even the BBC – which has relentlessly manufactured consent for genocide in Gaza since the violence erupted – rejects the use of that loaded, politicized designation.

During his lengthy spell as Prince of Wales, Charles was an inveterate meddler in the British government’s domestic and foreign policy in ways that were often far from discrete. Yet, he has remained largely silent since quietly becoming King in September 2022, then being formally crowned in May this year. His public statements are, therefore, highly significant and, what’s more, seemingly represent just the tip of a much larger intervention.

The Daily Telegraph has reported that behind the scenes, King Charles is “pushing for peace in the Middle East” using “soft power.” If so, these efforts have so far failed miserably. Israel’s murderous rampage in Gaza has only ratcheted in brutality since it commenced, the death toll rising by hundreds daily as civilian infrastructure is flattened by an inexorable aerial onslaught. Meanwhile, the threat of a full-blown ground invasion ever looms.

As such, it is only reasonable to ask whether Charles’ vision of “peace” in Gaza is, in fact, Palestine completely purged of Palestinians and if he has in any way encouraged the occupation government of Benjamin Netanyahu in its new attempt to recreate the Nakba. As we shall see, the King fully supports Zionism and the ideology’s genocidal objectives, and Britain’s military, intelligence agencies, and government dependably act upon his orders and according to his wishes.

A PROBLEM FOR PALESTINIANS’

Queen Elizabeth II never visited Israel. It was widely speculated that she was advised against doing so by the Foreign Office for fear of Arab boycotts of British goods and oil embargoes, which had crippled the country’s economy in late 1973. Yet, it has been suggested in some quarters that she privately harbored sympathy for the Palestinians and abhorred Zionist violence toward Arabs.

Come January 2020, with her health rapidly declining, Charles took on her official foreign visit responsibilities as de facto British head of state, and among his first ports of call was Israel. It wasn’t the first time he’d traveled to the country. Previously, he privately attended the funerals of former Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. His presence on both occasions was a closely guarded secret.

While on the trip, Charles declared it was his “dearest wish that the future will bring freedom, justice and equality to all Palestinians.” Yet, the details of his prior visits suggest this statement was not sincere. In 2016, while attending the funeral of Peres, he also visited the graves of his grandmother, Princess Alice, and her aunt, Grand Duchess Elisabeth, in a small Christian cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, near the world’s largest Jewish cemetery.

Both were Christian Zionists, and their desire to be buried on the Mount reflects its significance to the movement. Despite lying in a part of the city claimed by Arabs as East Jerusalem, which is recognized by several countries as Palestine’s capital, it is considered to be among the holiest Jewish sites in the world and cited by Zionists as key proof that the territory comprising Israel as described in the Bible is the exclusive homeland of Jews.

The Jerusalem Post approvingly dubbed Charles’ Christian Zionist sympathies and familial connection to the Mount “a problem for Palestinians,” arguing the King has a clear conception of “who the city and the country belong to” as a result. Meanwhile, the Times of Israel has hailed him as “a friend” to Jewry “with special and historic ties to Israel.”

One such tie was a long-running and extremely close friendship with Britain’s former chief Rabbi and President of United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), Jonathan Sacks. Upon his death in November 2020, Charles praised him as “a leader whose wisdom, scholarship and humanity were without equal”:

“It was with the most profound personal sorrow that I heard of the death of Rabbi Lord Sacks. With his passing, the Jewish community, our nation, and the entire world have lost a leader whose wisdom, scholarship and humanity were without equal.”

Then-Prince Charles speaks to guests during a tribute dinner to Lord Sacks, June 24, 2013. Lewis Whyld | PA Wire

UJIA is one of Israel’s three national institutions and operates a number of programs to train Jews the world over to advance Zionist interests, starting in primary schools. Sacks was a fervent advocate of a similar Israeli government effort, known as Birthright, under which anyone anywhere in the world aged 18-26 who can prove Jewish heritage is given an all-expenses paid trip to Israel to rub shoulders with Occupation Forces be deluged with Zionist propaganda, and foster a personal connection with the country.

While highly controversial, Sacks considered Birthright “perhaps, the greatest single innovation in Jewish life in the past quarter century” for “strengthening [attendees’] links to the land, the State and the people of Israel.” His attempts to indoctrinate children in Zionism extended to serving on the board of One Voice, an astroturf anti-BDS lobbying group targeting schools.

With friends like Sacks, King Charles undoubtedly feels very strongly about who Jerusalem belongs to.

‘OBEDIENT SERVANT’

It is an open question whether the monarch’s affinity for Israel in any way accounts for the British government’s abandonment of its historical sympathy for the Arab world and modern-day accommodation with Zionism. A lie universally maintained by the mainstream media is the British monarchy’s powers in the 21st century are purely ceremonial. While the obsequious terminology “His/Her Majesty’s government” may be liberally used still, long gone are the days, it is alleged, when a King or Queen could overrule parliament’s will.

In reality, a little-known procedure known as “Queen’s Consent” means a King or Queen’s acquiescence to prospective laws must be sought by the British government before they can even be put to parliamentary vote. Moreover, under this convention, monarchs are alerted whenever legislation that could affect the royal prerogative or the British Crown’s private interests is in the offing. This stipulation not only produces a pronounced chilling effect on all laws and regulations elected governments draw up but frequently alters their composition in ways large and small.

For example, in February 2021, it was revealed that in the 1970s, Queen Elizabeth II pressured government ministers to amend transparency legislation to conceal her “embarrassing” wealth from the public. As a result, a clause was inserted granting companies used by “heads of state” exemptions from financial disclosures. The true scale of her riches remains unknown, although it has been estimated to run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

“Queen’s Consent” is not the only mechanism of political control in a British royal’s arsenal. In May 2015, over two dozen private communications between then-Prince Charles and British ministers were published after a decade-long legal struggle. Successive governments squandered hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep these letters private. The contents showed that Charles, in flagrant breach of “political neutrality,” had routinely petitioned elected representatives on subjects ranging from the Iraq War to alternative medicines over many years.

In one message, the then-heir to the British throne openly warned a health minister that “chickens will come home to roost” in their department if redevelopment of a hospital – in which the Prince’s architecture charity had an interest – was not accelerated. However, Charles didn’t typically rely on threats. Government officials were usually willing to obsequiously roll over whenever – and however – he ordered them to.

Then-Prince Charles visits the Metropolitan Police Central Communications Command during the 2011 London riots | Express Newspapers Via AP

In response to one covert royal intervention, Prime Minister Tony Blair unctuously stated to Charles, “I always value and look forward to your views.” In another, an education secretary sycophantically signed off: “I have the honor to be Your Royal Highness’ most humble and obedient servant.”

The release of these letters prompted speculation Charles would be far more outspoken and overtly meddlesome than his ostensibly taciturn mother upon taking the throne. Until Hamas struck Israel, these tendencies had not hitherto publicly emerged. However, it is somewhat inconceivable that since his coronation, he has not interfered in British politics in some way or other. We have no way of knowing, though, as in 2010, Britain’s Freedom of Information Act was amended to provide an “absolute exemption” on all requests related to the royal family.

The connivances of British royalty are also protected by law throughout the Commonwealth. In 2020, after a four-year-long legal battle, the Australian government released correspondence exposing how Queen Elizabeth II was instrumental in the ouster of Canberra’s radical left-wing premier, Gough Whitlam, in November 1975. The papers showed that then-Prince Charles was a core conspirator in the coup, coordinating directly with Britain’s governor John Kerr – who dismissed the Prime Minister – before, during and after. Six months later, the King-in-waiting wrote to Kerr:

 “I wanted you to know that I appreciate what you do and admire enormously the way you have performed in your many and varied duties. Please don’t lose heart. What you did last year was right and the courageous thing to do.”

ALL THE KING’S GROOMERS

In October 2021, historians Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac published The Secret Royals, a landmark text tracking the House of Windsor’s relationship with British intelligence over centuries. Completing the work was no easy feat. In its preface, the authors remark, “Writing about spies is challenging; writing about royals is more difficult; and writing about spies and royals has sometimes seemed impossible.”

Nonetheless, the pair pieced together a tantalizing history of the British monarchy’s enduring, intimate adjacency to intelligence. They recorded how Queen Elizabeth I’s reign inaugurated a golden age of spying in Europe as the British Empire came into being while tracing the birth of London’s modern-day espionage agencies to efforts to prevent Queen Victoria’s assassination. Much of the book’s content was hitherto secret.

One can only speculate what future scholars might unearth on King Charles’ bond with MI5, MI6, et al. Nonetheless, what is in the public domain is highly disquieting. As Prince of Wales, the monarch was a formal patron to British intelligence, his personal Charitable Fund routinely funneling vast sums to notorious signals spying agency GCHQ.

In January, King Charles visited GCHQ’s secret Manchester headquarters. There, he “met with teams from across the organization,” including its director and young graduates of the agency’s apprenticeship scheme. In addition to receiving “several” in-person briefings from high-ranking spies, he intruded upon a local primary school class present at the site that day, taking part in a “special lesson.” Unsettling publicity photos depict him beaming broadly while hovering closely over the shoulders of very young children.

During his visit, His Majesty took part in a special puzzling session with pupils from @CoopNwIslington and met with graduates from our apprentice scheme. @RoyalFamily

[2/2] pic.twitter.com/1u3A3a1uMa

— GCHQ (@GCHQ) January 20, 2023

For years, GCHQ – Britain’s largest and best-funded spying agency – has run dedicated programs to infiltrate schools, propagandize and groom British youth to become future patriotic cyber warriors, and identify and monitor potential troublemakers in classrooms. The January visit was not the first time King Charles featured centrally in these activities. He was guest of honor at GCHQ’s 100th birthday in 2019, along with many primary school children. A contemporary agency newsletter boastfully reported:

“The Prince showed great interest in the project’s goals and spent time chatting with the students that the schools had selected to represent them, in addition to the teachers. After meeting the teachers and students, the Prince went on a tour of some of the more secretive work of NCSC [National Cyber Security Centre] and GCHQ.”

Charles’ very public association with GCHQ’s child grooming efforts tends to suggest this sinister work is conducted at His Majesty’s request, or at least with the King’s explicit blessing. To effectively guide and influence British government policy and action, by definition, requires a perpetual unblinking eye trained on both public and behind-closed-doors developments the world over. The monarch, by definition, has every interest in ensuring future generations of spies are up to the task.

A palpable example of the amazing foresight of British spooks was provided on October 8, 2023, when veteran reporter Robert Peston published a remarkable post on X (formerly Twitter). He had been told by “government and intelligence sources” that Hamas’ strike on Israel would likely evolve into full-blown war in West Asia, “as destabilizing to global security as Putin’s attack on Ukraine.”

Peston’s shadowy sources further warned U.S. President Joe Biden “would neither want [nor] be able to veto” a major retaliation from Netanyahu not merely against Palestinians but also Iran, which they accused of sponsoring Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The journalist duly prophesized:

“There is a risk of this crisis spreading well beyond the Middle East because of Putin’s links with Iran, the West’s deep concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and China’s power struggle with America. We are in the early stages of a conflict with ramifications for much of the world.”

For Peston, a thoroughly well-connected establishment hack of some standing to relay these words was highly significant. The timing of this intervention, just one day after Hamas spectacularly swooped upon Israel’s Occupation Forces, likewise. British spies were from the word go somehow certain Operation Al-Aqsa Flood would inevitably lead to something much grander and graver, and felt it incumbent to begin immediately laying public foundations for that imminently impending eventuality.

Five days later, the Royal Navy and British elite special forces units were dispatched to the Mediterranean to “support” Tel Aviv and closely surveil local developments.

While Israel’s long-threatened Gaza ground offensive remains abortive as of October 29, the devastatingly lethal air assault on Palestinians waged ever since, along with multiple airstrikes on Lebanon and Syria, mean that the stage is decisively set for a “conflict with ramifications for much of the world.” Just as Peston’s sources cautioned.

At many of the countless demonstrations the world over in support of the Palestinians, demonstrators have brandished aloft signs imploring the U.S. President to impose a ceasefire in Gaza, if not order Netanyahu to seek enduring peace. Such requests may be misdirected. The true power to halt Israel’s latest push to fulfill Zionism’s genocidal founding mission may not lie in Washington DC but in London. Specifically, Buckingham Palace.

Iran-Russia set a western trap in Palestine

OCT 27, 2023

The only country that could possibly distract the west from Ukraine is Israel. But the US and its allies are walking into an existential trap if they think a West Asian victory will be more easily won than a European one.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Pepe Escobar

The Russia-Iran strategic partnership – with China in the wings – is laying an elaborate, Sun Tzu-tinged trap for the Hegemon in West Asia. 

Apart from Israel, there is no entity on the planet capable of switching the focus, in a flash, away from the west’s spectacular debacle in Ukraine. 

The warmongers in charge of US foreign policy, not exactly Bismarckian stalwarts, believe that if Project Ukraine is unattainable, Project Final Solution in Palestine could instead be a – ethnic cleansing – cakewalk. 

A more plausible scenario, though is that Iran-Russia – and the new “axis of evil” Russia-China-Iran – have all it takes to drag the Hegemon into a second quagmire. It’s all about using the enemy’s own, discombobulated flip-flapping to unbalance him and disorient him to oblivion.

The White House’s wishful thinking that the Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are inscribed in the same lofty “democracy” drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired – even among American public opinion. 

That does not prevent cries and whispers along the Beltway revealing Israel-allied US neocons increasing the tempo to provoke Iran – via a proverbial false flag that would lead to an American attack. That Armageddon scenario neatly fits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical psychopathy. 

Vassals would be forced to meekly comply. NATO heads of state have made a beeline to visit Israel to demonstrate their unconditional support for Tel Aviv – including Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Britain’s Rishi Sunak, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the senile lodger at the White House, and France’s Emmanuel Macron. 

Avenging the Arab “century of humiliation” 

So far, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has shown extraordinary restraint by not taking any bait. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance as a whole – and until a few years back, had serious issues with Hamas, with which it clashed in Syria. Hamas, incidentally, while partially funded by Iran, is not run by Iran. As much as Tehran supports the Palestinian cause, Palestinian resistance groups make their own decisions. 

The big news is that all these issues are now dissolving. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose – or what the region’s Axis of Resistance calls the “Unity of Fronts.”   

Even more eye-opening was Hamas’ visit to Moscow this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.  

That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table. 

Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping? 

Beijing, via its sophisticated diplomacy, is certainly hinting at it to key players, even before the ground-breaking, Russia-China brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement was struck earlier this year. 

That by itself won’t thwart the perpetual US neocon obsession to bomb critical infrastructure in Iran. Worth less than zero when it comes to military science, these neocons ignore how Iranian retaliation would – accurately – target each and every US base in Iraq and Syria, with the Persian Gulf an open case. 

Peerless Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov has shown what could happen to those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean in case of an Israeli-threatened attack on Iran.   

Moreover, there are at least 1,000 US troops in northern Syria stealing the country’s oil – which would also become an instant target. 

Ali Fadavi, IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: “We have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.”

Cue to Iranian hypersonic Fattah missiles – cousins to the Khinzal and the DF-27 – traveling at Mach 15, and able to reach any target in Israel in 400 seconds.  

And add to it sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW). As confirmed in Moscow six months ago, when it comes to military interconnection, the Iranians told the Russians at the same table, “whatever you need, just ask.” The same applies vice-versa, because the mutual enemy is one and the same.

It’s all about the Strait of Hormuz 

The heart of the matter in any Russian-Iran strategy is the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits at least 20 percent of the world’s oil (nearly 17 million barrels a day) plus 18 percent of liquified natural gas (LNG), which amounts to at least 3.5 billion cubic feet a day.  

Iran is able to block the Strait of Hormuz in a flash. For starters, that would be some sort of poetic justice retribution for Israel aiming to gobble up, illegally, all the multibillion-dollar natural gas discovered offshore Gaza: this is, incidentally, one of the absolutely key reasons for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 

Yet the real deal will be to bring down the Wall Street-engineered $618 trillion derivative structure, as confirmed for years by analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as independent Persian Gulf energy traders. 

So when push comes to shove – and way beyond the defense of Palestine and in a scenario of Total War – not only Russia-Iran but key players of the Arab world about to become members of BRICS 11 – such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE – do have what it takes to bring down the US financial system anytime they choose.  

As an old school Deep State higher up, now in business in Central Europe, stresses: 

“The Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot. Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together. The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved even with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.”

As Persian Gulf traders told me, one possible scenario is OPEC starting to sanction Europe, first from Kuwait and then spreading from one OPEC country to another and to all countries that are treating the Muslim world as enemies and war fodder. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has already warned that oil to western markets could be put off because of what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already called, on the record, for a total oil and gas embargo by Islamic countries against nations – essentially NATO vassals – that support Israel.

So Christian Zionists in the US allied with neocon asset Netanyahu threatening to attack Iran have the potential to pull down the entire world financial system.

Forever War on Syria, remixed  

Under the current volcano, the Russia-China strategic partnership has been extremely cautious. To the outside world, their mutual official position is to refuse to side with either Palestine or Israel; call for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds; call for a two-state solution; and respect international law. All their initiatives at the UN have been duly sabotaged by the Hegemon. 

As it stands, Washington has refused the green light for the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. The main reason is the immediate US priority: buy some time to expand the war to Syria, “accused” of being the key transit point for Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. That also doubles as re-opening the same old war front against Russia. 

There are no illusions in Moscow. The intel apparatus knows well that Israeli Mossad agents have been advising Kiev while Tel Aviv was supplying weapons to Ukraine under serious US pressure.  That infuriated the siloviki, and may have constituted a fatal Israeli mistake.

The neocons, for their part, never stop. They are advancing a parallel threat: if Hezbollah attacks Israel with something else than a few sparse rockets – and that simply won’t happen – the Hmeimim Russian Air Base in Latakia will be “eliminated” as a “warning” to Iran.

This does not even qualify as children playing in the sandbox. After the serial Israeli attacks on the civilian Damascus and Aleppo airports, Moscow did not even blink before offering its Hmeimim facilities to Syria – complete with clearance for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cargo flights, according to some Russian intel sources. Netanyahu will not exactly harbor a death wish by bombing a fully A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) Russian Air Base.  

Moscow also clearly sees what those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean might be up to. The response has been swift: Mig-31Ks are patrolling neutral air space over the Black Sea 24/7, equipped with hypersonic Khinzals, which would take only six minutes to visit the Mediterranean.   

Amidst all this neocon-drenched madness, with the Pentagon deploying a formidable array of weaponry plus “undisclosed” assets to the Eastern Mediterranean, whether the target is Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, or all of the above, both China and North Korea – part of the new American-concocted “axis of evil” – have indicated they will not be mere bystanders. 

The Chinese Navy is for all practical purposes shielding Iran from a distance. Yet even more forceful has been a statement by Premier Li Qiang – something unusually blunt and rare in Chinese diplomacy: 

“China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.”

Never forget that China and Iran are linked by a comprehensive strategic partnership. Meanwhile, Russian Premier Mikhail Mishustin has reinforced the Russia-Iran strategic partnership in a meeting with Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber.

Remember those rice eaters from Korea 

Pro-Iran militias across the Axis of Resistance, are keeping a carefully tempered degree of confrontation against Israel, close to guerrilla hit-and-run. They won’t be engaged in massive attacks yet. But all bets are off if Israel invades Gaza. It’s clear the Arab world, for all its massive internal contradictions, will simply not tolerate the civilian massacre. 

Bluntly, at the current incendiary juncture, the Hegemon has found the offramp from its Project Ukraine humiliation. They erroneously believe that the same old Forever War rekindled in West Asia can be “modulated” at will. And if two wars turn into an immense political albatross, as they will, what else is new? They will simply start a new war in the “Indo-Pacific.” 

None of that fools Russia-Iran and their ice-cold monitoring of the flipping and flapping Hegemon every step of the way. It’s enlightening to remember what Malcolm X was already predicting in 1964:

“Some rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he’s supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.” 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

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AP erases Israeli pledge to attack Gaza like ‘Axis Power’ as officials threaten Palestinians with ‘Dresden’ doctrine

OCTOBER 21, 2023

Source

Wyatt Reed

As Israeli officials proudly compare their bombardment of the Gaza Strip to the Allied firebombing of Dresden, the Associated Press has quietly removed a section noting US alarm over the historical comparison.

The Associated Press has quietly deleted a reference to official Israeli threats to subject the Gaza Strip to a Dresden-style firebombing campaign — the latest move in legacy media outlets’ ongoing push to downplay the impacts of Tel Aviv’s siege of over two million Palestinians.

“Four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions said American diplomats became increasingly alarmed by comments from their Israeli counterparts regarding their intention to deny water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel into Gaza, as well as the inevitability of civilian casualties,” the AP article previously stated.

It’s journalism malpractice for the @AP to publish and then remove a quote like this without any note or explanation. https://t.co/49kkENvX1K pic.twitter.com/pwCbs1UnJe

— Frederick Deknatel freddydeknatel.bsky.social (@FreddyDeknatel) October 20, 2023

“Members of the Israeli security and political establishment told the U.S. diplomats that the eradication of Hamas would require methods used in the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II,” the AP originally wrote, adding that “Israeli officials have publicly made similar comparisons.”

The offending passages have since been deleted without explanation — a textbook violation of journalistic ethics. The decision is all the more baffling given that Israeli officials have made no secret of their desire to treat Palestinian civilians the same way Western Allies treated the Germans at the end of World War II.

In an October 16 interview, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, shrugged off concerns about the thousands of innocents killed in IDF strikes on Gaza, suggesting that because Allied powers killed tens of thousands of German civilians with relentless airstrikes in the 1940s, Israel is entitled to do the same.

“There were many, many civilians [that] got attacked from your attacks on German cities,” she told a Sky News anchor. “Dresden was a symbol, but you attacked Hamburg, you attacked other cities, and altogether it was over 600,000 civilian Germans that got killed.”

Comparing the militarily occupied Palestinian population to Nazis, Hotovley continued: “Was it worth it in order to defeat Nazi Germany? And the answer was yes.”

Media coverage of that exchange, however, largely centered on the Israeli ambassador’s repeated insistence that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Addressing the uproar in a segment with Piers Morgan that same night, Hotovley returned to the Dresden comparison once again.

“600,000 Germans were killed in your attacks on Hamburg and Dresden,” she declared to the Talk TV host. “Why? Because you knew this was the only way you could defeat the Nazis,’ the ambassador insisted.

Israeli ambassador to the UK cites the firebombing of Dresden in 1945 (deliberate aerial incineration of civilian population centers by US and UK) as precedent for what Israel is about to do in Gaza pic.twitter.com/GFXuv5T2Lq

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 16, 2023

“We are giving the people in Gaza the opportunity” to flee that Israelis “were never given… they were slaughtered in their beds,” she concluded.

But she was not the only Israeli official who openly invoked the Allied attacks on German civilians to justify Israel’s assault on Gaza. In a heated exchange with another Sky News host, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared that “when Great Britain was fighting the Nazis during World War Two, no one asked what’s going on in Dresden.”

On October 12, the former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett also indignantly cited Dresden as a precedent for what Israel is about to do in Gaza pic.twitter.com/xo4iHqClD9

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 16, 2023

Designed to break the will of the German population as its military collapsed on the battlefield, the British-led campaign of firebombing Dresden left at least 30,000 civilians dead and an entire city in ruins in February 1945.

Historian Donald Miller wrote of the nightmare unleashed by the Allied aerial assault: “People’s shoes melted into the hot asphalt of the streets, and the fire moved so swiftly that many were reduced to atoms before they had time to remove their shoes. The fire melted iron and steel, turned stone into powder, and caused trees to explode from the heat of their own resin. People running from the fire could feel its heat through their backs, burning their lungs.”

Palestinians in Gaza have related a similarly hellish experience as the civilian death toll in less than two weeks of bombardment tops 4000. “The bombardment in Gaza tonight is the most intense ever,” wrote Ahmed Nehad, a resident of Gaza. “The scale of the attacks is crazy, to a level even unprecedented for Gazans. Yet, Gaza is without internet. People can’t even peer out their windows to see. Thus, there’s no media coverage.”

Rampant Western Hypocrisy Condemns Children in North-East Syria to a Life of Abuse

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360°

Save the Children report on north-east Syria detention camps.

Vanessa Beeley
Save the Children report on north-east Syria detention camps.

The West accuses Russia of human rights abuses against children, they should look in the mirror

June 2023 – On International Children’s Day, Ambassador Neil Holland says that Ukraine’s children are paying the price of Russian aggression.

Neil Holland was appointed Head of the United Kingdom’s Delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in May 2023.

In June 2023 Holland made a statement to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE) – ‘Russia’s brutality towards Ukraine’s children’ in which he said:

Mr. Chair, we also continue to receive disturbing reports of the forced deportation of Ukrainian children by the Russian authorities. As the most recent Moscow Mechanism Report makes clear, these children are exposed to the deep trauma of being separated from their parents. They suffer violations and abuses of their rights, including being forced to relinquish their Ukrainian identity and participate in Russia-centric education. Russia’s forced deportation and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children is a despicable and systematic attempt to erase Ukraine’s future.

Holland claims that:

“Each day that Russia chooses to press on with its illegal and unprovoked invasion, Ukrainian children suffer. Children who have their whole lives ahead of them. Children whose futures the Russian authorities seem determined to take away.”

Reality is different to UK FCDO propaganda

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said there was evidence of the illegal transfer of hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.

In November 2022 I visited eastern Russia and met with refugee families including children in Sterlitamak and the Bashkortostan region. I visited more than three community centres and summer camps that had been converted into reception complexes for these temporarily displaced people who had already endured nine years of ethnic cleansing pogroms by the Kiev regime and Nazi cohorts.

One particular camp was organised in 24 hours to receive refugees from the Mariupol area in April 2022. More than 200 refugees were brought by train to the station in the city before being picked up and driven to the camp.

Psychological help was provided upon arrival for the traumatised families. Medicine and medical care is free with doctors and pharmacists on site.

In March 2023 the UK State media outlet and narrative manager, the BBC, reported:

In some cases, parents or children told the Commission that once in Russia-controlled areas, transferred children were made to wear “dirty clothes, were screamed at, and called names.” They also said that “some children with disabilities did not receive adequate care and medication.”

Cabins with water, electricity and heating are provided for all families. Even family pets were vaccinated, vet checked and welcomed. Residents are given three meals per day, children can play outside or inside in safety and there are playgrounds, football pitches and climbing frames in the grounds of the facility.

The children are being helped to keep up their schooling & integrated into the Russian curriculum. Citizenship is now being organised for those who want it but they all have been given the same labour rights etc as Russian citizens. Free buses are laid on every day to take the families into the town centre.

Margarita Bolycheva who is with the state committee of the Republic of Bashkortostan on foreign economic relations told me she had spent time with Syrian refugees in Berlin and that I should compare their treatment by the German government to the reception given to the refugees from Donbass.

As I said in November 2022:

She is absolutely right. There is no comparison. Here in Russia these displaced people are treated with respect and compassion. They are treated like human beings.

British and EU record of inhumanity towards foreign national children in Syria

In January 2023 a report by Human Rights Watch described the inhumane conditions that British and other nationality children were being forced to endure in north-east Syria.

Caveat: I blame HRW and Amnesty International for much of the propaganda that has provided justification for the regime change war against Syria since 2011. However individuals working for these organisations do provide valuable information from time to time and this report confirms what I have already heard from one or two decent journalists who were able to visit the ISIS camps in the north-east prior to the visits of the HRW staff.

Of the nearly 42,000 foreign Islamic State (ISIS) suspects and family members from 60 countries currently detained in northeast Syria, most are children. Many were taken to Syria by parents who sought to join ISIS or live in the “caliphate.” Others were born in Syria under areas of ISIS control or in the camps where families with alleged ISIS links are detained. Nearly 80 percent of the children are under the age of 12, and far too young to have played an active role in ISIS, yet many governments refuse to take these young nationals back, citing national security concerns or fearing public backlash.

The children are detained in such dire conditions that it might amount to torture. They face increasing risks of becoming victims of torture or radicalisation and recruitment by ISIS. Many children in the ISIS holding camps in north-east Syria – under US direct and proxy occupation – were found to be suicidal.

Many United Nations, counterterrorism, and security experts warn that abandoning these children in the camps and prisons carries greater national security risks than bringing them home.

As of January 23, 2023, nearly 42,000 foreigners remain held in the region along with more than 23,000 Syrians. Nearly 37,000 foreign nationals are detained in al-Hol and Roj, two locked, sprawling camps primarily holding the wives, other adult female relatives, and children of male ISIS suspects. Nearly 27,000 foreigners in the camps are from neighboring Iraq, while nearly 10,000 others are from about 60 other countries. More than 60 percent of the camp detainees are children. Nearly 80 percent of the children are under the age of 12, and 30 percent are age 5 or younger. Approximately 5,000 other foreigners are held in prisons and “rehabilitation” centers, including up to several hundred children.

Detention based only on family ties is collective punishment of these children which amounts to a war crime. Governments whose citizens languish in these makeshift detention camps are complicit in the abuse of these children.

Conditions for these children in Al Hol and Roj camps are “life-threatening, deeply degrading, and in many case, inhumane; their cumulative psychological impact may amount to torture. Medical care, clean water, as well as education and recreation for children are grossly inadequate.”

It is claimed that an estimated 371 children have died in 2019 in Al Hol camp, from preventable disease or hypothermia.

Children have also drowned in sewage pits, died in tent fires, and been hit and killed by water trucks. These children come from many of the countries that have been responsible for the regime change war waged against Syria since 2011.

They suffer violations and abuses of their rights, including being forced to relinquish their Ukrainian identity and participate in Russia-centric education. Neil Holland

According to the HRW report – some younger children attend informal preschool, but most children have no access to education and have missed out on years of schooling.

The camps have become increasingly dangerous and violent, as detainees, including many loyal to ISIS, have carried out attacks against other detainees, camp authorities, and aid workers. The UN reported that 90 people were murdered in al-Hol in 2021, and 42 from January to mid-November 2022.

Child rape and trafficking is rife in these camps.

Conditions are even worse in the prisons and makeshift detention centers where the SDF is holding up to 1,000 detainees, from about 20 countries, who are boys or who were apprehended before they turned 18. In the prisons, overcrowding initially was so severe that many of the detainees slept shoulder to shoulder. Many imprisoned Syrian and foreign boys were initially held in cells with men.

In January 2022, ISIS attacked one prison holding about 700 boys in the city of al-Haskah, sparking a 10-day battle with SDF fighters backed by US and UK forces.

According to local reports more than 500 were killed in this attack including several children. The information and accountability vacuum surrounding the fate of these children could easily suggest that there were more fatalities or disappearances.

Foreign boys can be forcibly removed from their mothers without warning and transferred to “rehabilitation centers”. The majority are as young as 10 and 12. Mothers are not informed of the whereabouts of their sons for weeks, months or not at all. Foreign boys are regularly not allowed contact with their mothers or siblings.

According to Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism:

“The de facto culling, separation, and warehousing of adolescent boys from their mothers is an abhorrent practice inconsistent with the dignity of the child and inconsistent with the most essential of rights any child is entitled to in any circumstances.”

From the HRW report:

From October 2022 to January 14, 2023, at least 10 countries brought some or more nationals home: 1,245 (more than half of them children) to Iraq, 4 women and 13 children to Australia, 1 woman and 2 children to Barbados, 2 women and 2 children to Canada, 16 women and 42 children to France, 5 women and 7 children to Germany, 12 women and 28 children to the Netherlands, 38 children to Russia, 1 woman and 1 child to the United Kingdom, and 2 women and 13 children to Spain. France repatriated an additional 15 women and 32 children on January 24, 2023. [Emphasis added]

Russia is one of the countries that has repatriated the majority of nationals in the ISIS camps.

Save the Children noted in December 2022, at current rates, repatriating the more than 23,000 foreign children still held in northeast Syria could take up to three decades.

It has been proven that repatriation and rehabilitation has been largely successful and that the children do return to normalcy after time.

When asked how the child is adjusting overall to their new country of residence, 89 percent of respondents to the online survey—comprised of family members, teachers, and social workers—reported that the child was doing “very well” or “quite well.” Only 4 percent said the child was having difficulties.

According to HRW:

In a bitter irony, many of the same countries with nationals languishing in the camps have accepted thousands of refugee children, who, like children in the camps, have often survived displacement, conflict-related violence, family separation or loss, and interrupted schooling. Canada, for example, accepted approximately 20,000 child refugees from Syria in 2015-2016, and resettled over 3,800 school-aged children from Afghanistan after the Taliban retook power. It has also offered refuge for thousands of children fleeing the war in Ukraine.

EU countries like France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden have made policy choices that increase the difficulty for children to reintegrate and may even cause additional harm. In these countries authorities have immediately separated children from their mothers if the mother is under investigation for offenses related to ISIS without evaluating if separation is in the child’s best interests. This causes significant emotional and psychological distress for the child.

Grandparents or other family members can face arduous investigations before being allowed to assume care of the children, even if they have been in contact with the authorities for years. “In one case, for example, a girl arrived in France at age 5 but spent three years in foster care, even though her grandparents had sought custody even before she came home.”

More than 60 British children trapped in north-east Syria

In 2019 the then UK security minister, Ben Wallace, said he would not put officials’ lives at risk to rescue UK citizens who went to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, insisting “actions have consequences”.

“I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go looking for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Alison Griffin, Save the Children’s Head of Conflict and Humanitarian Campaigns, said:

Children in Syria who have fled ISIS-held areas are innocent. Their short lives have been full of violence and fear but with the right care they can bounce back, recover and amaze us. They deserve that chance, no matter what they’ve been dragged into by the decisions of adults.

For the British children among them we can and must give them the safety they need by bringing them to be cared for in the UK.

According to Save the Children there are more than 60 British children trapped in north-east Syria after fleeing ISIS controlled areas. The children, many under five years old, have endured cycles of displacement and inhumane conditions in the various detention camps while British officials condemn them to this life of torture and abuse without conscience.

As Alison Griffin stated:

Children whose parents are alive are just as innocent as those who have been orphaned. All have been put through unimaginable horrors. The Foreign Secretary has said he wants to ensure ‘innocents are not caught in the crossfire’. To play his part to achieve that, he needs to act now while there’s still a window of opportunity and bring all the UK’s children home.

Older children who have lived under ISIS occupation will have witnessed appalling acts of savagery which include beheadings, crucifixion and mass killings. These experiences leave the children with physical and psychological scars and increase their vulnerability to radicalisation and recruitment by ISIS.

One British mother with two young children, a baby and an under five, had fled the “hell” of Baghouz where in 2019 the U.S. criminally bombed women and children during the last days of the ISIS occupation. “Her youngest baby was close to death with bronchiolitis when they arrived at the camp” in north-east Syria.

In 2019, the U.S. military killed dozens of people in Syria, including women and children, in airstrikes conducted during the final days of the war against the Islamic State, but did not disclose its actions for more than two years.

The New York Times reported on the war crime in November 2021:

In the last days of the battle against the Islamic State in Syria, when members of the once-fierce caliphate were cornered in a dirt field next to a town called Baghuz, a U.S. military drone circled high overhead, hunting for military targets. But it saw only a large crowd of women and children huddled against a river bank.

Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast. As the smoke cleared, a few people stumbled away in search of cover. Then a jet tracking them dropped one 2,000-pound bomb, then another, killing most of the survivors.

UK is funding the expansion of ISIS holding camps

In 2021 the UK provided funding for the expansion of one of the ISIS camps in Hasakah, north-east Syria. Rather than repatriate British nationals the UK FCDO condemned them to a life imprisonment in conditions that are described as inhumane by various Human Rights groups.

According to a report in Defense One – the effort will double in size the current facility at Hasakah, a series of three converted school buildings that holds roughly 5,000 prisoners, according to British Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Copsey, the coalition’s deputy commander for strategy.

A British Ministry of Defense spokesperson confirmed that the U.K. is funding the Hasakah effort, which Copsey called “quite a significant expansion.”

Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert, the commander of the U.S.-led mission admitted the dangers that children faced in Al Hol camp:

A huge proportion of the 65,000 people living at al Hol are children, with two-thirds under the age of 18 and over half under the age of 12. The wives of ISIS fighters are carrying out a daily indoctrination program, he said, and so-called “cubs” are “exported back through the rat lines coming out of al Hol that pushes them down into the Badia desert for additional training and use as [ISIS] fighters.

So, not only is the UK FCDO not showing any enthusiasm for repatriation of British nationals caught up in a terrorist proxy war against the Syrian people that the British regime is facilitating – they are also callously condemning the children of ISIS brides to a lifetime of incarceration with a high risk of abuse, exploitation, trafficking, rape and extremist indoctrination.

Russia’s forced deportation and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children is a despicable and systematic attempt to erase Ukraine’s future. Neil Holland

ISIS organ trafficking and role as assassins for the US alliance in Syria

ISIS is also known for increasing revenue through organ trafficking particularly from child victims. According to the World Health Organisation illegal organ trading generates between $600 million and $1.2 billion in profits each year.

Reports from the beginning of the ISIS insurgence in Syria have talked about “medical schools” in northern Syria where organs are extracted. The Iraqi News reported that IS has kidnapped and sold many children in Syria to Turkish organ traffickers in order to finance its operations.

“We… have no reason to doubt them given other similar atrocities that have been documented and other heinous crimes for which ISIL has proudly taken credit,” the U.S. State Department said in response to charges of IS’s organ harvesting. In December, the U.S. government revealed that it had obtained an ISIS document during a raid by Special Forces in Syria. “The apostate’s life and organs do not have to be respected and may be taken with impunity,” the document said.

The US military occupiers and oil, private security contractors working in north-east Syria are well aware of these ISIS operations. The UK, a strategic US ally in Syria must also be cognizant of these heinous trafficking rings that will prey on the children trapped in this hostile environment abandoned by their respective governments.

The reality is that the Pentagon has refused to vet proxy militias including ISIS for human rights abuses – apparently preferring to turn a blind eye to the revenue-producing crimes committed by terrorist groups under their control.

It is already well evidenced that ISIS is not an enemy of the US in Syria and Iraq. Very recently, in March 2023, the Pentagon was reported to be training brigades of ISIS and assorted terrorist groups to increase attacks on civilians, infrastructure and Syrian Arab Army positions.

Why was a very recent Al Monitor detailed report on women’s harrowing accounts of experiences in Syria’s trafficking networks retracted and with no trace on the archive websites?

The shame of Shamima Begum

A spy working for the Canadian Intelligence services smuggled Shamima Begum into Syria and Britain later conspired to cover up Canada’s role in the operation, a new book has claimed. – The Telegraph

Begum was just 15 when she travelled to Syria with Amira Abase, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, fellow pupils at Bethnal Green Academy in east London, in 2015. She was a child.

The Begum family lawyer, Mr Akunjee, said:

“Britain has lauded its efforts to stop Isis and the grooming of our children by spending millions of pounds on the Prevent programme and online monitoring.

“However, at the very same time we have been co-operating with a western ally, trading sensitive intelligence with them whilst they have effectively been nabbing British children and trafficking them across the Syrian border for delivery to Isis all in the name of intelligence-gathering.”

Begum was stripped of her citizenship by then-Home-Secretary Sajid Javid. Javid effectively offered 28 days amnesty to British nationals fighting with Al Qaeda, in Idlib, in 2019 but condemned Begum to stateless abuse in Syria despite the UK Intelligence alleged role in her being trafficked as an ISIS bride, aged 15.

A New Yorker headline in 2020 asked a pertinent question:

If Shamima Begum, the ISIS bride, is no longer British, what does citizenship mean?

2019: Begum identified herself to Anthony Loyd, a war reporter for the Times, after he had stopped by the al-Hawl camp on the last day of an assignment. “I am a sister from London. I’m a Bethnal Green girl,” Begum told Loyd. She was anxious about her unborn child. “I’m scared that this baby is going to get sick in this camp,” Begum said. “That’s why I really want to get back to Britain, because I know it will get taken care of, health-wise at least.” Loyd’s story ran on the front page of the newspaper. Five days later, Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary at the time, stripped Begum of her citizenship. Her baby, a boy named Jarrah, died of a respiratory infection, when he was three weeks old.

When human rights reports were circulating in 2019, estimating 60 British children and 30 women in north-east Syria ISIS prisons, the British government said that, since the United Kingdom does not have a consulate in Syria, it would not be able to “provide assistance”. Since then a handful of orphans have allegedly been repatriated.

At the time of Begum being stripped of her citizenship – the British regime had a policy of turning problematic citizens into former citizens.

Richard Barrett, former head of global counter-terrorism for MI6 told the New Yorker:

I think the government position is precisely that. If there is a way of getting rid of the problem to somewhere else, let’s get rid of the problem somewhere else.

Since 2006, Home Secretaries have been able to deprive a person of her British citizenship if it is “conducive to the public good”—a subjective rather than a strict legal test—as long as it does not leave her stateless.

Journalist Anthony Loyd pointed out the UK FCDO manipulation of the law:

International law forbids governments from rendering their citizens stateless. The British government has justified taking away Begum’s nationality on the grounds that her mother is Bangladeshi, and so she is eligible for citizenship until the age of twenty-one. This is a fiction. Begum has never lived in Bangladesh.

Barrett, the former MI6 official said:

This is a purely political decision. Why one would think that Bangladesh had any better capacity to deal with somebody? It doesn’t make any sense.

In refusing Begum’s appeal last week, the U.K.’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission acknowledged that her situation at the al-Roj refugee camp, in northern Syria, exposes her to the risk of torture and degrading treatment.

Anthony Loyd the Times reporter who met with Begum “ was struck by her guilelessness. She was awkward but direct.”. Yes, she was “unfazed” by some of the ISIS atrocities she had witnessed but I have personally met children who could describe terrorist crucifixion of relatives without batting an eyelid after being incarcerated by Western-backed terrorists for years in different areas of Syria. War does that to children.

Former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford gave me this statement:

The UK, so apparently solicitous regarding the children of Ukraine, appears less concerned about some of its own. To the extent in fact of denying them not just a right of abode in the UK but even a right to UK nationality. The most well known case is that of Shamima Begum, an East London teenager encouraged by British government propaganda demonising Assad to join ISIS, and subsequently stripped of her nationality and forced to fester for years in the extremism incubators which are the ISIS prisoner camps in US/UK-controlled Northern Syria.

The sins of mothers being visited on the children, Begum’s children, are consequently also denied their birthright, a chance to live in Britain. For a government which behaves this despicably towards children of its own nation to posture as a children’s champion is a sickening hypocrisy.

Conclusion – the West is collectively hypocritical and is content to incarcerate their own child nationals and put them at risk of torture, abuse and death at hands of terrorists they control

For a government which behaves this despicably towards children of its own nation to posture as a children’s champion is a sickening hypocrisy. – Peter Ford

None of these children, Begum included, exploited and abused by their state of birth should be punished for the alleged crimes of their relatives. The only constructive solution is for western regimes to repatriate their child nationals and provide psychological and trauma support to enable them to reintegrate into society and into their culture of origin.

HRW report:

The unlawful detention in northeast Syria of 23,000 foreign children from dozens of countries has deprived them of their basic rights as children, including the rights to a nationality, health, education, family unity, and freedom from mistreatment and arbitrary detention. Those who have died because of the conditions or circumstances of their detention have been denied the right to life itself.

The HRW report concludes that although several countries have marginally increased the repatriation of child nationals, the rate remains indefensibly low.

Western regimes continue to outsource responsibility for their child nationals to militants, terrorists, child and organ traffickers in north-east Syria. In the process ‘the children’s countries of origin are re-victimizing children who have already endured unimaginable horrors’.

While the West bears responsibility for the mass imprisonment of child nationals in squalid environments where they are preyed upon by all manner of criminals while depriving these children of any meaningful rehabilitation, identity or hope, they cannot take the moral high ground and prosecute Russia for unsubstantiated claims of child abduction in a war zone that the West created.

Related

• From Turkey to Northern Syria… Deportation of Syrian Refugees or Voluntary Return?
• Terrorist Escalation in Northern Syria
• Why are Republican Congressmen Meeting with Sanctioned Terrorist Groups in Syria?
• Meeting May Further Offset Saudi-Israeli Normalization
• Recent ISIS Attacks in Syrian Desert Carried Out with US Support
• Terrorist Escalation in Northern Syria
• Syria in Turmoil as US, UK, Israel and France Turn Up the Heat
• Al Qaeda “Virtue Police” Show up Along NATO Protected Turkish-Syrian Border
• US Training ISIS, Al-Qaeda Fighters in Syria to Deploy to Russia and CIS Countries
• US-Israeli Determination to Keep the Syrian People Suffering

MINTPRESS NEWS IS BEING TARGETED: JOIN US IN STANDING UP TO THE WAR MACHINE

AUGUST 4TH, 2023

Mnar Adley is founder and director of MintPress News and Behind The Headlines and is also a producer and host for both platforms.

Hey everyone, I’m Mnar Adley, founder and director of MintPress News and editor of our video project  “Behind the Headlines.”

This decade has felt like a whirlwind, watching in real time the crackdown on independent journalism and alternative voices.

In the last year alone, MintPress was banned from PayPal with our balance seized, blocking donations to our website –and as leaked emails reveal, this took place with possible involvement of British intelligence and the U.S. government.

At the same time, GoFundMe took down our fundraisers and banned us from their platform.

Our journalists have been detained, interrogated, surveilled, canceled and lobbied against by national security agencies and special interest groups, including directly by the Israel lobby. Our Wikipedia page has been written and managed by a mafia of pro-NATO editors and Israeli lobby groups. This, in addition to aggressive algorithmic blacklisting by Google’s Project Owl and Big Tech giants, shadowbanning from the likes of Twitter, Facebook & TikTok, all of whom we’ve exposed to have a deep relationship with the military-industrial complex to control your newsfeed and ensure a pro-war narrative is dominant.

We wear this as a badge of honor.

This is just a taste of what we’ve faced as an independent media outlet that has been at the forefront of exposing the profiteers of the permanent war state – holding the military class accountable, as every journalism outlet should be doing as protected by our first amendment.

Journalism is being criminalized.

This is why we’re turning to our readers and supporters to help us sustain our watchdog journalism. While Big Tech ramps up its efforts to make our journalism algorithmically disappear, we’re ramping up our efforts to circumvent this censorship and provide our readers with the most hard-hitting journalism that empowers ‘we the people.’

But to continue to do this and keep our investigative journalism free and accessible without a paywall, we’re appealing to our readers for their financial support. Suffice it to say big governments and corporations are not exactly banging down our door to support us.

We just launched our annual fundraiser to help sustain us, and I hope that you will join us as we continue to fight against the war machine in this information war.

MintPress is one of a handful of independent investigative news outlets left in the United States, featuring some of the most important journalists and activists of our time.

This includes investigative journalist, Ph.D. and author Alan MacLeod who co-hosts the “MintCast” podcast with me. His investigative work has exposed the deep relationship between NATO, weapons manufacturers and the national security state within Big Tech as well as U.S. regime change operation mechanisms against the global south.

Rapper and activist for Palestinian human rights Lowkey hosts “The Watchdog” podcast on MintPress. His research and journalism have exposed how the Israel lobby, its intelligence and military have inserted themselves into Big Tech and NGOs to surveil and target pro-Palestine and antiwar dissent.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist whose work explores the role of intelligence services in shaping politics, perceptions and war policies in the U.S., UK and across NATO member nations.

Jessica Buxbaum is an investigative journalist based in Jerusalem. She is our Palestine correspondent who has spent the last five years uncovering how Israel works with Big Tech and NGOs to surveil and target Palestinian resistance to apartheid.

MintPress also features regular columns by renowned documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist John Pilger, Israeli peace activist Miko Peled, and Palestinian academic Dr. Ramzy Baroud.

As for myself, Mn​​ar Adley – the founder and director of MintPress News, I founded MintPress over ten years ago in an effort to revive the fourth estate in a post 9/11 world, when our first amendment was put on life support by the ever-growing military-industrial complex and its connections to the media. Since 2001, we saw major news outlets beat the drums of war to drive public support for the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that left millions dead and millions more as refugees.

Having lived under Israeli occupation and apartheid as a teenager, I witnessed firsthand the horrifying human rights abuses no child should have to see. From the New York Times to the Washington Post to MSNBC and CNN, every major news outlet has for decades whitewashed Israeli crimes and apartheid under the banner of “democracy and shared values” while dehumanizing Palestinians as mere terrorists, the same way our media dehumanizes the victims of our disastrous wars. This, of course, continues to this day.

Whether it’s war in Palestine, Yemen, Sudan or Somalia, economic sanctions against Iran, Venezuela or Cuba or the U.S. proxy war with Russia in Ukraine–  it is clear that corporate media act as PR for weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to justify military adventurism and economic warfare to fuel the military-industrial complex that drives our war economy.

Thus MintPress was born out of this need to provide the public with investigative journalism that holds the ruling class and military accountable where corporate media has failed.

Our journalism gives a voice and spotlight to the people of the Global South ravaged by economic sanctions.

We’re continuously covering regime change operations, military coups and wars imposed by the US military, NATO and their proxies. Policies that line the pockets of the executives at Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

We’ve been amplifying the voices of those who are silenced by the media, like government whistleblowers and publishers like Julian Assange and Daniel Hale.

This is exactly why we’ve been targeted and why we can’t take MintPress to the next level without your support.

With the conflict raging in Ukraine, we’ve entered wartime and are living in an intellectual no-fly zone where online censorship of dissenting journalism has become the new norm and the sanctions regime has come to target independent journalists – but it’s up to us to change that reality.

We’re proud to have broken through this censorship over the years, but it has only been possible through your continued support.

No matter the war waged against us, we refuse to be backed into a corner and bullied by tech giants who have a deep relationship with weapons manufacturers who work hand in hand with NATO to profit off of the blood of millions of people around the world.

The only way forward is for us all to unite on a broader front of non-partisanship and help fund our own media. There are no governments or corporations who will move in to save us. We are completely dependent on you.

Join us in reviving the fourth estate and protecting our First Amendment. Join our campaign today – LIVE on Indiegogo. 

Mnar Adley is founder and director of MintPress News and Behind The Headlines and is also a producer and host for both platforms.

Why does the US fund the Lebanese Army?

June 30 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

The Lebanese Armed Forces, despite representing a sovereign state on paper, have long faced influence from western governments and militaries, undermining Lebanese law, chain of command, and national security.

By Hasan Illaik

In 2019, the Lebanese government faced the pressing challenge of reducing the number of public sector workers, including those in security and military institutions, in order to curb government spending.

Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab found himself embroiled in a dispute with General Joseph Aoun, the army Commander-in-Chief, as he tried to ascertain the number of personnel in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

Despite his efforts, the minister was unable to obtain any official documentation confirming the number of personnel in the army, which is estimated to be around 84,000.

Interestingly, two years prior to this, the then-British Ambassador to Lebanon, Chris Rampling, proudly declared that the UK had trained some 10,000 Lebanese soldiers within the country. He even declared that:

“I’m really proud to hand over a UK training certificate to the ten thousandth soldier who graduated from here. It is a sign of our commitment to train, which has now reached almost one third of the Lebanese Army’s fighting force. We are committed to our partnership with the Lebanese Army with actions and not just words.”

Influence of US and British governments

It is quite astonishing that the British ambassador possesses knowledge of the size of the army’s fighting force, estimating it to be around 30,000 soldiers and officers, while the Lebanese Minister of Defense remains clueless about such crucial information.

However, at issue is not solely the numbers but the decision-making process within the LAF and the extent to which the US and British governments, their ambassadors, and their allies exert influence in it.

In Lebanon, there is a sense of cynicism surrounding the regularity of news regarding the US ambassador’s visits to the army commander’s office. The focus, many argue, should instead be on days when the US ambassador does not pay a visit.

The behavior exhibited by the army commander in this regard extends beyond the US and British ambassadors to encompass nearly all NATO country envoys. Such news has become customary in Lebanon, prompting locals to treat it as “normal.”

For instance, on 30 November, 2021, the British Embassy in Beirut announced that:

“The ambassadors of Britain, Ian Collard, the United States of America, Dorothy Shea, and Canada, Chantal Chastenay, met with the Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, to discuss the security of the Lebanese-Syrian border, during the meeting of the Higher Supervisory Committee on the Aid Program for the Protection of Land Borders.”

During the meeting, then British ambassador Collard announced that London had donated $1.4 million “to strengthen LAF’s resilience with spare parts for Land Rovers previously donated by the UK Government and for protective personal equipment for female soldiers deployed on border operations.”

Disregard for Lebanese Law

It is an unusual occurrence for the ambassadors of three countries to publicly disclose discussions regarding a neighboring country’s border protection plan with its army commander. Lebanon, perhaps uniquely, allows an ambassador from a foreign country (in this case, the UK) to announce the direct financial aid granted to members of the army and internal security forces.

This announcement was made in the presence of the army commander and the general director of the police force, without any representative from the government, to which these two institutions belong, being present.

The relationship between the LAF and NATO countries, spearheaded by Washington and London, disregards Lebanese law, which stipulates that approval from the Council of Ministers is required to accept any donation from a foreign entity.

Zina Akar, the former Minister of Defense from 2020 to 2021, shares with The Cradle an incident where she received a call from the Italian embassy inviting her to a ceremony for the donation handover to the LAF.

Akar asked the army commander: “Did the donation get the approval of the Council of Ministers? Why do I know about it from the Italian embassy and not from the army command?” He is said to have replied that the government did not know about the donation and that he would later send a request for approval! “It always happens that way,” the commander explained.

Lebanon may also be the only country in the world in which the director of the CIA proposes, during a dinner with his deputy and Lebanese officers, to promote a Lebanese officer to the rank of major general and appoint him as a member of the military council.

It should be noted that Lebanon is definitely the only country in the world where a journalist can obtain information about a business dinner held “in honor” of the CIA director and his deputy. Additionally, in Lebanon, the deputy director of the CIA appears in the local mainstream media.

A similar incident took place in August 2022, when a video was published of Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa refusing to shake hands with a person who was said to be the director of the CIA in Lebanon while condoling the death of the father of the former director general of General Security. The deputy director’s name is Johnny Johnson, and he served in Turkiye, Egypt, France, and Iraq before moving to Lebanon.

Maintaining western hegemony

These instances serve as examples of the US’ abnormal behavior, and these situations imposed on Lebanon by the US and its allies are to ensure its continued influence over the Lebanese army in the context of consolidating western hegemony in the region.

This influence is achieved through various means:

• Ensuring that NATO countries and their allies remain the sole providers of arms and financing for the army. In 2008, Lebanon succumbed to US pressure, supported by political forces allied with the west and the Persian Gulf states, and rejected a generous Russian donation that included 10 MiG-29 planes, 77 tanks, artillery, and an assortment of weapons and ammunition.

Since then, no cooperation agreement between Lebanon and Russia has been approved by the Lebanese government or parliament to allow the LAF to benefit from Russian aid.

• Propagating false information that emphasizes the indispensability of the relationship with Washington for the survival of the LAF suggests that the army would be unable to sustain itself without American weapons and ammunition.

However, between 2006 and 2018, US military aid to Lebanon amounted to a mere $1.28 billion, averaging $100 million annually. Prior to the banking sector collapse in 2019, Lebanon allocated significantly more funds to salaries and servicing public debt, indicating that it could have foregone US assistance.

Nonetheless, the ruling elite in Lebanon is divided between Washington’s allies, who enthusiastically comply with its directives, and opponents, who fear straining their relationship with the army should they publicly reject US aid.

• Restricting the training of LAF officers exclusively to the US and its NATO allies. Even during the Syrian military presence in Lebanon before 2005, American training for army officers continued unabated.

“But at that point, things were very well controlled. The impact of these exercises within the army, at the command level, was very small,” an anonymous, high-ranking military source tells The Cradle.

Paradoxical relationship

Army officers explain that western training is not fundamentally different from that of the east. The Lebanese army does not possess advanced weapons, and it does not have vast areas to fight in, nor does it have offensive or defensive plans.

Western training, according to Lebanese military sources, aims to familiarize army personnel and officers with a western military approach.

“What western countries seek is to make the army’s soldiers and officers part of the western system,” a high-ranking officer tells The Cradle, pointing out that the army officers who underwent military courses in Syria have been retired, while the majority of the current officers are graduates of western training courses.

Western training programs primarily focus on special forces, which consist of approximately 17,000 soldiers from special regiments and border regiments. These programs aim to prepare the LAF to combat irregular forces rather than directly confront the Israeli army.

Public statements from US diplomats, military personnel, and members of Congress make it clear that US military aid to the LAF is intended to enhance its capability to address the Hezbollah “threat.”

A senior Lebanese officer tells The Cradle:

“The Americans are not stupid. They realize that the army will not enter into a confrontation with Hezbollah in the foreseeable future. But they want to prepare it to be able to end Hezbollah’s military presence the day after any defeat inflicted by the Americans and the Israelis on Hezbollah in the future.”

The paradox lies in the fact that while the west supports Israel, which the LAF considers its primary enemy, the relationship between the LAF and the west is not subject to oversight by the Lebanese government or parliament.

Confessional complications

Due to Lebanon’s complex political and sectarian dynamics, no political force in the country dares to hold the army command accountable. Even on the security level, this relationship with the west remains unscrutinized.

In 2009, the head of the Special Forces School, Colonel Mansour Jayab, was arrested by Army Intelligence on charges of dealing with Israeli intelligence. Three other officers were arrested on the same charge, while two officers fled abroad. Colonel Jayab, who admitted to being recruited by the Israelis in the 1990s during a training course in the US, was convicted by a military court.

However, this incident did not lead to any significant protests or demands from security or political officials in Lebanon for American guarantees that such occurrences would not happen again. The responsibility for this breach of the Lebanese army was not attributed to the US, even though the recruitment took place while the officer was under the custody of the US army.

US influence in the LAF can be traced back to the 1950s. This influence fluctuated depending on the political authority and its foreign policy. Since 1990, Lebanon’s foreign relations have been influenced by the distinction between Lebanese-Syrian relations and the unification of the foreign policy of the two countries.

Following the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005, a political vacuum emerged in Beirut due to the division between western supporters and their opponents, leading to a lack of clear foreign policy.

Taking advantage of this vacuum, the US established a strong influence within the LAF. Under the current Commander-in-Chief, this influence has reached unprecedented levels. While some attribute this to General Joseph Aoun’s ambition to become president, a high-ranking Lebanese officer informs The Cradle that Aoun has surpassed his predecessor, General Jean Kahwaji, in terms of aligning with the US.

Lebanon’s divided foreign policy

Aoun’s affinity for the west is evident in his actions. Upon assuming his position, he replaced Russian weapons (such as the AK47 assault rifle) under the pretext of logistical reasons and weapons unification.

During his tenure, US soldiers stationed at two Lebanese army bases operated drones under the guise of training Lebanese officers, allowing them to conduct reconnaissance tours over Lebanese territory, sources in the armed forces tell The Cradle.

Initially aligned with former President Michel Aoun, who was an ally of Hezbollah, Joseph Aoun, the current army commander, quickly shifted his stance and is now accused by those close to the former statesman of being fully aligned with the US in Lebanon.

Joseph Aoun is set to retire on 10 January, 2024. If he does not become president, the next army commander will face the significant challenge of restoring balance within the LAF and preventing it from being used as a tool for US imperial projects in the region.

This task is particularly difficult given the restrictions on arming and training, which have been limited to the US and their allies. Additionally, the US has become a more important source of financial support, providing monthly payments of $100 per soldier and officer in the LAF for a period of six months due to the decline in their salaries since the country’s financial collapse in 2019.

Politically, Lebanon’s ability to formulate a unified foreign policy based on its own interests, which would facilitate cooperation between the army and foreign forces, is not expected. International relations have been a contentious aspect of Lebanon’s political conflicts since at least 2005, and it is unlikely that this conflict will be resolved in the near future.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

On Joseph Aoun and the American project to control the Lebanese army

ILAN PAPPE on Gamal Abdul Nasser: Why We Must Revisit the June 1967 War

June 27, 2023

Egyptian Prime Minister Nasser cheered in Cairo. (Photo: via Wikimedia Commons)

– Ilan Pappé is a professor at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Ten Myths about Israel. Pappé is described as one of Israel’s ‘New Historians’ who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel’s creation in 1948. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

By Ilan Pappe

Nasser miscalculated Israel’s reaction. Though the Israeli government knew full well that Nasser did not intend to go to war, they used his brinkmanship as a pretense to start a war of their own, with the aim of building a mini-empire, a greater Israel.

June is the month when one recalls the June 1967 war.

Historians re-evaluate an event not only based on new evidence. Their analyses are also influenced by the passage of time, which enables them to reconsider different aspects of formative events such as this one.

And when you probe into history and use documents and solid evidence, you sometimes disappoint friends and enemies alike.

In this piece, I would like to revisit the role of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser in that war. His role, I think, does not always match everyone’s perceptions of this great leader, and maybe disappoints perceived evaluations of his contributions to the struggle.

Nasser, Palestine and Israel

Here, I write from a Palestinian perspective, in the sense that I am less interested in what happened to Egypt because of Nasser’s role in Palestine – undoubtedly a worthy topic. Instead, I am interested in the Egyptian leader’s impact on the history of modern Palestine.

Nasser came to power as part of the Free Officers movement in the July 1952 Revolution. Very soon after, he settled in his office as deputy leader of the movement, before taking over the leadership from Muhmad Naguib.

Even as a deputy, he was interested in negotiating with Israel. He used a senior diplomat in France to initiate talks with the Israelis. His counterpart was Moshe Sharett, at the time Israel’s Foreign Minister.

Nasser saw the Nakba, indeed, as a catastrophe. He believed strongly in the right of the Palestinian refugees to return and deemed Israel as a huge threat to the Arab world. But Nasser was also a pragmatist who understood well how Israel became an essential part of the American imperialist set-up in the Arab world, thus sought ways to limit its potential danger.

Back then in 1952, Nasser did not necessarily deem the United States as the arch-enemy of progressive Arab regimes and was hoping that a realistic approach towards Israel would curry favor with the Americans.

In 1952, he made reasonable twin demands, and was surprised to learn that both Britain and the US found acceptable: An unconditional return of Palestinian refugees; and a land bridge through the south of the Naqab (the Negev) linking Jordan and Egypt. In return, he was willing to agree to a non-aggression pact with Israel and, eventually, peace.

Ben Gurion and His Two Cronies

The Israeli Prime Minister at the time, David Ben Gurion, categorically rejected any contact with the Egyptian leader. In fact, from the moment it was clear that Nasser would be the leader of Egypt, Ben Gurion searched for a way of toppling him.

Sharett, on the other hand, was more forthcoming; not that he agreed to Nasser’s conditions, but he valued the very idea of negotiations and hoped to find a compromise.

For a brief period, a compromise seemed possible, when Sharett replaced Ben-Gurion as prime minister of Israel for a year and a half, between 1954-1955.

Although he was no longer in government, Ben-Gurion left behind two cronies, who, like him, believed Nasser had to be overthrown. This belief was itself an outcome of a rooted ideology according to which only a display of Israel’s ruthlessness could tame the Arabs and obliterate any pan-Arabist agenda that could be of help to the Palestinians.

One of the two cronies was the Minister of Defense, Pinchas Lavon, and the other was the Chief of the General Staff, Moshe Dayan.

The three plotted a series of actions to defeat Sharett’s desire to reach an agreement with Nasser. It began by violating the armistice agreement with Egypt by building an illegal colony on no man’s land, followed by the infamous massacre in the village of Qibyah in the West Bank.

The Qibyah massacre was carried out by an Israeli commandos unit headed by Ariel Sharon in 1953. 65 villagers were murdered, partly by blowing up their houses while they were still sleeping inside.

But the peak of this campaign was the setup of a terrorist organization of Egyptian Jews that was ordered to plant bombs in cinemas and libraries associated with Western culture, to increase the mistrust of Nasser in the eyes of the Americans.

The terrorists were caught before they were able to carry out their actions.

Ben Gurion Back in Power

Ben Gurion returned to power after a relatively brief absence. In February 1955, he sent his army into the Gaza Strip to carry out a military operation, which resulted in the killing of 37 dead Egyptian soldiers. Until that very moment, as he indicated by Nasser himself in his memoir, the Egyptian leader was open to negotiations with Israel, sticking to a position that the Americans and the British still regarded as common-sensical and doable.

When Nasser understood that the West was unwilling to exert pressure on Israel and would not lift a finger to stop Israel’s colonial, annexationist ambitions towards the Arab world, he changed course. He now believed that Israel would attack both Syria and Jordan to expand its geographic boundaries. That called for a new way of thinking.

Nasser’s New Strategy

Then, Nasser embarked on a new strategy, which included more visible support for the nascent Palestinian guerrilla resistance efforts against Israel, attempts at pan-Arab unity, the creation of a non-alignment bloc with India and Yugoslavia, and purchasing more modern arms for his army.

On top of all these policies, he opted for what is known as brinkmanship policy – using war rhetoric and seemingly preparation for war, with the hope that this would be enough to force the West to exert pressure on Israel to cease its aggression.

This strategy included the closure of the Tiran straits connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba, concentrating an army in the Sinai Peninsula, and asking the UN to withdraw from the border between Egypt and Israel.

But Nasser miscalculated Israel’s reaction. Though the Israeli government knew full well that Nasser did not intend to go to war, they used his brinkmanship as a pretense to start a war of their own, with the aim of building a mini-empire, a greater Israel.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Declassified Documents

Recently declassified documentation from the Israeli cabinet meetings shows clearly that the Israeli leaders understood that war was not imminent and that much depended on their own actions.

In fact, one did not need to wait for the opening of the archives to reach such a conclusion. Several Israeli leaders admitted as much. One of them was Menachem Begin, who was part of the government at the time, and who told senior officers in the Israeli army:

“In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”

Israel’s Need for War

As in 1948, in 1967, Israel also needed wars to fulfill the typical objectives of any settler colonial movement: having more geographical space with less native population living in it.

Since 1963, Israel had prepared comprehensive plans, waiting for the perfect movement to initiate its ‘greater Israel’ project. But Israel failed because it erroneously believed that the demographic imbalances resulting from the creation of such an entity can easily be solved by oppressing, for decades, millions of Palestinians. Since it was not possible for Israel to replicate the ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948, it opted to treat the newly occupied peoples as inmates in a huge, and ever-growing prison.

The Palestinian resistance to this monstrous policy continues to this very day.

The lesson is that, even with a leftist, Labor government, which ruled Israel between 1948 to 1977, Israel did not seek peace. To the contrary, Tel Aviv hoped to impose its will on the Arab world, by allying itself closely to the West.

The consequences of this strategy were felt beyond Palestine, whose people were the main victims of this Israeli intransigence. In fact, it impacted drastically and detrimentally the whole of the Arab World.

Unfortunately, we are still witnessing the bitter fruits of this aggression, which can only be stopped by the liberation of Palestine and the creation of a democratic state over the whole of historical Palestine, which would ensure the return of its refugees.

Only this would enable us to close this dangerous and sorrowful chapter in the history of the Arab World and, hopefully, allow all of us to begin a new and more hopeful chapter.

93 years on the execution of the heroes of al-Buraq revolution: The prisoners’ struggle against imperialism and Zionism continues!

17 June 2023

The following is an updated version of the article originally published on 17 June 2017 by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. The living legacy of Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer, Mohammed Jamjoum and the Buraq Revolution is deeply relevant today, especially as the Zionist regime seeks to target Palestinian prisoners for execution in an official manner, even as the policy of slow death, targeted assassination and murderous raids on the Palestinian resistance continues. 

This anniversary also comes as Zionist forces continue to engage in “flag marches” designed to declare full colonial control over all of Palestinian Ara Jerusalem; it was a very similar march that sparked the uprising of 1929. The close ties between Zionism and British colonialism – which would eventually imprison 900 Palestinians and execute 20 for participating in the revolt – today mirrors the strategic partnership between the Zionist state and U.S. and other Western imperialist powers. Over 93 years later, the Palestinian revolution continues, until liberation and return. 

17 June marks the anniversary of the execution of three of the earliest martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum – by British colonial occupiers, in Akka prison. Today, on 17 June 2023, we salute these martyrs and pledge to struggle for the freedom of all prisoners of Zionism and imperialism.

Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum were seized by the British colonizers for their role in Al-Buraq Revolution of 1929, named for the al-Buraq Wall in Jerusalem. The uprising was sparked by Zionist groups coming to the wall to plant Zionist flags, declaring that “This wall is ours.”

In Jerusalem, Haifa, Yafa and Safad, Palestinians rose up against British colonization and the declared Zionist plans to colonize Palestine and declare it a “Jewish state,” with the support of Britain as expressed in the notorious Balfour Declaration. Hundreds of Palestinians were seized by British forces and 26 sentenced to death by hanging; there was such an outcry by the Palestinian people that most of these sentences were converted to life imprisonment, with the exception of Hijazi, Jamjoum and al-Zeer.

Photo from the 1929 Buraq Revolution

Fouad Hijazi was 26 years old, from Safad; Mohammed Jamjoum was 28, from al-Khalil, as was Atta al-Zeer, 35.

Born in Safad in 1904, Fouad Hijazi received his primary education in his hometown; his university education was completed at the American University of Beirut. He actively participated in the Buraq Revolution. and wrote a message to his family the day before his execution, which was published in the newspaper on 18 June 1930. In the message, he said, “On 17 June of each year, this should be a historic day in which speeches are made and songs are sung in the memory of our blood spilled for the sake of Palestine and the Arab cause.”

The execution of these Palestinian strugglers has remained for years an ongoing story of resistance that continues to inspire strugglers through over 100 years of resistance to colonization and occupation. Indeed, the song written to commemorate Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum, “From Akka Prison,” today remains one of the most well-known and powerful poems of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum was born in 1902 in al-Khalil; like Hijazi he attended university at the American University of Beirut.

Atta al-Zeer was born in al-Khalil also, in 1895. Throughout his life he worked as a farmer and a manual laborer and was known from his earliest days for his courage and physical strength.

On the day of their execution, the 3 Palestinian martyrs of the Akka prison: Fuad Hijazi, Mohammad Jamjoum and Ata Al-Zeir wrote letters to their families, friends, the Palestinians and the Arabs nations. In one letter they said:

“Now we are at the doors of eternity, offering our lives to save the sacred homeland , for dear Palestine, we plead to all Palestinians not to forget our spilled blood and our souls that will fly in the sky of this beloved country, and to remember that we have willingly given ourselves and our skulls to be a basis for building our nation’s independence and freedom, and that the nation remain persistent in its union and its struggle for the salvation of Palestine from the enemies, and to keep its lands and not to sell one inch of it to the enemies, and that its determination not be wavered and not be weakened by threat and intimidation, and to strive until it gains victory… The Arabs in all Arab countries and Muslims have to save Palestine from its suffering and assist it with all their strength… Now, after we have seen from our nation and our country and our people this national spirit and national enthusiasm, we welcome death with complete pleasure and joy and willingly place the rope of the gallows, the swing of the champions, around our necks in sacrifice to you, Palestine, and finally, please write on our graves:

“to the Arab nation full independence or callous death and in the name of the Arabs we live and in the name of Arabs we die.”

On 17 June 1930, Palestinians organized a general strike throughout Palestine as large crowds gathered in major Palestinian cities across the country – in Yafa, Haifa, al-Khalil and Nablus. After the executions, their bodies were handed to the men’s families, who had been denied the right to bury them in their home cities. Thousands of Palestinians streamed through the streets of Akka in honor of Jamjoum, Hijazi and al-Zeer, figures and symbols of Palestinian resistance to British and Zionist colonization. The three revolutionaries were executed on that day, but their anti-colonial message and commitment has continued to resonate through generations of Palestinian struggle for national liberation.

Abu Maher al-Yamani, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian labor leader and historical leader of the Palestinian national movement, left his village of Suhmata for the first time at the age of six with his father. There, he “was surprised to encounter the execution of three Palestinian martyrs by British colonial authorities on that day, June 17, 1930 – Fouad Hijazi, Mohammed Jamjoum and Atta al-Zeer. The awareness of the child Ahmed al-Yamani was awakened, viewing the executions and the bodies of the martyrs in the gallows of the courtyard of Akka central prison; this incident greatly affected him and remained an image in his mind that could not be forgotten.”

Their story has been embedded as well in the Palestinian culture of resistance. Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan’s poem, “Red Tuesday,” commemorates the three, noting “their bodies in the homeland’s graves/their souls in the reaches of heaven.”

The popular song, “Min Sijjin Akka,” or “From Akka Prison,” continues to be sung and celebrated throughout Palestine. The origin of the poem is not precisely clear; some say that it was written on the walls of Akka prison by a revolutionary named ‘Awad, himself awaiting execution by the British colonial rulers. Other scholars note that the poem was likely composed by a working-class popular poet and in Haifa, Nuh Ibrahim, perhaps the most famous Palestinian poet of his time and carrying his own legacy of resistance. “He was not a poet of the elite and he did not write poetry for social occasions or holidays. Instead Ibrahim is known for composing for the 1936-1939 Palestinian Revolt and to peasants working their grapevines, orchards and wheat fields. He spoke and wrote in everyday language, as a provocateur and broadcaster for the revolt, in which he also participated as a fighter,” wrote Samih Shabeeb.

The lyrics of the song are known today throughout Palestine and continue to be sung at national events, weddings and cultural celebrations. Ibrahim himself died struggling for Palestine eight years later, as a fighter in the movement of Izzedine al-Qassam in the 1936-39 revolution in Palestine. After being imprisoned in Akka prison himself, he was killed by the British colonial army in a battle in the Westen Galilee.

Today, over 220 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli occupation prisons since 1967. 72 of them were killed as a result of Israeli torture, including three hunger strikers, Izhak Maragha, Ali Ja’afari and Rasim Halawa, killed by torturous forced feeding in 1980. Over 40 days ago, long-term hunger striker Khader Adnan’s life was taken after 86 days of hunger strike; the occupation continues to imprison his body after his death. The Israeli state constantly threatens the reimposition of the death penalty, and extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir and allies promote the killing of Palestinian prisoners as a tool to win elections. In the meantime, this practice is a daily reality, with escalating extrajudicial executions – particularly against Palestinian youth; “arrest raids” that are in fact assassination raids, from Basil al-Araj  and Moataz Washaha to Ibrahim al-Nabulsi and Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh; and the policy of “slow death” of medical neglect and mistreatment inside occupation prisons, exemplified by the killing of Khader Adnan and the ongoing medical mistreatment of Walid Daqqah, amounting to an execution.

On this anniversary, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network remembers and honors the martyrs of 1930 and their ongoing legacy and role as a symbol of resistance and anti-colonial revolution that reverberates through generations to defend Palestinian land and Palestinian rights, in Jerusalem and throughout occupied Palestine, from Zionism, imperialism and colonization.

Related

• Al-Buraq Revolution: Legacy, Continuing Struggle and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement

UK court rejects Assange appeal, extradition inches closer

8 Jun 2023

Source: Reporters Without Borders

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taken from court where on May 30, 2019 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. (AP)

By Al Mayadeen English 

Julian Assange could face the remainder of his life behind bars for exposing US war crimes.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed serious concern over the decision of the UK High Court to reject Julian Assange‘s appeal of his extradition order, making his possible extradition a possibility closer than ever before. 

Assange could spend the rest of his life in prison for publishing the Wikileaks documents in 2010. 

One justice dismissed all eight grounds of Assange’s appeal against the extradition order signed by then-UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in June 2022 in a judgment delivered on June 6.

Read next: CIA secretly ‘hunting’ Assange activists

This means the defense has five days left to appeal to a panel of two judges that will hold a public hearing.

Further appeals will be barred at the local level, but Assange may take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Rebecca Vincent, the RSF’s Director of Campaigns called the decision “absurd,” adding that this could impact the climate for journalism around the world.

“The historical weight of what happens next cannot be overstated; it is time to put a stop to this relentless targeting of Assange and act instead to protect journalism and press freedom. Our call on President Biden is now more urgent than ever: drop these charges, close the case against Assange, and allow for his release without further delay.”

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, tweeted that he would renew his application to the High Court and that they would “remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government.”

Statement:

On Tuesday next week my husband Julian Assange will make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court. The matter will then proceed to a public hearing before two new judges at the High Court and we remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not…

— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 8, 2023

Assange has been at the Belmarsh prison in London for more than 1,500 days. He was unlawfully charged in the US with 17 counts of “espionage” and one count of computer misuse, connected to him leaking tens of thousands of military and diplomatic documents that exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Julian Assange's lawyer recently cited suicide as a possible outcome if the Australian is extradited to the #US on his espionage charges.
Here's a timeline of some key dates from Assange’s life.#JulianAssange #FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/FTSGibxwQO

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) October 30, 2021

RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire and Director of Campaigns Rebecca Vincent were unfairly denied access to Assange at Belmarsh jail, while RSF continues to push for Assange’s release on a worldwide scale.

In RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index, the United Kingdom is placed 26th out of 180 nations, while the United States is ranked 45th.

El Pais reported on Monday that the owner of the Spanish security company UC Global, S.L. that spied on Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, David Morales, stored his files for the work he did for the CIA on his laptop.

The former marine and Spanish soldier spied on the meetings that Assange and his lawyers conducted at the Embassy of Ecuador in the UK, stored the data in a folder marked ‘CIA’, and sent them to the US intelligence agency.

This comes after The Sydney Morning Herald wrote on Wednesday that US authorities are attempting to gather new evidence about Assange in an apparent effort to strengthen their case against him even as hopes grow among his supporters that a diplomatic breakthrough will soon see him released from prison.

• Julian Assange
• Britain
• United States
• United Kingdom