From time to time, I gather and compile basic statistics on US / NATO/ Swedish flights principally near to Russia, (articles posted on my blog). The idea is to get a rough snapshot of the activity, location and types of aircraft that carry out intelligence-gathering missions, broadly known as Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance, (ISR), as well as those in direct support of those missions. It is a thankless and time-consuming task, but hopefully it can offer a semblance of having a wider perspective on issues, other than just riding on emotional off-one events, without providing any context.
The US and NATO (and Sweden) routinely send out a variety of aircraft dedicated for ISR missions along or in proximity to Russia. These missions are tasked with monitoring the military status quo, namely the movement of units and in particular the deployment of equipment and ships. Given the ongoing Ukraine-Russia tensions, the data collecting took on another aspect in the last month, namely what kind of activity and response could be seen. Well, the answer is that the skies got a little more crowded in April.
Going through the figures for April shows a marked overall increase in ISR the Black Sea region compared to other regions. Not surprising considering the military build-up in Crimea and in southern Russia, in response to the re-deployment of Ukrainian military hardware and units to Eastern Ukraine.
All the data obtained is done through trawling through social media accounts who track via ADS-B, Mode-S and MLAT sites, to identify the type of aircraft, location, and nationality of the aircraft. Invariably, there are some flights that are missed, because only those that had transponders active in each location were logged. For example, there were certainly more flights off the Norway, Barents Sea and in the GIUK region than I managed to record.
Some points to retain:
Intensification of flights in the Black Sea, (Crimea, Southern Russia FIR). Although the use of unmanned RQ-4B Global Hawks over Eastern Ukraine and Northern Georgia has been going on for a long time, (years in fact), there was an uptick of activities, (Graph 1) in April. Given their 250km reported ‘visual’ range, they can scan a wide swath of land. Unusually, on several occasions in April, two RQ-4B operated at the same time in the region. Prior to April, most of the ISR flight paths were fairly regular in character, this wasn’t the case several times during April, in particular the RQ-4B flights.
Being unmanned, this is the only US / NATO aircraft that carries out missions over territorial airspace over Ukraine and Georgia. For a short time, a RQ-4B was brought in from the Middle East to carry air missions. Many of these flights did not have habitual flight track of prior ISR missions in certain areas, (Eastern Ukraine, Crimean coastline, and Georgia), often orbiting or making multiple tracking back and forth passes.
A comparison is provided below between the number of flights between February, March, and April. The figures for March or February were not different to previous months, so, a big change in frequency. To sum up, the redeployment of Ukrainian military units did not bring about changes in air missions but the Russian redeployments to the area certainly influenced US and NATO military brass in despatching aircraft to the region.
Another noticeable increase in flights is that of the US Navy P-8 Poseidon flights along the northern Black Sea coastline region. Flights were almost a daily occurrence and this unprecedented as far I know. However, this is partially consistent with the fact that the Russian Navy units started a series of naval exercises in the Black Sea over April, (some of the media reports below to get a gist of the frequency and intensity).
It has to be noted that the flights take place in international airspace, but some of the flights tracked closely the 12 nautical miles limit. As with the other ISR aircraft (Rivet Joint, EP3 Aries), the flight route taken were fairly consistent, going along the whole coast of Crimea, flying all the way down to the sea area adjoining Sochi and towards Novorossiysk, (which I refer to as Southern Russia FIR), and then returning back along the coastline.
Boeing P-8s contrary to social media pundits aren’t just submarine hunters, (“must be looking for a Kilo” fare), but in addition to their anti-submarine warfare (ASW), P-8s have anti-surface warfare (ASUW), and shipping interdiction roles. In other words, maritime domain intelligence.
Another interesting aspect that is noteworthy is the increase in intelligence-gathering flights along the Russian Far East, (Kamchatka and Anadyr). This ties in with press releases and videos on interceptions by the RuAF, where Russian Air Force MiG-31 high-altitude fighter intercepted an USAF RC-135W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft off the coast of Kamchatka.
Often, several type of ISR missions were taking place simultaneously in the Black Sea region, (usually a combination of P-8 and Rivet Joint, or P-8 with Global Hawks). This means that several types of intelligence gathering are carried out, (maritime, ELINT, etc…). This situation
The above graph shows the ISR missions carried out in April was done daily around many regions from the Baltic to the Barents Sea.
The overall snapshot for April across many regions is shown in the above graph, the Baltic region, being the second busiest region overall.
So, how do these figures compare to those for March?
The Black Sea region in April swapped places with the Baltic region, to lead by a wide margin. To note that I have split the Black Sea region into different sectors, to distinguish the location of flights. The Black Sea region is the overall total, which includes flights that did not enter Crimean, Russian FIRs but were in support of other ISR missions. Generally, this does not include Turkish flights in the southern Black Sea sector, as such the only flights that are counted are those support of other flights monitoring Russian military activities. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to confirm whether a RQ-4B flight went to Eastern Ukraine or Georgia, so it may be expected that the figures that I have are lower than in reality.
The main types of aircraft that carried out various intelligence-gathering missions in the Black Sea region are listed above. While some (the E-3 AWACS, Peace Eagle) stayed over land, their location of activity suggested support for overall intelligence-gathering operations linked to Russian military activities and units.
No surprise to say that it is the US military that flies the most often, with the UK in second place.
Lastly, as an interesting comparison with my dataset, here is a graph showing the numbers of air flights along Russian borders, (including the unmanned aircraft) along with interceptions carried out since the beginning of the year, as regularly reported by the Russian Ministry of Defence. As you can surmise, a lot more aerial activity takes place in proximity to Russia generally, (Not just ISR flights but air tankers, U2s and maybe bomber flights are possibly included in the figures). These figures probably also include other non-NATO aircraft elsewhere near to Russia.
Getting this level of official data from NATO and NORAD would be a rarity and as such, it is nearly impossible to compare data for Russian military flights, as the data is rather opaque compared that of the Russian MoD. Add in a level of obfuscation, as this quote shows the typical situation: ““NORAD responded to more Russian military flights off the coast of Alaska than we’ve seen in any year since the end of the Cold War” General Glen Van Herck’s briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2020.
Define highest as per the yearly data (which is not available)
Why reference it to the end of the Cold War? I find it rather misleading to use the basic value as “the end of the Cold War”, whether for aircraft and submarines.
The average NORAD interceptions in the USA/ Canada ADIZ, since 2013 is between 10-16 (roughly), PER YEAR. According to the Russian MoD, there were 10 interceptions for the whole of April alone.
Conclusion
The northern part of the Black Sea region has come under close scrutiny for April regarding US/NATO air missions, and it does not show any signs of decreasing in frequency as yet, (as I write this, there are 2 Global Hawks operating in the region). Yet other areas continue to be monitored as attentively as in previous months on a daily basis.
It highlights the continued need for intelligence by Washington and Brussels on all aspects of Russian military activities and units.
NB: For anyone interested in the naval sitreps side of activities, I have produced a series of them for March and April: https://natsouth.livejournal.com/19905.html concerning the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Red Sea. I regularly update the sitreps with a Twitter thread of additional events.
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COVID assumptions – the assumptions people make about COVID, how dangerous it is, how it spreads and what we need to do to stop it – are running rampant, running far more wildly than the supposed virus SARS-CoV2 itself. The coldly calculated campaign of propaganda surrounding this ‘pandemic’ has achieved its aim. Besieged with a slew of contradictory information coming from all angles, people in general have succumbed to confusion. Some have given up trying to understand the situation and found it is just easier to obey official directives, even if it means giving up long-held rights. Below is a list of commonly held COVID assumptions which, if you believe them, will make you much more likely to submit to the robotic, insane and abnormal conditions of the New Normal – screening, testing, contact tracing, monitoring, surveillance, mask-wearing, social distancing, quarantine and isolation, with mandatory vaccination and microchipping to come.
Cotton’s proposal, stuffed with lucrative giveaways to the defense industry — $1.6 billion for “logistics and security enablers,” $775 million for “building national resilience to space weather,” among others — bears little apparent relevance to the military equation in Asia and is unlikely to be embraced by a majority of Senators. However, many of his proposed budgetary add-ons have been incorporated into other measures aimed at boosting U.S. military might in the Asia-Pacific region.
On July 3, 1945, the great atomic scientist Leo Szilard finished a letter/petition that would become the strongest (virtually the only) real attempt at halting President Truman’s march to using the atomic bomb–still almost two weeks from its first test at Trinity–against Japanese cities.
We rarely hear that as the Truman White House made plans to use the first atomic bombs against Japan in the summer of 1945, a large group of atomic scientists, many of whom had worked on the bomb project, raised their voices, or at least their names, in protest. They were led by the great physicist Szilard who, among things, is the man who convinced Albert Einstein to write his famous yes-it-can-be-done letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, setting the bomb project in motion.
The Arctic is once again on fire. And the extremely warm temperatures in the region — and concurrent wildfires — are another urgent reminder that we need to divest from fossil fuels as soon as possible.
They are a pressing reminder that any post COVID-19 bailout should be focused on an immediate just recovery toward industry workers, renewables, and clean energy.
It should surprise no one paying attention that the suspect in the recent stabbing spree in Reading, UK was not only known to British security agencies as an extremist and security threat, but that he comes from the pool of extremists the British aided Washington in funding, arming, training, and providing air support for during the 2011 overthrow of the Libyan government and have harbored before and ever since.
Why is the media so fixated on Sweden’s coronavirus policy? What difference does it make?
Sweden settled on a policy that they thought was both sustainable and would save as many lives as possible. They weren’t trying to ‘show anyone up’ or ‘prove how smart they were’. They simply took a more traditionalist approach that avoided a full-scale lockdown. That’s all.
Two of the US’s top “strategic threats” are getting closer and closer within the scope of the New Silk Roads – the leading 21st century project of economic integration across Eurasia. The Deep State will not be amused.
As an intellectual exercise let’s think of an imaginary state, “State A.” Our fictional State A is devastated that 100 of its citizens are infected with Covid-19. For this exercise, we accept that these 100 citizens are representative of State A‘s demography, classes, ethnicities and so on. Apparently, State A’s nightmare is just the beginning because out of its 100 Covid-19 carriers, not one survives the next three weeks.
Let’s now imagine another case, we will call “State B.” State B is similar to state A in terms of its size, population, geography, climate, culture, ethnicity, nutrition, etc. In State B 100 citizens also tested positive for Covid-19. Following the experience of State A, State B braces itself for the possibility that all its infected citizens may perish but then for reasons that are not yet clear to us, no one in state B dies. And if this is not different enough, hardly any of the 100 develop any symptoms.
The crude difference between State A and B may tell us something about the herd immunity in States A and B. It is easy to detect that the ratio created by the number of fatalities (F) divided by the number of those infected (I) is an indication of the level of immunity or ‘herd immunity’ in a given region or a state.
State A: F/I = 100/100=1 State B: F/I = 0/100=0
State A’s immunity ratio equals 1. This means that anyone who contracts the virus in State A will likely die. In state B, on the other hand, one is likely to survive the virus. In fact, they may, without knowing it, have already survived.
But let us now consider some more realistic cases. In “State C,” again, a state similar to A and B, out of 100 who tested Covid-19 positive, 10 people died within the next few weeks.
State C: F/I=10/100=0.1
The herd immunity ratio in State C is 0.1. In terms of herd immunity, State C is far better off than State A as a virally infected subject may benefit from a 0.9 chance to survive. But State C’s situation is not as good as in State B where no one is expected to die as the F/I ratio in State B is O. We can see that the smaller the F/I ratio is, the greater is the herd immunity in a given state or a region.
But let us look at another realistic case. In “State D” out of 100 patients only 1 died within a few weeks.
State D: F/I=1/100=0.01.
This means that in State D the herd immunity is close to perfect. Someone who contracts the Covid-19 virus has only a remote chance that he will lose his life. In other words, the survival rate is 0.99
State C and D are not completely imaginary cases. The F/I ratio in State C is a good representation of the numbers we saw in Northern Italy, NYC, Spain, UK and other vulnerable regions that have suffered heavily in the last few weeks. The ratio in State D is very similar to South Korea and Israel. Though many people are identified with Covid-19 in these two states alone, very few have died.
Such a methodical search for herd immunity ratio may help to identify the survival rate in different states, regions and cities. It may help us to determine policy; to decide who, what and how to lockdown or maybe not to lockdown at all. It can also help to locate the origin and the spreaders of the disease as we have a good reason to believe that the regions with the most immunity to a given viral infection have likely experienced the disease in the past and have developed some form of resistance.
In reality, this model is problematic for many reasons and can hardly be applied. As things stand (in reality), we are comparing data that was collected under different circumstances and using various procedures designed with completely different strategies and philosophies. Both Israel and South Korea, for instance, conducted testing on mass scale and hence, identified many more carriers. More crucially both Israel and S. Korea made a huge effort to identify super spreaders and applied strict isolation measures to those spreaders and those who were infected by them. Britain, USA and Italy on the other hand conducted limited testing and have generally tested those who developed symptoms or were suspected of being infected.
Dr. Erickson COVID-19 Briefing – “millions of cases, small amount of death, millions of cases, small amount of death..”
But there is a far greater problem with the above herd immunity ratio model. It assumes that we know what we are dealing with i.e., an infectious viral situation, while the evidence may point otherwise.
The Radioactive Clock
It has become clear that the health crisis we are facing isn’t consistent with anything we are familiar with. Those who predicted a colossally genocidal plague weren’t necessarily stupid or duplicitous. They assumed that they knew the root cause of the current crisis. They applied recognized models and algorithms associated with viral pandemics. They ended up eating their words, not because their models were wrong but because they applied their models to the wrong event. While no one can deny the alarming exponential growth of the disease, it is the unusual ‘premature’ curve-flattening point and then the rapid decline of infections which no one explained. In fact, some still prefer to deny it.
Many of us remember that our so-called ‘experts’ initially tended to accuse China of ‘hiding the real figures’ as no one could believe that the virus, all of a sudden, pretty much ran out of steam. Some also claimed that Iran was faking its figures to make its regime look better. Then came South Korea and the scientific community started to admit that despite its initial rapid exponential growth, for an unexplained reason, the ‘virus’ seems to run out of energy in an unpredictable fashion: the curve straightens out almost abruptly and starts to drop soon after, almost literally disappearing to the point where even a country as enormous as China passes days without diagnosing a single new Covid-19 carrier.
When Italy experienced its Corona carnage, every health ‘expert’ predicted that when the ‘virus’ slipped out of the rich Lombardy region and made it to the poor south, we would see real genocide. That didn’t happen.
Rarely we see scientists sticking their necks out telling the truth. This interview with Swedish Prof. Johan Giesecke is a must watch!
We have also started to notice that lockdowns have not necessarily saved the situation and that adopting relatively light ‘lockdown’ measures doesn’t translate into a total disaster as Sweden has managed to prove. The ‘virus,’ appears to stop spreading according to its own terms rather than the terms we impose upon it.
Thinking about the anomalies to do with the virus in analytical mathematical terms, as opposed to seeing the virus in biological or medical terms, has made me believe that a paradigm shift may be inevitable. We seem to have been applying the wrong kind of science to a phenomenon that is not really clear to us. This may explain what led a British ‘scientist’ to reach a ludicrous and farfetched estimate that Britain could be heading towards an astronomic death figure of 510.000. Following the same flawed algorithm, Anthony Fauci advised the American president that America could see two million dead. Both scientists were wrong by a factor of 25-40 times. Such a mistake in scientific prediction should be unforgivable considering the damage it inflicted on the world’s economy and its future. One might say that the good news is that our governments are finally listening to scientists, the tragedy, however, is that they are listening to the most idiotic scientists around.
Looking at the tsunami of raw data regarding worldwide spread of Covid 19 reveals a lot, perhaps more than we are willing to admit at this stage. The numbers, the shape of the Corona growth curve and the manner in which it flattens and declines suggests to me that something different may be at play. It seems as if the disease is shaped by an autonomous internal clock that determines its time frame and that it is not impeded by any form of organic resistance such as antibodies or herd immunity. The curve’s rise toward that flattening instant is indeed characterized by consistent and exponential growth. But then, in a seemingly arbitrary manner, the disaster stops its increase and the numbers of those infected by Covid-19 starts to drop.
Looking for such a pattern that produces an exponential growth that comes to a sudden end calls to attention the concepts of radioactivity in general and of the half-life in particular.
Each radioactive isotope has its own decay pattern. The rate at which a radioactive isotope decays is measured in ‘half-life.’ The term half-life is defined as the time it takes for one-half of the atoms of a radioactive material to disintegrate. Radioactive decay is the disintegration of an unstable atom with an accompanying emission of radiation. The change from an unstable atom to a completely stable atom may require several disintegration steps and radiation will be given off at each step.
Half-life is a measurement of time (set by the radioactive isotope) that involves a repeated release of radiation. Each time radiation is released the radioactive isotope is splitting in half, this repeats until it either reaches stability or maybe becomes ineffective. If you bear the half-life dynamic in mind you can see how one person can ‘infect’ or shall I say, radiate an entire stadium a few times over during a two hour football match. All it takes is a radioisotope with a half-life cycle of a few seconds.
Once the atom reaches a stable configuration, no more radiation is given off. For this reason, radioactive sources become weaker with time, as more and more unstable atoms become stable atoms, less radiation is produced and eventually the material will become non-radioactive. I wonder whether this could provide an explanation for the abrupt curve flattening that is associated with Covid-19
What may be possible is that Covid 19 is not the root cause of the current disease, it may instead be a by-product of a radioactive interaction. I am not in any position to substantiate this theory. Instead, I offer an alternative way of thinking about the problem that may shed light on the situation. If Covid-19 is a by-product of radiation, then the sudden decrease in radioactivity due to the nature of half-life reactions can explain why the virus loses its growth energy when it seems as if it has become unstoppable. If this theory has any merit, then we are misdiagnosing the Corona crisis, misapplying the science and implementing the wrong strategies. It may also indicate that herd immunity won’t work, as we are not dealing with a viral infection but instead becoming ourselves, a source of radiation.
This theory may help explain why Israel and South Korea (State D) were so successful in combating the crisis. It wasn’t the lockdown that saved these countries. It was their aggressive search for and quarantine of super spreaders and those who were potentially radiated by them. Consciously or not, rather than stopping the virus they isolated the catalysts that were leading to the creation of the virus.
Our world is in a grave crisis and could benefit from thinkers who are slightly more creative, sophisticated and responsible than the characters who currently occupy the World Health Organisation, the CDC and London’s Imperial College. But more than anything else, I reiterate once again: we need to escalate our response to the Corona crisis into a criminal investigation so we can figure out every possible error or malevolent act that led humanity into the current grim situation .
Hundreds packed the St Pancras New Church in Euston Thursday night for a meeting demanding freedom for imprisoned WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange.
The largest meeting held in London to date reflects growing opposition to plans by the US government to extradite and imprison Assange for exposing war crimes, illegal mass surveillance and state corruption.
Headlined “Free the Truth,” speakers included UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, former UK ambassador Craig Murray and veteran investigative journalist John Pilger.
An accompanying art exhibition featured paintings, drawings and sculpture, while the meeting opened with a piano recital of “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”—a favourite of Assange. The meeting was organised by academics Deepa Driver and Iain Munro, with the support of the Julian Assange Defence Committee.
Rap artist Lowkey began by quoting the words of jailed Chartist leader Ernest Jones:
“Because I tried to extend your liberties, mine were curtailed. Because I tried to rear the temple of freedom for you all, I was thrown into the cell of a felon’s jail… Because I tried to give voice to truth, I was condemned to silence.”
These words, Lowkey explained, were taken from an article by Karl Marx written in 1852 for the New York Herald Tribune. Marx was then a political refugee in London.
“Julian Assange is not being punished for anything he has done wrong. He is being punished for everything he has done right,” Lowkey said to applause. The brutal treatment of Assange was a “slow motion crucifixion… what they are trying to crucify is the truth.”
Condemning the mainstream media’s vilification of Assange, Lowkey said its journalists were just “stenographers.”
“Those who have joined in this demonization of Julian Assange are like turkeys voting for Christmas. How much profit did you generate off of Julian’s three million cables that WikiLeaks revealed?… Today Julian Assange, tomorrow you.”
Fidel Narvaez(image on the right), former Ecuadorian counsel at the Ecuadorian Embassy, said that Assange was “along with Chelsea Manning, the most important political prisoner in the world today.”
The allegations against Assange in Sweden had never been credible and the investigation had been “opened and shut more times than a fridge door.” Assange was being “denied the chance to adequately prepare his defence against the fiercest persecution of a journalist so far this century, which is a powerful reason to demand due process for Julian Assange.”
Narvaez said, “Julian’s case is also a precedent for the institution of political asylum, because he, along with Edward Snowden, was the most important political asylee in the world.” His treatment was an attack on a small country, Ecuador, by some of the most powerful nations in the world.
“Ecuador had every sovereign right to determine whether Julian Assange was being politically persecuted in 2012. In order to protect him from the odious persecution of a Grand Jury…that can open a secret investigation against you and indict you on secret charges that will only be revealed once you are arrested. That is what happened to Julian Assange this April.”
“This Grand Jury wants to sentence a journalist to 175 years in prison for publishing truthful information about war crimes,” he said. For years the world’s media had attacked the warnings made by Assange about the existence of a Grand Jury “as paranoia…an excuse to hide from Swedish justice.”
The United Nations had ruled that Assange was being subject to arbitrary detention and the UK should free him and provide compensation. Lenin Moreno’s government had “committed the crime of delivering a political refugee to those who persecuted him.” This had broken the “sacred principle of asylum.”
Lisa Longstaff (image on the left) from Women Against Rape addressed the meeting.
“The pursuit of Julian Assange is not about rape. It’s the US government weaponising and distorting rape in order to punish him for the WikiLeaks exposés of war crimes, rape and torture.”
“In 2010 and 2012, we pointed to the unusual zeal with which Julian Assange was being pursued. It’s unlike any other rape investigation we’ve seen anywhere… In his case the judicial process was corrupted from the beginning.”
“Evidence emerged that the UK ordered Sweden not to drop the case sooner,” Longstaff explained, “so it’s clearly politically motivated.”
Longstaff said,
“Rape and sexual allegations have been used to pursue a political agenda from the start, intent on actually hiding rape, hiding torture and hiding murder committed by the state. They are the rapists, they are the racists, they are the murderers.”
Professor Nils Melzer(image on the right) was given a prolonged standing ovation. He explained that his mandate as UN Special Rapporteur on Torture was to report to states when their actions contravened international law. He had assumed that signatories to international law would “act in good faith.”
“In my investigation I found that this isn’t about the law…because if it was about the law, then Julian Assange would not be sitting in extradition detention, accused of espionage for having exposed serious misconduct on the part of states, including war crimes.”
Assange, he explained, would not have been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for a bail violation for seeking and receiving political asylum, or had his asylum terminated and his citizenship withdrawn by Ecuador without explanation, or been portrayed as a suspected rapist by Sweden for more than nine years with no charges ever brought.
He would have been granted the right to prepare his defence and would not be detained in a high security prison, “under oppressive conditions of isolation and surveillance” and facing extradition for a political offence in contravention of UK law, “to a country where he will be exposed to a politicised trial, with secret evidence, behind closed doors, facing draconian punishments that is unlawful under US law and the First Amendment and sentencing to a supermax prison for the rest of his life.”
Assange’s persecution, he stressed, “is about setting an example, about scaring other journalists away, of instilling fear, preventing others from following the example of Julian Assange and of WikiLeaks, and to show to the world what happens when you expose the misconduct of the power of a state.”
During his May 9 visit with Assange at Belmarsh Prison, he had “found typical evidence of someone who has been exposed to a prolonged period of psychological torture,” Melzer explained. “Psychological torture is not ‘torture lite.’ Psychological torture aims to wreck and destroy the person’s personality and identity…to make them break.”
“We were able during our medical examination to confirm that this ill treatment had already had neurological consequences. If that is not stopped, it can end up having irreversible consequences on the cardiovascular system and the neurological system. This is extremely serious… Today I am extremely concerned for his life.”
Melzer had written to the UK, Sweden, the US and Ecuador to present his conclusions and ask them to take urgent measures to alleviate the pressure on Julian Assange and protect his human rights. All refused to do so:
“If they no longer engage with the institutions that they have created to report their compliance with human rights, then I only see a very dark future for us and our human rights and for the rights of our children.”
Clinical psychologist Lissa Johnson(image on the left) spoke on behalf of more than 60 medical doctors who have issued an open letter calling for Assange’s urgent transfer from Belmarsh Prison to a tertiary care hospital:
“If the UK government fails to heed their advice there will be very serious consequences, including that Julian Assange may die in prison.”
Johnson cited the findings of medical experts led by Nils Melzer who examined Assange inside Belmarsh on May 9:
“Julian does show signs typical for someone exposed for a prolonged time to psychological torture… the doctors know that is very serious physically for Julian’s life and survival.”
Pointing to the public’s response to worldwide media coverage of the doctors’ open letter, she observed,
“There’s a lot more public support for Julian than the media’s censorship and antagonism toward him suggests.”
“While institutions are failing us, while authorities are failing us, while the courts are failing us, here’s a group of people who took a matter of weeks to get this letter together. I think that’s where the pressure and the change is going to come.”
Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray(image on the right), began his remarks by pointing to the meeting’s magnificent venue. At the rear of the church were monuments erected to honour those families—the Burnleys of Barbados, the Beale family of Canton, the Page family of Bombay—who gave funds to build the church and who were doubtless involved in the slavery and opium trade.
“This building is like the British Establishment itself—on the surface it is beautiful, solid and harmonious, but inside it is rotten and corrupt to the core,” he said.
“We are seeing illegality in the treatment of Julian Assange. The abuses of process by the British justice system throughout the last decade have been absolutely astonishing,” Murray recounted. “There is no legality, there is no justice.”
“It is not only that he is the victim of torture. It’s not only that his life is at stake. It is not only that we need to save him from this dreadful injustice. We also want to save him because the world needs Julian Assange as a symbol of resistance!”
Historian, author and journalistMark Curtis(image on the left) told the audience, “Julian has support all over the world.” He suggested actions that people could take to fight for Assange’s freedom, beginning with information available on the defend.wikileaks.org website. “Obviously there’s no point in relying on the establishment media, not unless you want to brainwash yourself.”
Curtis attacked the “propaganda tropes” employed by the media against Assange—that he is a “rapist,” a “Russian asset,” a “supporter of Trump”—singling out the Guardian’s November 2018 fabrication that Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort had met Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.
He called for mass pressure on human rights organisations to actively defend Assange, pointing to Amnesty International’s refusal to designate Assange a “prisoner of conscience.” He called on MPs to follow the lead of former Labour MP Chris Williamson who has campaigned publicly in Assange’s defence.
The audience gave a loud ovation for the twice-suspended Labour MP, who was present, and who quit the party this month after it refused to endorse him as candidate for Derby North. Curtis explained that just four MPs had signed an early day motion moved by Williamson in defence of Assange. (Neither Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn nor Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott signed that motion).
“These are the people who are meant to represent us and hold the executive to account. I know I’m confusing the UK with a democracy… In our system, which we clearly see in this case, the law has been stitched-up, the media is a platform for the elite and the political class is an appendage of the executive. That’s why we, as ordinary people, need to take action on these issues.”
He urged the audience to become involved in grassroots organisations such as the Julian Assange Defence Committee and to take part in events being organised in the weeks ahead, “culminating in a global day of protest in February when the extradition hearing will be held.”
The final speaker, Australian journalist John Pilger, told the audience he had visited Assange in Belmarsh Prison earlier that day. He described his visit with Julian and the draconian security regime inside the prison for visitors and inmates. A transcript of Pilger’s report is posted separately.
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Much has been said about NATO reinforcements in the Baltic States and Poland perceived in Moscow as provocative actions undermining security in Europe, while very little has been said about gradual but steady militarization of Scandinavia. The theme does not hit headlines and it is not in focus of public discourse but one step is taken after another to turn the region into a springboard for staging offensive actions against Russia.
Ørland in southern Norway is being expanded to become Norway’s main air force base hosting US-made F-35 Lightnings – the stealth aircraft to become the backbone of Norwegian air power. Norway has purchased 56 of such aircraft. F-35 is an offensive, not defensive, weapon. The nuclear capable platforms can strike deep into Russia’s territory.
Providing training to Norwegian pilots operating the planes carrying nuclear weapons, such as B61-12 glider warheads, constitutes a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968. Article I of the NPT prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons from NWS (nuclear weapons states) to other states: «Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices». Article II requires NNWS (non-nuclear weapons states) not to receive nuclear weapons: «Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transfer or whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices». How can Russia be sure that these aircraft don’t carry nuclear weapons when there is no agreement of any kind in place to verify compliance with the NPT?
Ørland is located near Værnes – the base that hosts 330 US Marines. In May, the base hosted the biennial NATO military exercise «Arctic Challenge Exercise 2017» to involve over 100 planes from 12 nations. It was the first time a US strategic bomber (B-52H) took part in the training event.
The choice of the base was carefully calculated to keep the planes away from the reach of Russian Iskander missiles (500 kilometres) but no location in Norway is beyond the operational range of Kalibr ship-based sea-to-shore missiles and aircraft armed with long-range air-to-surface missiles.
In June, Norway’s government announced that the decision was taken to extend the rotational US Marine Corps force stationed at Værnes through 2018. The move contradicts the tried-and-true Norwegian policy of not deploying foreign military bases in the country in times of peace.
Also in June, the United States, United Kingdom and Norway agreed in principle to create a trilateral coalition built around the P-8 maritime aircraft to include joint operations in the North Atlantic near the Russian Northern Fleet bases.
Norway is to contribute into NATO ballistic missile defense (BMD) system by integrating its Globus II/III radar in the Vardøya Island located near the Russian border just a few kilometers from the home base of strategic submarines and 5 Aegis-equipped Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates. The radar construction is underway. The Vardøya radar can distinguish real warheads from dummies. Another radar located in Svalbard (the Arctic) can also be used by US military for missile defense purposes.
The country’s ground forces are stationed in Lithuania as part of a NATO multinational force under German command.
Sweden, a close NATO ally, has been upgrading its military with a sharp hike in spending. Last December, the Swedish government told municipal authorities to prepare civil defense infrastructure and procedures for a possible war. The move was prompted by the country’s return to the Cold War-era ‘Total Defense Strategy’. In September, 2016, 150 troops were put on permanent service on the island of Gotland to «defend it from Russia». Sweden maintained a permanent military garrison on Gotland for hundreds of years until 2005.The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has ordered a review of 350 civilian bunkers on the island. The shelters are designed to protect people against the shock wave and radiation from a nuclear detonation, as well as chemical and biological weapons.
In March, Stockholm announced plans to reintroduce compulsory military service abandoned in 2010. The conscription will come into force on January 1, 2018.
Sweden said in June it wishes to join a British-led «Joint Expeditionary Force», making Swedish participation in a general European war all but inevitable.
This month, the Swedish military announced plans to conduct its largest joint military exercise with NATO in 20 years. Called Aurora 17, the training event is scheduled for September. The drills will take place across the entire country but focusing on the Mälardalen Valley, the areas around cities of Stockholm and Gothenberg and on the strategic island of Gotland. More than 19,000 Swedish troops will take part along with 1,435 soldiers from the US, 270 from Finland, 120 from France and between 40-60 each from Denmark, Norway, Lithuania and Estonia.
In June, Russian President Putin warned «If Sweden joins NATO this will affect our relations in a negative way because we will consider that the infrastructure of the military bloc now approaches us from the Swedish side».
In June, 2016, Finland took part in NATO BALTOPS naval exercise. It was the first time NATO forces trained on Finnish territory (The coastal area at Syndale). Back then, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Finnish counterpart, Timo Soini, that the Kremlin would take unspecified measures to respond to increased NATO activity in the Baltic region. According to Lavrov, «We do not hide our negative attitude to the movement of NATO’s military infrastructure towards our borders, to dragging new states into the military activity of the bloc».
All these facts and events summed together demonstrate that militarization of Scandinavia is progressing by leaps and bounds to undermine the security in Europe. No hue and cry is raised in the Russian media but the developments are closely watched by Moscow. Visiting Finland on July 27, President Putin said Russia was «keeping an eye on certain intensification in the movement of military aircraft, ships and troops. In order for us to avoid negative consequences, situations that no one wants, we need to maintain dialogue». He also stressed readiness for dialogue with neutral countries that border the Baltic Sea like Finland which is not part of the NATO military alliance.
The facts listed above show the situation is grave enough to top the agenda of the NATO-Russia Council. But it’s not the case as yet. Last year, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current President of Germany who was Foreign Minister at the time, slammed NATO for «saber-rattling and war cries» and provocative military activities in the proximity of Russia’s borders. He called for an arms control deal between the West and Russia. Fifteen other members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) joined Steinmeier’s initiative: France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Portugal.
Actually, the initiative to relaunch the negotiation process does not belong to Germany. Russia’s proposal to discuss a new European security treaty was rejected by the West. The draft document was published in 2009. In March 2015, Russia expressed its readiness for negotiations concerning a new agreement regarding the control of conventional weapons in Europe.
Moscow has never rejected the idea of launching talks to address the problem. It does not reject it now. The NATO-Russia Council could make a contribution into launching discussions on the matter. It has not done so as yet. Actually, nothing is done to ease the tensions in Europe and the Scandinavian Peninsula in particular. Meanwhile, the situation is aggravating misunderstandings and whipping up tensions
Swedish Doctors for Human Rights [swedhr.org] analyzed videos, the rescue after an alleged attack by Syrian government forces. The doctors found that the videos were counterfeit, where even Arabic stage directions were overheard, and that the alleged “Rescue” in actuality is a murder.
On first analysis, it looked as though the doctors working on the child assumed he was already dead.
However, after broader investigation, our team ascertained that the boy was unconscious from an overdose of opiates. The video shows the child receiving injections in his chest, perhaps in the area of the heart and was eventually killed while a clearly fake adrenaline injection was administered.
This was a murder.
The doctors determined in its analysis:
• The video should be life-saving measures after a chemical attack with chlorine gas [now claimed to be Sarin-not possible], including injection of adrenaline via syringe with a long needle into the heart of an infant. In no way were treatments correctly given for any potential chemical agent.
• The handling and treatment of the child was done in a manner that was careless, dangerous and likely to cause serious harm.
• Most telling is the fake repeated shots of adrenalin, supposedly into the heart. The medical personnel, and I think we can safely call them actors at this point, failed to push the plunger on the needle. Thus, the contents of the syringe were never injected as is clearly visible in the video itself.
• The visible diagnosis by a team of actual medical experts, based on what is observed in the video, indicates that the child was suffering from an injection of opiates and was likely dying of an overdose. There is no evidence of any other agent, chemical or otherwise.
• None of the children in the videos showed any sign of being a victim of a chemical attack. From an earlier video by the White Helmets:
• It was clear that the faked injection with the long needle administered through the stitches murdered the child in the video. This was a purposeful killing staged to appear as medical treatment.
• Behind the fake translation of the videos, the actual Arabic included stage directions for positioning the child for the video, not for medical treatment.
This was followed by more macabre discoveries in the videos not seen initially in the article White Helmets Movie: Updated Evidence from Swedish Doctors Confirm Fake Life Saving Practices Injure Children.
The collective findings of the Swedish doctors [swedhr] with regard to the propaganda and fakery by al-Qaeda in Syria: (Al Nusra) are in line with the findings of leading German and International Scientists for Syria War.
[ Ed. note – In a post I put up on Monday I wrote, “The US government’s unquenchable thirst for overturning other governments is the greatest threat to world peace today.” Apparently 60 percent of the people of Sweden agree with me. Below is a news story on a recent poll conducted in Sweden; the video above supplies an analysis on the conflict in Syria, but also mentions the poll. ]
The number of Swedes who believe the US is one of the major threats to world peace and security has jumped to 60 percent, an annual poll has shown, with officials noting a 6 percentage points jump since last year.
The biggest changes in the way the Swedes see the world’s civil preparedness, security policy and defense have occurred in their attitude towards the United States, the recent poll carried out by the Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) suggests.
The MSB poll was conducted from December 9-14, after Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential elections in November.
“That is a significant change,” MSB general director Helena Lindberg said of the jump from 54 percent in 2015 to 60 percent in 2016, according to Swedish daily Sydsvenska.
Swedes generally (73 percent) express great concern and fear over the current situation in the world, as well as their future. However, nine out of 10 Swedes confirm that Sweden is still “a good country to live in.”
At the same time, 58 percent of people believe that Sweden is likely to see a terrorist attack in the next five years, a slight uptick of 1 percentage point higher than in 2015.
Despite that, the proportion of those who believe that Sweden in five years will be a better country to live in increased from 2015’s 13 percent to 18 percent, while the proportion of those who think that living conditions will be worse decreased from 54 percent to 42 percent.
A political threat from another country seems likely to occur by 47 percent of Swedes, while propaganda or false information spread by foreign states looks probable to 44 percent.
Swedes’ negative perception of Russia has relaxed a bit, with 77 percent calling Russia a threat to the world peace – 5 percentage points less than last year.
More than half of the people who took part in the poll welcomed Sweden’s participation in the EU’s foreign and security policy work, saying it promotes peace and security inside the country. Among the factors affecting peace and security negatively, 55 percent named the influx of asylum-seekers.
More than 1,000 people aged between 18 to 74 took part in the survey.
Sweden’s housing minister, Mehmet Kaplan, resigned Monday partly over comments he made seven years ago comparing “Israel’s” treatment of Palestinians to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany, increasing pressure on an already unpopular government.
The center-left coalition of the Social Democrats and Greens has been strained by an asylum crisis that has forced the government to reverse decades of generous refugee policies and is lagging the center-right opposition bloc in opinion polls.
“Mehmet Kaplan’s overall assessment of the situation is that he will not be able to act as a minister and I share that assessment,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven of the Social Democrats told a news conference.
At the weekend, daily Svenska Dagbladet reported comments made by Kaplan in 2009, before he became a minister, when he said “”Israelis” treat Palestinians in a way that is very like that in which Jews were treated during Germany in the 1930s”.
Relations between Sweden and the “Israeli” entity hit rock bottom in 2014 when the Social Democrat-Green government recognized the Palestinian state.
Kaplan, who was born in Turkey, has also come under criticism for attending a dinner attended by a representative of an ultra-nationalist Turkish organization.
Kaplan told reporters he rejected “all forms of extremism whether they are nationalistic, religious or in any other form”.
His ministerial responsibilities will be shared out until the appointment of a new housing minister.
Both the Social Democrats and Greens have seen their support decline since the 2014 election, in large part due to the refugee crisis.
A Sifo poll commissioned by daily Svenska Dagbladet Saturday showed support for the Social Democrats at 27 percent and for the Greens at 6 percent, down from 31 percent and 7 percent respectively in the 2014 election.
The coalition is also at loggerheads over plans to sell state-owned utility Vattenfall’s German lignite coal operations.
The Green Party is a long-time opponent of coal power and wants the business shut down.
Sophie Willis was attacked by Kaizer the dog in her home
8 Apr 2008 – A four-year-old girl needed 20 stitches to her face after she was savaged by her father’s new dog. Sophie Willis was attacked by the Rottweiler,
The wars of NATO are well-publicized but NATO as an institution remains in the shadows. Does NATO aspire to be a world government? Why did Western European countries join and why have they remained part of the alliance? It is not an egalitarian organization. The United States dominates every aspect of it. Are these supposedly social democratic countries really democracies, or are they banana republics? The traditional banana republic has democratic institutions, but is controlled by military and financial elites which are vassals of the United States.
Why NATO was formed is controversial. The official US justification was fear of an invasion by the Soviet Union to promote communism in Western Europe. There was never any evidence that this might happen, but then anything is possible.
There is evidence that other motives were more important. One was to facilitate the re-arming of Germany by embedding it in a larger military grouping. Western European countries were wary of an independent German military establishment. Another was the desire of pro-capitalist elites to prevent domestic socialist or communist electoral or revolutionary victories. This was much more of a threat than a Soviet invasion.
The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
The operative part is Article 5:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Members are not required to respond with military force; they can decide how far they want to go.
However, NATO is a vast empire with an expanding group of full members, plus networks, partnerships, associates, and guests. The Partnership for Peace includes: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Montenegro, Malta, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan. These nations choose from a “menu” how far they want to go with NATO. Options include joint missions, combating terrorism, crisis response in the NATO Reaction Force (NRF), controlling mines and small arms, disaster rescue, war games, and scientific cooperation.
PfP members aspiring to full membership must have: weapons interoperability (e.g., Eastern Europe countries had to get rid of Russian and old Warsaw Pact arms in favor of Western ones), increase military spending to 2% of the GDP, purge “politically unreliable” personnel from military, defense and security posts, train abroad in NATO military academies, host military exercises, and instruct the officer corps in English for joint overseas operations.
Other NATO associates are the Mediterranean Dialogue countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia; and the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates. Also, there are cooperating members: Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, Pakistan, Republic of Korea. New Zealand, Mongolia. Informally cooperating are Colombia, Honduras, and El Salvador.
NATO’s aggressive “out of area” operations, have been multilateral, with willing participation of NATO members. The official military operations have been in Bosnia (1992-1994), Serbia and Kosovo (1999-present), Afghanistan (2001-present), counter piracy off Somalia coast (2008-present), Libya (2011), Turkey defense (2012-present).
NATO created a global army; the war in Afghanistan was fought by the largest military coalition in history. Finnish and Swedish troops (not full members) have died there; their countries are considering joining NATO. The defeated countries of World War II, which had constitutional provisions and laws against offensive military activity, including sending troops abroad, were also there. Italy and Germany sent troops and Japan provided support services.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg said last December:
NATO is playing a key role in the fight against ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) . . . All NATO allies are part of the coalition, the anti-ISIL coalition, and I think it’s of great importance for the coalition that both NATO allies but also many NATO partners are part of the coalition and they can take advantage of the interoperability that we have developed, our ability to work together which we have developed over many years through NATO military operations but also through NATO exercises. So the backbone of the forces in the coalition is provided by NATO and NATO partners.
NATO downplays its military nature and claims that it is simply the “premier organization of democratic nations.” This claim was part of the inducement for Eastern European countries to join. The new idea of both the US military and NATO is that security is no longer a territorial issue–everything is relevant to it. Any policy of any nation anywhere in the world, concerning economics, human rights, the environment, secession movements, etc., may be a cause of terrorism or create an external threat that needs to be thwarted in advance, by NATO.
NATO is closely connected to military, political, scientific, and corporate elites. Europe now has a huge military-industrial complex. BAE Systems, the largest military firm, is British owned, and has factories in New Hampshire, US, and many other places. The major Italian arms manufacturer, Finmeccanica, and French, Thales, are heavily government supported. EADS is a conglomerate headquartered in the Netherlands, with main subsidiaries in France, Germany and Spain. The Netherlands has recently announced a purchase of 37 F-35 fighter planes; some part of it is made there. Sweden also has a significant very high tech military industry.
The European Union is closely enmeshed with NATO. During its formative period, the original nations sent NATO ambassadors to Paris, its early headquarters. They developed a pro-NATO view which often differed from their governments. Currently, the EU executive and NATO both have headquarters in Brussels.
When information came out about the secret “Gladio” armies, about the thousands of nuclear weapons formerly and some still in Europe, nuclear waste dumps, and testing and use of DU weapons, it became clear that crucial NATO activities are unknown not only to the ordinary citizen, but also to parliamentary representatives and even prime ministers if they are not part of the inner circle. Denmark’s constitution and laws ban nuclear weapons, but they were in Greenland. The complicity of 14 European governments (East and West) in recent renditions of “suspects” was also a surprise to citizens of the greatest democracies. Sweden, not a member (but now a partner), has been secretly aiding NATO since the beginning.
NATO is building a massive new headquarters suitable for a global empire. Among its diverse activities are grants for many types of science research. Ukraine is now a major grantee in its science program, where a multinational capacity for disaster response is being developed. The multinational telemedicine system can be used for both civilian and military applications.
Another project studies images and perceptions of NATO among the five Global Partners in the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea. “The project will conduct comprehensive comparative research of elite perceptions and media images of NATO as a global security actor to identify, measure, and raise global awareness, as well as extend knowledge of NATO in the region.”
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to a Turkish NATO funded researcher, Aziz Sancar, who studied the mechanism of DNA repair. Now that everything affects security, NATO sponsors research in women’s reproductive choices, sustainable development, leather tanning effluent toxicity, landscape architecture, and stained glass preservation. Many projects are conducted jointly by teams including NATO member and PfP nationals, facilitating the mentoring of initiates.
Economic, political, educational, and social activities give NATO a friendly face. Internships at its Brussels headquarters are offered to students of political science, international relations, security studies, economics, engineering, human resources, information technology, library science, aeronautics, and journalism. It gives grants to environmental and other organizations just like a philanthropic foundation. On the other hand, citizens who protest the “out of area” aggressions are often branded as extremists or simply ignored.
NATO training includes massive war games, in which all members and many partners participate. For example, in 2013, “Steadfast Jazz,” a live-fire exercise, included partners Ukraine, Finland, and Sweden.
A network of training institutions exists in Europe, and NATO members are also trained in US military colleges and our great universities. The Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Germany provides combat training, and links European forces with US National Guard units. The Marshall Center for Security Studies, also in Germany, features university-type military training, and like many of the war colleges, educates civilian leaders and potential leaders as well as military personnel.
Military training throughout the world is an important part of the US empire. The US Department of Defense/State Department joint report to Congress for 2014 states that 52,600 people from 155 nations were trained—but this does not include NATO members, Australia, Japan, or New Zealand, because they are not required for the report. All arms sales are accompanied by training.
The relationships acquired through training, conferences, seminars, and joint exercises are a source of considerable power, as these experiences help younger people to move up the ladder to civilian and military leadership in their countries.
Bases are also a source of influence. At one time there were more than 800 in Europe; now it is estimated that there are about 350. Originally, there were hundreds in Germany. Everywhere bases generate economic activity and also enable surveillance and influence, as explained in the fine study by Catherine Lutz, The Bases of Empire.
Why did Western European nations join and now remain in NATO?
There was the idea promoted that the Soviet Union was poised to invade Western Europe. Its dissemination was aided by close links among the CIA, FBI, and foreign intelligence agencies. The foreign press was complicit, and in addition, the CIA and private foundations created new publications, such as Encounter in London, and others in France, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. Conferences, such as those of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, were held to lure European intellectuals away from socialist and pacifist ideologies.
Christian Democratic parties—bulwarks against communism and prime advocates of the “Atlantic alliance”—suddenly sprang up in many countries. They had been small entities before World War II; now they became governing parties, with an especially strong hold in Italy. The massive CIA funding to defeat the Italian Communist Party is well documented; there is evidence that similar activities were in place elsewhere in Europe. The NATO countries in turn financed Christian Democratic parties throughout Latin America.
Occupied Italy and Germany eventually joined NATO; they were already under the influence. In addition, some in those countries regarded membership as a sign of their conversion and redemption: they were with the “democratic” West. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey were fascist countries, so militarism and anti-communism were natural for them.
But why the social democratic countries?
There was fear that Germany might develop an independent military, so embedding any future German army in a US led coalition was reassuring. Besides, the economic costs of each country creating its own high tech military seemed daunting. The UN Charter, which outlawed war, did not forbid national armies or regional alliances. In addition, the officials in the defense ministries of otherwise progressive countries tended to be conservative and believers in armed preparedness. The NATO alliance appeared especially useful in controlling socialist and communist parties within their countries. Those parties generally opposed NATO so had to be countered on that ground alone.
Ongoing support for NATO had the help of the Bilderberg group. This conspiratorial elite first met in the Netherlands in 1954, and consists of the power elite and potential leaders of North America and Western Europe. The group was especially concerned with the threat of socialism or communism from whatever source and was strongly oriented toward the Atlantic alliance. No formal resolutions are made or policies adopted. It is assumed that the members will apply the sense of the meeting in their exalted positions.
Public opinion in war-torn and impoverished Europe was influenced by Marshall Plan aid, which warmed up attitudes toward the US. A spinoff of the loan program was the repayment in local currency. These funds enabled the US to covertly or sometimes overtly subsidize center and right-wing citizen organizations, political parties, and unions
One example is the Labour Party of Britain, which was a double threat. Clause 4 of its constitution called for nationalization of major industries, and its mainstream supported the post-war Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and opposed NATO. Secretly, the CIA lavishly funded and promoted a small conservative group in the party, organized around the Socialist Commentary journal. This group believed the Atlantic alliance was needed to forestall a Soviet invasion, and also held that given the “welfare state,” nationalization was no longer required. Those of this persuasion gradually moved into the party leadership.
Sweden, a neutral country and still not a full NATO member, nevertheless covertly collaborated with the US during World War II. It established a resistance army, to combat a possible Nazi invasion. This was a model for the secret “fall-back” armies which NATO later created throughout Western Europe, including in neutral Sweden and Switzerland.
Known as the “Gladio” project, the name of the Italian branch, they were presumably to offer resistance to a Soviet invasion. However, later government investigations, in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, found them complicit in domestic terrorism, political manipulations, and neo-Nazi activities. The existence of these armies was not known to the public, journalists, or most European politicians until after 1990.
Sweden cooperated with NATO all along, even though policies enacted during the administration of Prime Minister Olaf Palme forbade any war planning with NATO. The Swedish Security Service, military and intelligence agencies collaborated with the US, and their strong connections in the public broadcasting system gave them great influence over public opinion. Furthermore, the very important Swedish defense industry is intertwined with US military technology, and contrary to public policy, was sending weapons to the US for use in its war against Iraq. In 2009, war games “Loyal Arrow” were conducted by 10 countries in Northern Sweden, as a preliminary move to extend US and NATO military presence into Arctic regions—and confronting Russia in that area.
Norway would have preferred a Scandinavian alliance, but when this didn’t happen, it joined NATO, and this influenced Denmark and Iceland to follow. The (conservative) Icelandic Foreign Minister had been part of secret talks with the US regarding landing rights and hoped that a NATO installation would dampen the strong communist and socialist movements. Pressure was put on the reluctant public by suggesting that the Soviet fishing fleet near Iceland was really a military force that would occupy Iceland along with a “fifth column” of Icelandic socialists.
Denmark was reluctant to join NATO, but was persuaded. However, the public and even most political leaders were unaware of the plans for nuclear installations in Greenland that were part of secret agreements. These were illegal and unconstitutional in Denmark.
The French and Dutch joined, although there was much dissent. Under the leadership of DeGaulle, France opted out of the central command in 1966 and removed foreign occupation of military bases. However, it had its own nuclear armed military, and secret agreements to fight with NATO if trouble came. In 2009, France agreed to resume full membership.
The Dutch have been particularly unhappy about nuclear weapons, which are still present in Italy, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Turkey. Belgium was particularly hard hit economically by postwar developments, so the location of NATO headquarters in Brussels helped to cement attachment.
With the transformation and dissolution of the Soviet Union, many thought NATO was obsolete. However, the attacks of 9-11 created more enthusiasm. This was dampened by the invasion of Iraq (not an official NATO action) and Afghanistan, which invoked Article 5 on shaky grounds. Nevertheless, 50 nations participated in the Afghan attack, including, as mentioned previously, neutral Sweden and demilitarized Japan. More recent terrorism has revived support for NATO in Europe; France has drawn much closer.
Some believe that NATO’s activities and its very existence conflict with the spirit of the UN, while others maintain that NATO is an essential operating arm of UN collective security, with knowhow and extensive high-tech weaponry.
In the classical “banana republic,” the United States controls crucial foreign and/or domestic policies of another nation through ties with its military and intelligence institutions. Only now, there is resistance in the lands where bananas grow, while “social democratic,” “neutral,” and reputedly “pacifist” countries of Western Europe are slipping into bananazation. Ordinary citizens have strong anti-war feelings and continue protesting, yet the military, political, and corporate elites of Europe have increasingly become dependents or confederates of the US military-industrial complex.
Israel these days seems to be increasingly at odds with a good portion of the rest of the world. In just the past few months it has quarreled with:
Spain over arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and six other Israeli officials for the 2010 attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla;
Sweden over comments by its foreign minister who has called for an investigation into extrajudicial executions of Palestinians;
college campus student groups supporting the BDS movement;
academic associations who have issued calls for academic boycotts of Israeli universities;
Brazil over its refusal to recognize an Israeli ambassador who hails from the right-wing Israeli settler movement;
The EU over labeling of products from Israeli settlements.
The UN over Ban Ki-moon’s recent criticism of the settlements
And really, if truth be known, Israel is probably not too happy just now with Italy either, which recently received Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on a state visit, resulting in a number of agreements between the two countries’ energy sectors as well as cooperation on a future high-speed rail project. Naor Gilon, the Israeli ambassador to Italy, complained that Rouhani was being treated like “the king of the world.”
Zvi Zameret accuses Wallström of ‘ignorance and arrogance’ and suggests she might meet a violent end
War with Sweden
All in all, Gilon’s comments would have to be viewed as rather tame, however–at least by comparison. For some of the statements issuing from Israelis now, particularly those aimed at Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, are positively chilling in their level of malice expressed, and frankly it might behoove the Swedish official to consider hiring a bodyguard at this point, if she hasn’t already done so.
As I noted in an article five days ago, Wallström is now regarded in Israel as “public enemy number 1” (the Jerusalem Post’s words, not mine) because of remarks she has made critical of Israel, including a recent call for an investigation into extrajudicial killings of Palestinians.
Now it seems there may be those in Israel hankering for the foreign minister’s blood–literally. If you haven’t read my article, Swedish Media Target Country’s Foreign Minister Following Her Remarks on Israel, I suggest you do so as it will place what follows into greater perspective. One day after posting that article, I became aware of two other articles, one by blogger Richard Silverstein and the other by Jonathan Ofir and posted at Mondoweiss, both of which discuss what appears to have been a scarcely veiled threat on Wallström’s life by a former Israeli official.
The comment was made by Zvi Zameret, a former official in the Israeli Ministry of Education, in an op-ed piece he wrote for an Israeli newspaper owned by Nevada casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. In the article, Zameret waxes lyrical on the 1948 assassination of Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte, and then goes on to suggest that Wallström might meet a similar fate. Here is a bit from Silverstein’s commentary on the matter:
Zvi Zameret, the former director for instruction for the Israeli education ministry has written an op-ed in Makor Rishon, Sheldon Adelson’s pro-settler newspaper, praising the 1948 assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by Yitzhak Shamir’s Lehi gang. Zameret accuses Bernadotte of being an anti-Semite and claims that his views originated in a Swedish society that was suffused with this perspective. He claims that ridding the world of the Swedish Count was necessary to protect Israel’s new existence.
He wends his way through a long historical discourse involving material already well-known related to Bernadotte’s proposals, which were rejected by Arabs and Jews alike. Then he brings us up to the present day by alleging that remarks of the current Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallstrom, demanding that Israel be held accountable for the 160 Palestinians killed over the past two months in the latest Intifada, stem from the same well of Swedish anti-Semitism.
Silverstein says Zameret “hints that Wallström herself should share a similar fate to Bernadotte” and then gives us a direct quote from his article as per its English translation:
“What do the things I have mentioned attest about Bernadotte? [They indicate] covert anti-Semitism, ignorance and arrogance, collaboration with senior elements in Israel [Hebrew University PresidentJudah Magnes] and interests that play a decisive role. Has anything changed in the Swedish DNA in the decades following Bernadotte’s death? Nothing has changed.
The Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom, in the covert anti-Semitism which characterizes her, along with her ignorance and arrogance, and anticipation of the interests of her future Muslim voters–she too is attempting to battle against the basic foundation of the State of Israel. I am certain that her intentions will be defeated,just as were thoseof the disreputable Count Bernadotte.
Count Folke Bernadotte
Bernadotte was assassinated by Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, the same Jewish terrorist group that carried out the Deir Yassin massacre. Zameret’s glorification of his murder doesn’t seem entirely lucid or rational–during World War II Bernadotte negotiated the release of 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps, including a large number of Jews. After the war, he became the UN Security Council’s unanimous choice, in a vote on May 20, 1948, to try and mediate a settlement in the Palestine-Israeli conflict.
His murder took place September 17, 1948, carried out by a four-man team of assassins. The Stern Gang had been around since 1940. Its stated goal was to terminate the British mandate in Palestine and set up a “new totalitarian Hebrew republic,” and one of its members, Yithak Shamir, ended up becoming an Israeli prime minister. It was Shamir, in fact, who ordered Bernadotte’s assassination. The man who actually pulled the trigger, Yehoshau Cohen, later became a close confidante of David Ben Gurion and was never charged in the case.
Margot Wallström
In October of 2014, shortly after Wallström took over as foreign minister, Sweden became one of the first Western countries to recognize Palestinian statehood. Wallström called it “an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination” and added that “We hope that this will show the way for others.”
In November of last year, shortly after the Paris terror attacks, Wallström suggested that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians could be helping to fuel terrorism. She followed that up with a comment in December about Israeli “extrajudicial executions,” and this month called for an investigation of Israel.
“Whether Zameret advocates Wallstrom’s demise explicitly or implicitly is hardly important,” comments Silverstein. “Even if you accept the argument that he isn’t explicit, clearly the reason Bernadotte failed in his mission is that Jewish terrorists assassinated him. When you say you wish her intentions to be defeatedjust as his were, the line between murder and political defeat becomes exceedingly murky.”
Boycott Sweden! say Israeli Mayors
But of course it isn’t just Zameret. Lots of people in Israel despise Wallström and have “vociferously attacked her contentious words,” as an article here puts it. And this apparently applies to a good many Israeli officials. The same article goes on to give us the low-down on a “boycott movement” launched by 15 Israeli mayors and aimed at Sweden. The mayors were planning to attend a conference in the Scandinavian country in March, but recently announced they have cancelled, while former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has also called for a boycott of Ikea.
War With Spain
In November of last year, a Spanish judge issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and six other officials in connection with Israel’s 2010 raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a violent episode in international waters which resulted in the deaths of 10 people.
The warrants were issued by Judge Jose de la Mata, and in effect meant that should any of the seven officials set foot on Spanish soil they would be subject to arrest.
“Spain is just the latest member of the international community to accuse Israel of war crimes and pursue Israeli officials over the affair,” the Jerusalem Postreported at the time. And that is indeed correct. Both South Africa and Turkey had previously issued similar warrants.
Predictably, the Israeli government expressed hostility and outrage.
“We consider it to be a provocation,” said an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson. “We are working with the Spanish authorities to get it cancelled. We hope it will be over soon.”
What do you suppose the words “working with Spanish authorities” might imply? Did it include issuing threats? Whatever it was, it took only two months to accomplish. The arrest warrants were in fact cancelled, according to a report published January 13 by the Adelson-owned Israel Hayom newspaper.
War with Brazil
Brazil, on the other hand, seems to be showing a little more resilience. According to a report here, “Israel and Brazil remain at loggerheads five months after Brazil refused to recognize Israel’s appointment of a right-wing settler as its next envoy to the South American country.”
“Settlers are Zionist agents that the world cannot accept, they steal others’ land, they are an insult to Brazil, to the government, and to millions of Brazilians with roots in the Arab world,” said Brazilian parliament member Carlos Maron.
Maron isn’t alone. A group of 40 retired Brazilian diplomats signed a statementagainst the appointment of Dani Dayan, who lives in the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Shomron, in the Occupied West Bank. Dayan is an advocate of the settler movement and has made no secret of his views, having widely published articles in the mainstream media, including the New York Times.
“We consider it unacceptable that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has publicly announced the name of the person he intended to appoint as his country’s new Ambassador to Brazil before submitting it, in accordance to the norm, to our Government,” said the diplomats. The announcement of Dayan’s appointment was reportedly posted initially on Twitter rather than being communicated directly to the Brazilian government.
The statement continues:
This rupture with a diplomatic practice seems to have been on purpose, an attempt to establish facts, since the appointed, Dani Dayan, between 2007 and 2013, was the President of the Yesha Council, responsible for the settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by the international community, and has already declared himself contrary to the creation of the Palestinian State, which counts on the support of the Brazilian Government and was already recognized by over 70% of the UN member States.
Reportedly a group of 200 Brazilian academics have also endorsed a boycott of Israel. Netanyahu has refused to withdraw Dayan’s nomination or to appoint someone more acceptable to the Brazilians. If the Brazilian government stands its ground, it will mean a de facto end to diplomatic relations between the two countries.
War with the EU
On January 18, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council reaffirmed requirements that export products from the Israeli settlements be labeled as such. More or less as with Sweden, Spain, and Brazil, the EU’s action has prompted cries of Israeli outrage. Netanyahu pronounced his unwillingness to “accept the fact that the EU labels the side being attacked by terror,” while ‘Justice’ Minister Ayelet Shaked called the EU measure “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.”
Likewise, opposition party leader Isaac Herzog (supposedly a liberal) compared it to the “Zionism equals Racism” resolution passed by the UN in 1974, while Yair Lapid, another opposition party member, denounced the EU for “capitulating to the worse elements of jihad.”
War Against the BDS Movement
In summer of 2015, ‘Justice’ minister Shaked announced she was preparing lawsuits against BDS activists. The announcement was reported at the time by theTimes of Israel in a story which also mentions that Shaked has expanded one of the departments within her ministry in order to “push ahead with the program as soon as possible.”
Ministry officials believe that legal circumstances present the option of suing activists for damaging Israeli trade, and for discrimination and racism, based upon laws as they currently exist in various countries, the report said.
So far as I’m aware, no lawsuits have been filed against individual activists, however Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home Party, seems to be generally in support of the idea of striking back in some manner at the BDS movement.
“Let it be clear to any company or organization that’s considering boycotting us: We will hit back. We will attack our attackers. We will boycott our boycotters,” Bennett said.
“The boycott weapon is a double-edged sword,” he added. “If you’re thinking of boycotting Israel, keep in mind that there are tens of millions of Israel supporters around the world — Jews and non-Jews — with considerable buying power and boycott power. Whoever boycotts Israel will be boycotted. Whoever hits Israel, will be hit back. We will no longer remain silent.”
Bennett’s comments about the “tens of millions of Israel supporters around the world” are perhaps salient. Also last summer, Adelson hosted an anti-BDS summit in Las Vegas with the aim of establishing and funding “successful strategies for countering the wave of anti-Israel activity on college campuses.” Held at the billionaire’s Venetian hotel on the Vegas strip, the conference was attended by a number of wealthy Jews, including Haim Saban.
“The key decision reached at the conference was that there would be a concerted effort to curtail BDS,” reported the Jerusalem Post.
Though Netanyahu did not attend, a letter from him was read aloud to the conference participants. “De-legitimization of Israel must be fought, and you are on the front lines. It’s not about this or that Israeli policy. It’s about our right to exist here as a free people,” the letter stated.
Reportedly the Israeli government intends to allocate NIS 100 million, or roughly $25.2 million, to the anti-BDS effort.
War Against Academic Associations
At a business meeting held in November, members of the American Anthropological Association voted overwhelmingly (88.4 percent) in favor of a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. A similar measure was passed that same month by the National Women’s Studies Association Executive Committee. These aren’t the first boycott actions taken by academic organizations in the US. The American Studies Association, The Association for Asian American Studies, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association have all passed academic boycott measures against Israel. And this is just in the US.
Measures have also been passed by academic organizations in Brazil, South Africa, Canada, the UK, and, of course, in Palestine, and probably elsewhere. And perhaps most recently a group of 71 British doctors have called upon the World Medical Association to expel the Israeli Medical Association. The physicians have accused Israeli doctors of “medical torture” on Palestinian patients and want to see a ban on joint projects with Israeli universities.
On January 20, the Science and Technology Committee of the Israeli Knesset held a meeting to discuss the issue (H/T Helvena). A press release on the discussion which took place can be found here on the Knessett’s website. One of those who gave input at the meeting was Peretz Lavie, president of Technion, or the Israeli Institute of Technology.
“We have no complaints against the global academic leadership; our problem is the campuses,” Lavie said. “Initially it was insignificant campuses, but it quickly spread to leading campuses in the United States.”
When Lavie says he has “no complaints against the global academic leadership” he is probably referring to the Association of American Universities, which on January 14, in response to the vote by the Anthropological Association, re-issued an earlier statement in opposition to academic boycotts. The AAU is an organization whose leadership consists of the presidents and chancellors of the 60 universities (in both the US and Canada) that are its members. Membership is by invitation only. The group’s statement opposing boycotts was initially released in 2013 in response to the boycott actions taken by the American Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies associations.
The group’s re-release of that canned statement from more than two years ago was described by the Jerusalem Post as “a blow to the BDS movement.”
“Students who are exposed to this activity will be the next generation`s senators, and therein lies the great danger in the long term,” Lavie went on in his testimony before the Science and Technology Committee.
“In its report, the American Anthropological Association referred to us as universities of apartheid and decided to conduct a survey on whether the Israeli academia should be boycotted. We have to reach all 12,000 members of the Association. It is a symptom, and if we do not act now, it will spread. There must be one entity that will concentrate all the efforts related to this issue,” he added.
Another person who gave testimony was Ze’ev Feldman of the Israel Medical Association. It was Feldman who informed the committee of the recent statement by the 71 British doctors.
”The sword of the boycott is being raised on the Israeli scientific-medical community,” he said.
Ariel University Chancellor Yigal-Cohen Orgad asserted that Israel has “a real problem with governments, including western governments that encourage boycotts,” while Professor Zvi Ziegler warned, “We are unable to stop anyone with our meager resources.”
Several committee members are also quoted, including Chairman Uri Maklev:
“There is no doubt that the academic boycott phenomenon is expanding and is connected to the financial and consumer boycotts on Israel. Economic and commercial boycotts are associated with politics, but an academic boycott by educated and moderate people has a very strong effect.”
But rather than calling for an end to the settlements, most of the committee members seemed to be of the opinion that the Israeli government needed to devote more resources to fighting the boycott movement. The one exception to this was Arab Knesset member Basel Ghattas:
The world considers the settlements to be illegitimate. You can think differently from the entire world, it is your right, but it is also the world`s right to take measures in order to force you to establish two states.
War with the UN
On October 1, 2015, Netanyahu gave a speech before the United Nations General Assembly that was marked by a 45-second segment during which he paused and projected hostile glares out at those present:
Progress towards peace requires a freeze of Israel’s settlement enterprise.
Continued settlement activities are an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community. They rightly raise fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution.
I am deeply troubled by reports today that the Israeli Government has approved plans for over 150 new homes in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
This is combined with its announcement last week declaring 370 acres in the West Bank, south of Jericho, as so-called “state land”. These provocative acts are bound to increase the growth of settler populations, further heighten tensions and undermine any prospects for a political road ahead.
The inevitable furious response came quickly, with Netanyahu excoriating the UN chief for helping to “stoke terror.”
“There is no justification for terrorism,” he said. “The Palestinian terrorists don’t want to build a state; they want to destroy a state, and they say that proudly. They want to murder Jews everywhere and they state that proudly. They don’t murder for peace and they don’t murder for human rights.”
He went on to assert that the UN has “lost its neutrality and its moral force, and these statements by the Secretary-General do nothing to improve its situation.”
It seems Israel is now at war with the UN as well.
A Lack of Imagination?
Perhaps most striking in all this is the Israeli lack of imagination–or at least that is one way of looking at it. Nowhere in his hostile comments aimed at his various enemies on the global stage does Netanyahu give the slightest indication of having once thought about halting the settlements and pulling back to Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders. Ditto with the other Israeli officials quoted above, with the lone exception of the Arab Knessett member. It is almost as if the idea has never even occurred to them.
If that is the case, one could perhaps ascribe all of this to a lack of imagination. Certainly at this point, after 68 years of oppression, is probably does indeedrequire considerable imagination to conceive of how the two peoples could live at peace. But of course it wasn’t always so. And had Israel, starting in 1967, respected the people of the West Bank, and above all else respected their space rather than crowding them in with settlements and walls and soldiers, a peaceful resolution to the conflict probably could have and would have been achieved by this time.
Yet even now, it isn’t too late. Though it would be politically difficult, Israel coulddismantle its settlements (anything is possible when the national will is present) and pull back to the pre-1967 borders–basically the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative proposed back in 2002. If necessary, and it probably would be for a lengthy period of time, UN peacekeeping troops could be deployed along the border.
But Israel’s response to the Arab Peace Initiative was to call it a “non-starter,” and that seems to be its position today as well. And not only is there little prospect of dismantling of presently-existing settlements, but we see even a refusal to halt the construction of new ones. All of which would suggest that Ban Ki-moon is correct and that the settlement enterprise raises “fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution.”
Or in other words, Israel has no intentions of making peace.
Certainly it’s possible that things could change, and that a new slate of leaders could arise in Israel with the imagination necessary to see the wisdom of complying with international norms of conduct. And that is what its more liberal Jewish supporters in America seem to be hoping for. But failing this, Israel’s wars with the rest of the world are likely to grow in stridency and ferociousness, and at some point could expand from the realms of diplomacy and/or covert operations fully outright into the military arena.
Israel these days seems to be increasingly at odds with a good portion of the rest of the world. In just the past few months it has quarreled with:
Spain over arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and six other Israeli officials for the 2010 attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla;
Sweden over comments by its foreign minister who has called for an investigation into extrajudicial executions of Palestinians;
college campus student groups supporting the BDS movement;
academic associations who have issued calls for academic boycotts of Israeli universities;
Brazil over its refusal to recognize an Israeli ambassador who hails from the right-wing Israeli settler movement;
The EU over labeling of products from Israeli settlements.
The UN over Ban Ki-moon’s recent criticism of the settlements
And really, if truth be known, Israel is probably not too happy just now with Italy either, which recently received Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on a state visit, resulting in a number of agreements between the two countries’ energy sectors as well as cooperation on a future high-speed rail project. Naor Gilon, the Israeli ambassador to Italy, complained that Rouhani was being treated like “the king of the world.”
Zvi Zameret accuses Wallström of ‘ignorance and arrogance’ and suggests she might meet a violent end
War with Sweden
All in all, Gilon’s comments would have to be viewed as rather tame, however–at least by comparison. For some of the statements issuing from Israelis now, particularly those aimed at Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, are positively chilling in their level of malice expressed, and frankly it might behoove the Swedish official to consider hiring a bodyguard at this point, if she hasn’t already done so.
As I noted in an article five days ago, Wallström is now regarded in Israel as “public enemy number 1” (the Jerusalem Post’s words, not mine) because of remarks she has made critical of Israel, including a recent call for an investigation into extrajudicial killings of Palestinians.
Now it seems there may be those in Israel hankering for the foreign minister’s blood–literally. If you haven’t read my article, Swedish Media Target Country’s Foreign Minister Following Her Remarks on Israel, I suggest you do so as it will place what follows into greater perspective. One day after posting that article, I became aware of two other articles, one by blogger Richard Silverstein and the other by Jonathan Ofir and posted at Mondoweiss, both of which discuss what appears to have been a scarcely veiled threat on Wallström’s life by a former Israeli official.
The comment was made by Zvi Zameret, a former official in the Israeli Ministry of Education, in an op-ed piece he wrote for an Israeli newspaper owned by Nevada casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. In the article, Zameret waxes lyrical on the 1948 assassination of Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte, and then goes on to suggest that Wallström might meet a similar fate. Here is a bit from Silverstein’s commentary on the matter:
Zvi Zameret, the former director for instruction for the Israeli education ministry has written an op-ed in Makor Rishon, Sheldon Adelson’s pro-settler newspaper, praising the 1948 assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by Yitzhak Shamir’s Lehi gang. Zameret accuses Bernadotte of being an anti-Semite and claims that his views originated in a Swedish society that was suffused with this perspective. He claims that ridding the world of the Swedish Count was necessary to protect Israel’s new existence.
He wends his way through a long historical discourse involving material already well-known related to Bernadotte’s proposals, which were rejected by Arabs and Jews alike. Then he brings us up to the present day by alleging that remarks of the current Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallstrom, demanding that Israel be held accountable for the 160 Palestinians killed over the past two months in the latest Intifada, stem from the same well of Swedish anti-Semitism.
Silverstein says Zameret “hints that Wallström herself should share a similar fate to Bernadotte” and then gives us a direct quote from his article as per its English translation:
“What do the things I have mentioned attest about Bernadotte? [They indicate] covert anti-Semitism, ignorance and arrogance, collaboration with senior elements in Israel [Hebrew University President Judah Magnes] and interests that play a decisive role. Has anything changed in the Swedish DNA in the decades following Bernadotte’s death? Nothing has changed.
The Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom, in the covert anti-Semitism which characterizes her, along with her ignorance and arrogance, and anticipation of the interests of her future Muslim voters–she too is attempting to battle against the basic foundation of the State of Israel. I am certain that her intentions will be defeated, just as were those of the disreputable Count Bernadotte.
Count Folke Bernadotte
Bernadotte was assassinated by Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, the same Jewish terrorist group that carried out the Deir Yassin massacre. Zameret’s glorification of his murder doesn’t seem entirely lucid or rational–during World War II Bernadottenegotiated the releaseof 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps, including a large number of Jews. After the war, he became the UN Security Council’s unanimous choice, in a vote on May 20, 1948, to try and mediate a settlement in the Palestine-Israeli conflict.
His murder took place September 17, 1948, carried out by a four-man team of assassins. The Stern Gang had been around since 1940. Itsstated goalwas to terminate the British mandate in Palestine and set upa “new totalitarian Hebrew republic,” and one of its members, Yithak Shamir, ended up becoming an Israeli prime minister. It was Shamir, in fact, who ordered Bernadotte’s assassination. The man who actually pulled the trigger, Yehoshau Cohen, later became a close confidante of David Ben Gurion and was never charged in the case.
Margot Wallström
In October of 2014, shortly after Wallström took over as foreign minister,Sweden becameone of the first Western countries to recognize Palestinian statehood. Wallström called it “an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination” and added that “We hope that this will show the way for others.”
In November of last year, shortly after the Paris terror attacks, Wallström suggested that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians could be helping to fuel terrorism. She followed that up with a comment in December about Israeli “extrajudicial executions,” and this month called for an investigation of Israel.
“Whether Zameret advocates Wallstrom’s demise explicitly or implicitly is hardly important,” comments Silverstein. “Even if you accept the argument that he isn’t explicit, clearly the reason Bernadotte failed in his mission is that Jewish terrorists assassinated him. When you say you wish her intentions to be defeatedjust as his were, the line between murder and political defeat becomes exceedingly murky.”
Boycott Sweden! say Israeli Mayors
But of course it isn’t just Zameret. Lots of people in Israel despise Wallström and have “vociferously attacked her contentious words,” as anarticle hereputs it. And this apparently applies to a good many Israeli officials. The same article goes on to give us the low-down on a “boycott movement” launched by 15 Israeli mayors and aimed at Sweden. The mayors were planning to attend a conference in the Scandinavian country in March, but recently announced they have cancelled, while former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has also called for a boycott of Ikea.
War With Spain
In November of last year, a Spanish judge issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and six other officials in connection with Israel’s 2010 raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a violent episode in international waters which resulted in the deaths of 10 people.
The warrants were issued by Judge Jose de la Mata, and in effect meant that should any of the seven officials set foot on Spanish soil they would be subject to arrest.
“Spain is just the latest member of the international community to accuse Israel of war crimes and pursue Israeli officials over the affair,” theJerusalem Postreported at the time. And that is indeed correct. Both South Africa and Turkey had previously issued similar warrants.
Predictably, the Israeli government expressed hostility and outrage.
“We consider it to be a provocation,” said an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson. “We are working with the Spanish authorities to get it cancelled. We hope it will be over soon.”
What do you suppose the words “working with Spanish authorities” might imply? Did it include issuing threats? Whatever it was, it took only two months to accomplish. The arrest warrantswerein fact cancelled, according to a report published January 13 by the Adelson-owned Israel Hayom newspaper.
War with Brazil
Brazil, on the other hand, seems to be showing a little more resilience. According to a reporthere, “Israel and Brazil remain at loggerheads five months after Brazil refused to recognize Israel’s appointment of a right-wing settler as its next envoy to the South American country.”
“Settlers are Zionist agents that the world cannot accept, they steal others’ land, they are an insult to Brazil, to the government, and to millions of Brazilians with roots in the Arab world,” said Brazilian parliament member Carlos Maron.
Maron isn’t alone. A group of 40 retired Brazilian diplomatssigned a statementagainst the appointment of Dani Dayan, who lives in the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Shomron, in the Occupied West Bank. Dayan is an advocate of the settler movement and has made no secret of his views, having widely published articles in the mainstream media, including the New York Times.
“We consider it unacceptable that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has publicly announced the name of the person he intended to appoint as his country’s new Ambassador to Brazil before submitting it, in accordance to the norm, to our Government,” said the diplomats. The announcement of Dayan’s appointment was reportedly posted initially on Twitter rather than being communicated directly to the Brazilian government.
The statement continues:
This rupture with a diplomatic practice seems to have been on purpose, an attempt to establish facts, since the appointed, Dani Dayan, between 2007 and 2013, was the President of the Yesha Council, responsible for the settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by the international community, and has already declared himself contrary to the creation of the Palestinian State, which counts on the support of the Brazilian Government and was already recognized by over 70% of the UN member States.
Reportedly a group of200 Brazilian academicshave also endorsed a boycott of Israel. Netanyahu has refused to withdraw Dayan’s nomination or to appoint someone more acceptable to the Brazilians. If the Brazilian government stands its ground, it will mean a de facto end to diplomatic relations between the two countries.
War with the EU
On January 18, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Councilreaffirmedrequirements that export products from the Israeli settlements be labeled as such. More or less as with Sweden, Spain, and Brazil, the EU’s action has prompted cries of Israeli outrage. Netanyahu pronounced his unwillingness to “accept the fact that the EU labels the side being attacked by terror,” while ‘Justice’ Minister Ayelet Shaked called the EU measure “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.”
Likewise, opposition party leader Isaac Herzog (supposedly a liberal) compared it to the “Zionism equals Racism” resolution passed by the UN in 1974, while Yair Lapid,anotheropposition party member, denounced the EU for “capitulating to the worse elements of jihad.”
War Against the BDS Movement
In summer of 2015, ‘Justice’ minister Shaked announced she was preparing lawsuits against BDS activists. The announcement was reported at the time by theTimes of Israelin a story which also mentions that Shaked has expanded one of the departments within her ministry in order to “push ahead with the program as soon as possible.”
Ministry officials believe that legal circumstances present the option of suing activists for damaging Israeli trade, and for discrimination and racism, based upon laws as they currently exist in various countries, the report said.
So far as I’m aware, no lawsuits have been filed against individual activists, however Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home Party, seems to be generally in support of the idea of striking back in some manner at the BDS movement.
“Let it be clear to any company or organization that’s considering boycotting us: We will hit back. We will attack our attackers. We will boycott our boycotters,” Bennett said.
“The boycott weapon is a double-edged sword,” he added. “If you’re thinking of boycotting Israel, keep in mind that there are tens of millions of Israel supporters around the world — Jews and non-Jews — with considerable buying power and boycott power. Whoever boycotts Israel will be boycotted. Whoever hits Israel, will be hit back. We will no longer remain silent.”
Bennett’s comments about the “tens of millions of Israel supporters around the world” are perhaps salient. Also last summer, Adelson hosted ananti-BDS summit in Las Vegaswith the aim of establishing and funding “successful strategies for countering the wave of anti-Israel activity on college campuses.” Held at the billionaire’s Venetian hotel on the Vegas strip, the conference was attended by a number of wealthy Jews, including Haim Saban.
“The key decision reached at the conference was that there would be a concerted effort to curtail BDS,”reportedthe Jerusalem Post.
Though Netanyahu did not attend, a letter from him was read aloud to the conference participants. “De-legitimization of Israel must be fought, and you are on the front lines. It’s not about this or that Israeli policy. It’s about our right to exist here as a free people,” theletter stated.
Reportedly the Israeli government intends to allocate NIS 100 million, or roughly $25.2 million, to the anti-BDS effort.
War Against Academic Associations
At a business meeting held in November, members of theAmerican Anthropological Associationvoted overwhelmingly (88.4 percent) in favor of a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. A similar measure was passed that same month by the National Women’s Studies Association Executive Committee. These aren’t the first boycott actions taken by academic organizations in the US. The American Studies Association, The Association for Asian American Studies, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association have all passed academic boycott measures against Israel. And this is just in the US.
Measures have also been passed by academic organizations in Brazil, South Africa, Canada, the UK, and, of course, in Palestine, and probably elsewhere. And perhaps most recently a group of71 British doctorshave called upon the World Medical Association to expel the Israeli Medical Association. The physicians have accused Israeli doctors of “medical torture” on Palestinian patients and want to see a ban on joint projects with Israeli universities.
On January 20, the Science and Technology Committee of the Israeli Knesset held a meeting to discuss the issue (H/THelvena). A press release on the discussion which took place can be foundhereon the Knessett’s website. One of those who gave input at the meeting was Peretz Lavie, president of Technion, or the Israeli Institute of Technology.
“We have no complaints against the global academic leadership; our problem is the campuses,” Lavie said. “Initially it was insignificant campuses, but it quickly spread to leading campuses in the United States.”
When Lavie says he has “no complaints against the global academic leadership” he is probably referring to the Association of American Universities, which on January 14, in response to the vote by the Anthropological Association, re-issued an earlier statement in opposition to academic boycotts. The AAU is an organization whose leadership consists of the presidents and chancellors of the 60 universities (in both the US and Canada) that are its members. Membership is by invitation only. The group’s statement opposing boycotts was initially released in 2013 in response to the boycott actions taken by the American Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies associations.
The group’s re-release of that canned statement from more than two years ago was described by theJerusalem Postas “a blow to the BDS movement.”
“Students who are exposed to this activity will be the next generation`s senators, and therein lies the great danger in the long term,” Lavie went on in his testimony before the Science and Technology Committee.
“In its report, the American Anthropological Association referred to us as universities of apartheid and decided to conduct a survey on whether the Israeli academia should be boycotted. We have to reach all 12,000 members of the Association. It is a symptom, and if we do not act now, it will spread. There must be one entity that will concentrate all the efforts related to this issue,” he added.
Another person who gave testimony was Ze’ev Feldman of the Israel Medical Association. It was Feldman who informed the committee of the recent statement by the 71 British doctors.
”The sword of the boycott is being raised on the Israeli scientific-medical community,” he said.
Ariel University Chancellor Yigal-Cohen Orgad asserted that Israel has “a real problem with governments, including western governments that encourage boycotts,” while Professor Zvi Ziegler warned, “We are unable to stop anyone with our meager resources.”
Several committee members are also quoted, including Chairman Uri Maklev:
“There is no doubt that the academic boycott phenomenon is expanding and is connected to the financial and consumer boycotts on Israel. Economic and commercial boycotts are associated with politics, but an academic boycott by educated and moderate people has a very strong effect.”
But rather than calling for an end to the settlements, most of the committee members seemed to be of the opinion that the Israeli government needed to devote more resources to fighting the boycott movement. The one exception to this was Arab Knesset member Basel Ghattas:
The world considers the settlements to be illegitimate. You can think differently from the entire world, it is your right, but it is also the world`s right to take measures in order to force you to establish two states.
War with the UN
On October 1, 2015, Netanyahu gave a speech before the United Nations General Assembly that was marked by a 45-second segment during which he paused and projected hostile glares out at those present:
Progress towards peace requires a freeze of Israel’s settlement enterprise.
Continued settlement activities are an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community. They rightly raise fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution.
I am deeply troubled by reports today that the Israeli Government has approved plans for over 150 new homes in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
This is combined with its announcement last week declaring 370 acres in the West Bank, south of Jericho, as so-called “state land”. These provocative acts are bound to increase the growth of settler populations, further heighten tensions and undermine any prospects for a political road ahead.
The inevitable furious response came quickly, withNetanyahu excoriatingthe UN chief for helping to “stoke terror.”
“There is no justification for terrorism,” he said. “The Palestinian terrorists don’t want to build a state; they want to destroy a state, and they say that proudly. They want to murder Jews everywhere and they state that proudly. They don’t murder for peace and they don’t murder for human rights.”
He went on to assert that the UN has “lost its neutrality and its moral force, and these statements by the Secretary-General do nothing to improve its situation.”
It seems Israel is now at war with the UN as well.
A Lack of Imagination?
Perhaps most striking in all this is the Israeli lack of imagination–or at least that is one way of looking at it. Nowhere in his hostile comments aimed at his various enemies on the global stage does Netanyahu give the slightest indication of having once thought about halting the settlements and pulling back to Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders. Ditto with the other Israeli officials quoted above, with the lone exception of the Arab Knessett member. It is almost as if the idea has never even occurred to them.
If that is the case, one could perhaps ascribe all of this to a lack of imagination. Certainly at this point, after 68 years of oppression, is probablydoes indeedrequire considerable imagination to conceive of how the two peoples could live at peace. But of course it wasn’t always so. And had Israel, starting in 1967, respected the people of the West Bank, and above all else respected their space rather than crowding them in with settlements and walls and soldiers, a peaceful resolution to the conflict probably could have andwouldhave been achieved by this time.
Yet even now, it isn’t too late. Though it would be politically difficult, Israelcoulddismantle its settlements (anything is possible when the national will is present) and pull back to the pre-1967 borders–basically the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative proposed back in 2002. If necessary, and it probablywouldbe for a lengthy period of time, UN peacekeeping troops could be deployed along the border.
But Israel’s response to the Arab Peace Initiative was to call it a “non-starter,” and that seems to be its position today as well. And not only is there little prospect of dismantling of presently-existing settlements, but we see even a refusal to halt the construction of new ones. All of which would suggest that Ban Ki-moon is correct and that the settlement enterprise raises “fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution.”
Or in other words, Israel has no intentions of making peace.
Certainly it’s possible that things could change, and that a new slate of leaders could arise in Israel with the imagination necessary to see the wisdom of complying with international norms of conduct. And that is what its more liberal Jewish supporters in America seem to be hoping for. But failing this, Israel’s wars with the rest of the world are likely to grow in stridency and ferociousness, and at some point could expand from the realms of diplomacy and/or covert operations fully outright into the military arena.
World has had Enough of Israel Abuses in Palestine: Analyst
Press TV has interviewed Anthony Hall, professor of globalization at Lethbridge University, about Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom calling for a “thorough” investigation into the killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the past few months.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: It is quite clear that the Israeli authorities are not very inclined towards a credible and thorough investigation into the killings of Palestinians in recent months. What do you think that is so?
Hall: I think we are seeing a very radicalized Israel, a Likudnik Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and we are seeing a moderate and sensible voice, Margot Wallstrom in Sweden who is in electoral politics, ran on a policy of acknowledging a Palestinian state, and she quite correctly is connecting what is going on in Israel and the treatment of Palestinians, identifying it has extrajudicial killing and disproportionate lethal homicides. In the last few months, 21 Israelis versus 103 Palestinians in this dead, in this unfortunate tragic situation, which obviously accounts Palestinian lives as being much less valuable than Israeli lives.
Press TV: Of course this obviously brings us to the stance that Margot Wallstrom is making. Is this just unique for Sweden or is this a reflection of growing activism on the part of people when it comes to Palestine, when it comes to the question of the Israeli atrocities being committed against Palestinians?
Hall: Unfortunately in countries like Great Britain and Canada, we do not see public opinion being well represented in our parliaments, in our legislatures. Margot Wallstrom is speaking for not only the people in Sweden but a massive constituency of people, the world over, who are saying enough is enough. It is time to turn the page on this issue, to come to some kind of resolution. The Palestinians are human beings, they have human rights, and they are part of the international system. Margot Wallstrom is recognizing that along with millions of people, the world over, it is time that the radical government in Israel, the extremist lawbreakers running the government of Israel, come into line with world public opinion.
Press TV: It is also when it comes to this investigation will it ever take place because let’s not forget even UN officials have expressed their exacerbation as far as Israeli uncooperativeness when it comes to allowing them access even to those areas where these atrocities have been committed?
Hall: Unfortunately the radicalization of the Israeli state has become quite pervasive and it has undermined the overall integrity of the rule of law within countries and between countries – international law. So we are living in quite a lawless era as Vladimir Putin recognizes frequently and to depend too much on international institutions when these institutions are dominated by corrupt governments like Netanyahu’s government in Israel, this means that people have to find other ways to express our desire that respect for human lives, that the rule of law must be made to prevail in some way even if it means transcending the limitations of our international institutions right now.
(FNA) ~ The Iraqi security forces have seized 2 German planes at Baghdad Airport that were carrying weapons to the Kurdistan region illegally and without prior information and permission of the central government in Baghdad.
The captured planes were carrying arms worth $5 million to the city of Erbil in Kurdistan region without prior coordination or information of Baghdad, the Kurdish-language Kurd Press news agency reported on Saturday.
Earlier this month, the Iraqi defense ministry announced in a statement that two Canadian and Swedish planes which had also been carrying arms to the Kurdistan region illegally were seized and later returned to their bases in Kuwait and Turkey after unloading their cargoes in Baghdad.
According to the statement, “Upon the order of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces and after several days of confiscation, the two planes were allowed to leave Baghdad international airport with all their cargos to their bases in Kuwait and Turkey”.
Also in November, the Iraqi government had announced that it had seized two planes of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition member states that were carrying weapons to the Kurdistan Region without prior coordination or information of Baghdad.
(click on map to enlarge)
“The inspection committee in Baghdad International Airport has found a huge number of rifles equipped with silencers, as well as light and mid-sized weapons,” Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s Security and Defense Commission Hakem al-Zameli said.
He noted that two Swedish and Canadian airplanes were going to fly to Iraq’s Kurdistan region, but they were seized after arms cargos were discovered.
Zameli called on the Iraqi foreign ministry to question the international coalition in this regard and warn the coalition members to avoid such moves in the future.
“The US ambassador to Baghdad has tried to send the weapons to the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and the government should investigate this and arrest the perpetrators,” he added.
The US and some other coalition members have been supplying arms to different ‘actors’ in Iraq.
[Ed. note – This announcement by Sweden, that it is raising its terror threat level, comes just two days after Israel grew infuriated over a comment made by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström. Perhaps, though, that’s just a coincidence.
On the other hand, we might reasonably ask–is it possible Sweden may have genuine cause for concern, not only over ISIS, but possibly Israel as well?
“Clearly we have a reason to be worried not only here in Sweden but around the world because there are so many who are being radicalized. Here again, you come back to situations like that in the Middle East where not least the Palestinians see that there isn’t any future (for them). (The Palestinians) either have to accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon described the Swedish official’s remark as “appallingly impudent,” and since Monday, angry articles have appeared on a number of Israeli and pro-Israel websites, including here, here, here, here, here, here,here, and here. Clearly quite a few Zionist writers and bloggers are out for blood, so to speak.
“Sweden’s foreign minister Margot Wallström made an ugly mistake connecting the Paris attacks and the plight of the Palestinians,” says Haaretz. The paper’s contributing writer, Asher Schechter, goes on to comment, “Margot Wallström caused quite a bit of outrage in Israel this week,” but he also makes a rather pertinent point in the process: that a presumed link between ISIS terror and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was made initially not by Wallström but by none other than the Israeli right–the same aggrieved souls who are now raising such holy hell over the Swedish foreign minister’s comments. ]
Sweden’s security chief has raised the country’s terror threat level to four on a scale of five, citing “concrete information.” An investigation has been launched regarding the “preparation of terrorist offenses.”
“One of the reasons for the increase is that the security service has received concrete information and concluded that we must act within the framework of our counter-terror work,” Sweden’s Security Police (SAPO) said in a statement.
“The strategic threat assessment is based partly on what is known in the present, and on possible future developments…” the statement continues, noting that the threat level is “assessed continuously” and “may change.”
It goes on to state that the chief prosecutor at the National Security Service has launched a preliminary investigation regarding “preparation for terrorist offenses.”
The decision to raise the terror threat level was based on data from the National Center for Terrorist Threat Assessment. The center is responsible for producing threat assessments for Sweden and Swedish interests abroad.
The statement concluded by noting that Sweden has a large number of people returning to the country after having participated in combat in Syria and Iraq.
The raised terror threat level comes after Sweden – which has received the most refugees per capita in the EU –introduced temporary border controls to halt the influx of refugees and to screen those trying to enter the country illegally.
Sweden’s migration minister warned refugees earlier this month that they would be deported back to Germany or Denmark if they did not find their own accommodation.
“Those who come here may be met by the message that we can’t arrange housing for them,” Migration Minister Morgan Johansson told reporters. “Either you’ll have to arrange it yourself, or you have to go back to Germany or Denmark again.”
Fierce debate has been sparked surrounding the refugee crisis, after it was reported that one of the men responsible for the Paris attacks was believed to have entered Europe as a refugee via Greece, using a fake Syrian passport which was found at the scene of the carnage.
Another couple of things worth mentioning. The attacks in Paris came just two days after the EU adopted new guidelines requiring labeling on certain products produced in Israeli settlements–an act which the New York Times referred to as “a stinging rebuke to Israel.”
And that seems precisely how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took it.Netanyahu said the EU “should be ashamed of itself,” and accused it of a “hypocritical and double standard.”
Incidentally, one of the first countries to get behind the labeling requirement was Sweden–going all the way back to the year 2006.
After I posted an article yesterday on Wallström’s remarks, one of our readers, Greg Bacon, posted the following comment:
Maybe the Swedes still remember what Israel did to their diplomat and peace negotiator, Folke Bernadotte in 1948 in Jerusalem, mainly because the Israelis were horrified at the peace proposals
“Olof Palme was a great humanitarian but he was also a major thereat to Israel’s political standing in Europe. It has often been speculated but never proven that his assailant had links to Mossad. The acrimony toward him by the Israeli government had reached a very high pitch at the time of his death and since his death EU Social Democrats have been curiously acquiescent to israeli designs,as President Carter pointed out a few months ago.”
The assassination took place in 1986 and remains unsolved. This isn’t the first time Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, has angered the Israelis. Last year Sweden became one of the first, if not the first, EU states to recognize Palestine. You can see Wallstrom in the video below:
The timing of the terror alert in Sweden may, as I said, be just a coincidence. But Sweden–whether by recognizing Palestinian statehood, advocating the labeling of settlement products, or simply opposing an illegal occupation and endeavoring to uphold international law–clearly has been a thorn in Israel’s side for some time now.
Furthermore, the Jewish state is not exactly a novice when it comes to the carrying out of false flag attacks.
Sweden’s foreign minister Margot Wallström said this week in a television interview that Friday’s terror attacks in Paris were rooted in the frustration of Muslims in the Middle East, including that of Palestinians,
The Swedish FM obviously expressed a thought many of us share.
“To counteract the radicalization we must go back to the situation such as the one in the Middle East of which not the least the Palestinians see that there is no future: we must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.” (https://www.facebook.com/tobiassjd/videos/10154524045168018/)
Swedish FM is almost correct. By now, the problem extends far beyond Palestine. We are dealing with a regional disaster that was imposed on us by a group of influential Ziocons and the Lobby.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon told The Time Of Israel that Wallström’s comment “may lead to tragedy.” This is clearly an optimistic approach considering the fact that for the rest of humanity, the tragedy is here and for more than a while.
These days, Sweden is all agog. In the midst of the coldest summer in living history that deprived the Swedes of their normal sun-accumulating July routine, the country plunged into an exciting search for a Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, and (as opposed to the previous rounds of this venerable Swedish maritime saga) this time they actually found the beast.
Now we know for certain the Russians had intruded into Swedish waters! The Swedish admirals and the Guardian journalists probably feel themselves vindicated, as they always said so. Does it matter that the U-boat was sunk one hundred years ago, in 1916? Surely it does not, for the Russians are the same Russians and the sea is the same sea!
I would continue in the same vein and have a lot of fun, but many innocent readers (especially on the internet) are not attuned for irony. If they read Swift’s Modest Proposal, they’d call the police. For the benefit of the reader in whom is no guile (John 1:47), I’ll say it in plain words: the Swedish Navy and the great British newspaper Guardian made fools of themselves again, as they blamed the Russian president Putin for sending a submarine that turned out to be a one hundred year old war relic.
The U-boat called Som (Catfish) had been built in the US in 1901 for the Russian Navy, served in World War I and went down with all hands in 1916. The Swedes admitted that much, but, as in the one-liner about a guest suspected of stealing silver spoons,the spoons were found, but the ill feeling loitered.
The previous round of this pleasant Swedish pastime took place last October 2014 when the search for Russian submarines in the Stockholm archipelago, that is, in the archipelago of thousands of islands in the Baltic Sea, began in earnest. Nessie of the Loch Ness would envy the hunt. In the newspapers, on radio and on television, they spoke only of the mysterious submarine, that allegedly had sent a distress signal to the Russian naval base in Kaliningrad from the Swedish waters. Millions of krona were spent on the futile search. A video of the U-boat rising was released. Eye witnesses reported they saw a man in black emerging from the sea near a tiny island. As the water temperature was about 10°C (50°F) this could not be a Swede, it’s got to be a Russian Spetznaz man, as they are immune to cold…
The old-timers told the press that the sailors of the damaged Russian submarine probably landed on an island in the archipelago and waited there for rescue. “There are many uninhabited cottages, they should be searched”, they proposed to the horror of wealthy Stockholmers, the cottage owners. Dozens of military vessels in cutting-edge-state-of-art Stealth armour ploughed the waters. Depth charges killed a few dolphins and other sea animals. Newspapers warned that of Russian naval commando hunts for Ukrainians in Stockholm pubs.
There were sane voices, too, but they rarely were given a chance to be heard. Wilhelm Agrella, a professor of Intelligence Analysis at Lund University spoke of “budget submarines” invented by the Swedish navy in order to boost its budget.
In the end, all sightings were accounted for. One was a Swedish private submarine belonging to a Lasse Schmidt Westrén, another one was a Dutch one that participated in NATO manoeuvres. The alleged distress signal has been sent by a Swedish transponder, and had nothing to do with Russia or Kaliningrad.
There was no Russian U-boat to hunt. The true goal of the hunters has been Swedish neutrality. Sweden was and remains notionally neutral, while the US wants to see the country integrated into NATO.
The Hunt for Red October in October 2014 was a new round in the Second Cold War, the war against independent Russia. As a Social Democrat government came to power in September 2014, the Swedish Army, Navy and pro-NATO media plotted to prevent a possible rapprochement of Russia and Sweden.
This is not the first plot of this kind. In 1982, the Swedish military conspired with their colleagues in the United States and Britain against its Social Democrat government. Although the Swedish navy knew that NATO submarines operate in the Swedish waters, they played along with the right-wing politicians and talked about the ‘Russian threat’. Only much later the truth was found out – the government commission appointed by the Social Democrats after their return to power showed that there were no Russian U-boats.
This was subsequently proven by a member of the Swedish government commission, a leading Norwegian military expert Ola Tunander in his detailed 400 page long work,The Secret War Against Sweden: US and British Submarine Deception in the 1980s (London: Frank Cass 2004).
In the eighties, Ola Tunander did not doubt the reality of Russian submarines, and had written several textbooks and manuals for Swedish sailors on the subject. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union, he gained access to all files at the request of the Swedish government, and came to the unequivocal conclusion that all the evidence about the Russian submarine incursions was falsified or invented.
Classified documents clearly point to the US and the UK as the culprits, and this was confirmed by the former US Secretary of Defence Weinberger and British commanders in the secret hearing, says Tunander. It turned out that in the seventies, after the Vietnam War, the Americans and their British allies were preoccupied with the pro-Soviet sympathies of the Swedes. The Swedes stubbornly refused to see the enemy in his great eastern neighbour. In 1976, only 6% of Swedes believe in the Russian threat, and another 27% thought the USSR is an unfriendly power.
Even the Afghan war had only marginally changed these figures. And only the submarine panic bore fruit – by the mid-80s, 42% of Swedes believed in the imminent Russian threat and 83% considered the USSR being an enemy. In order to achieve this revolution in the minds, the British and American submarines made hundreds of violations of Swedish waters. They intruded into the inner harbour of Stockholm, raised their periscopes and antennas in the archipelago, posing as “the Red Scare.”
The USSR did not have submarines of the class detected by the Swedish radar (35-40 meters long), but the United States had the submarine NR-1, that was used to penetrate the Soviet waters.
In 1981 there was an amusing accident – an old Soviet submarine lost its bearings and ran aground close to the Swedish coast. This single incident was been blown out of all proportion; rumours of Russian submarines in every bay flooded Sweden.
In October 1982, the Swedish fleet mounted a huge operation to capture or destroy a submarine sighted near the island of Muskö. The operation was attended by hundreds of journalists from all over the world.
Ola Tunander says the bridge of the sighted submarine had a NR-1’s square shape, not the shape of the Soviet submarines. The American submarine had been delivered to Stockholm waters by the American tanker Monongahela, coming on an official visit. They left the submarine, so it went around and scared the Swedes. The command of the Swedish navy had been warned, the navy knew about it, took part in the hunt for the submarine, and concealed the truth from the Social Democrat government.
So the Swedish military conspired with the Americans and British against their own country. The Swedes managed to hit the submarine, and it released a cloud of yellow-green dye – the distress signal of the US submarine fleet. Swedish sailors allowed the submarine to leave.
Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, thanked the Swedish sailors for allowing the U-boat to leave and keeping mum. The Swedish government did not believe that this was a Russian submarine, but under pressure from the media and the navy, they were forced to lodge a protest to the Soviet Union. The Swedish – Russian relations soured.
In October 2014, the then (1982-1985) Foreign Minister Lennart Budström remembered this plot of the right-wing politicians and the Swedish military. He bitterly recalled in an interview for the newspaper Expressen how in 1982 the Swedish navy hunted an alleged Soviet submarine in Hårsfjärden thirty miles from Stockholm – it was the culmination of the scandal.
The government convened a commission to figure out where the submarine originated – in Russia or NATO. The most active member of the commission was the young right-wing politician Carl Bildt – he practically wrote the commission’s report, saying this was a Soviet submarine. He claimed there was an acoustic signal recording and other evidence. Only in 1988 it emerged that the Swedish army and navy did not intercept any signals from submarines. It was all a lie of Carl Bildt, says Budström.
Bildt (with American support) had spread panic in the press. He claimed the Russian submarines make their way right into the centre of Stockholm, land troops and prepare for the invasion. Russian submarine sailors sneak into Stockholm bars to drink beer and squeeze Swedish blondes. Army and Coast Guard supplied photo of submarine periscopes for the front pages of newspapers.
“You are welcome to sink these subs – calmly said the Secretary General Yuri Andropov in 1984, after listening to the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme’s complaint. – We’d only approve of such a move.”
Only twenty years later, the meaning of Andropov’s words became clear. The submarines in the Swedish waters were not Russian, but English and American. Instead of invasion, they had another plan, namely to sow enmity and distrust of Russia.
Budström retired as he stood for friendship with Russia, and in his stead, the Minister of Foreign Affairs became (and remained until recently) Carl Bildt, a staunch pro-American Atlanticist, a supporter of Swedish accession to NATO, the greatest enemy of the USSR and Russia. It is alleged that Bildt in his youth was associated with a clandestine anti-communist combat organization created by the Americans for the event of the Soviet occupation of Western Europe, known as Stay Behind or Gladio.
Its members founded the secret US Fifth Column in Europe. The State Department dispatches published by the Wikileaks, indicate that the US embassy and the State Department took care of Bildt and helped his career. Bildt was a personal friend of Karl Rove, Bush’s adviser, and actively supported the US intervention in Iraq.
Carl Bildt, the most inveterate enemy of Russia since the days of Karl XII, is a descendant of an aristocratic Scandinavian family (they had been Prime Ministers and Commanders since the 17th century). For a quarter of a century he was the most influential politician in Sweden, in government or in opposition, and he determined its anti-Russian course.
Carl Bildt has been closely associated with the submarine affair from the beginning to the end. In 1982, he denounced the Soviet invaders and earned brownie points. In 1990, Carl Bildt said that the Soviet Union has created a special force to attack Sweden. According to him, up to 22 Russian submarines participated in three annual manoeuvres in Swedish waters.
This fear-mongering has helped – in 1991 Bildt became the Prime Minister. In 1992 Bildt went to Moscow with the alleged old recordings of the submarine. Now we know for certain that these were sounds made by otters, but in Yeltsin’s days the thoroughly defeated Russian government agreed these were Russian submarines.
When the Social Democrats returned to power in 1994, says ex-minister Budström, a new commission was established, and it is completely refuted all allegations of Bildt. The first commission was composed of politicians, and the second – of scientists, and the findings were different. But that was too late. Sweden has been integrated it the EU and began to support American foreign policy.
One of the reasons is the media. The Atlanticist tendency in Sweden has almost complete control over the media. They manufacture a Russian threat a day, to scare the wits out of the Swedes. “Russia is a potential threat,” – says a leading Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (30.05). In the same issue of the newspaper, its Moscow correspondent Anna-Lena Lauren says: “Russia is clearly threatening the Baltic States.”
NATO planes fly close to Russia borders through Swedish airspace, in violation of Swedish sovereignty and neutrality, but Swedish media hardly ever reports of such frequent incidents. However, Russian air force training flights that stay clear of Swedish airspace are presented as a proof that the Russians are preparing to invade not only Sweden, but all the Baltic countries.
Even a report on delivering Russian air defence systems to far away Syria has been used to portray Russia as an aggressive monster preparing to subdue Sweden. The army provided the newspapers with a grim prediction: “The Russians can take over Sweden in a few days.”
Perhaps it is true, but why should they? Neither now or in their greatest years of power has any Russian ruler—Tsar, General Secretary or President—ever wanted to invade Sweden. The last war between two neighbours took place over two hundred years ago. Russians have not the slightest intention to fight Swedes, but the Swedish army and the Swedish media are determined to present Russia as their mortal enemy. The army wants to increase the military budget; their political allies and their media say that only joining NATO would save the Swedish beauty from the Russian bear’s claws.
This attitude is not helpful for the well-being of the two great northern powers. They are closely related. Ancestors of the Swedes were among founders of Russia, many Swedish noblemen served the Russian Crown. The Swedes and the Russians have the same birch trees growing along the river banks; the same mushrooms and berries grow in the same forests on both sides of the Baltic sea. Swedes and Russians experimented with socialism, mined ore and coal, felled trees, love their sauna and hockey. Russians are quite fond of Swedes: Peter the Great drank the health of the Swedish generals and called them ‘his teachers’, after thrashing them at Poltava.
Russia and Sweden have no dispute, no common border to argue about, no historic mishaps. All major Swedish companies – Ikea and Volvo, to mention some – have a profitable trade in Russia. Russians, especially the dwellers of St Petersburg region, go to Sweden on weekends. It is a short drive via Finland. Many Russians settled in Sweden, and Swedish businessmen are accustomed to Russia.
Russian policies towards Sweden and the West are marked with moderation, restraint and conservatism. They do not want to invade or conquer Sweden or other Western countries. Russia wants to be treated with respect, keep foreigners out of its internal affairs, and it wants other countries to take Russia’s legitimate interests into account (read: Ukraine). But these Russian wishes are considered only when the West is not united.
After 1991, all of the major Western countries for the first time in world history were united (to some degree) under the military, political and economic leadership of the United States. They have a single united system of ideological control and hegemony via global media, social networks, and universities. I called this system “The Masters of Discourse.” Such setup is detrimental for Russia.
The Atlanticists want to keep the world united under their rule, military via NATO and ideological through the Masters of Discourse system. Russia does not want world domination, does not want to rule over Europe or Asia or Sweden. But it can’t accept the US hegemony either, for they would turn it into a snow-bound Nigeria, an oil-producing country of the third world.
***
For the Russians, normal relations with Sweden are an essential element of peace and stability in the Baltic Sea. Russia appreciates Swedish neutrality and the balanced policy of Sweden in Olof Palme’s times. It has no desires to meddle in Swedish affairs and would like to have friendly relations. Now, after Carl Bildt’s departure, there is hope for improved relations between the new Social Democrat government in Sweden and Russia. And now the old trick is played again, the scare of Russian submarines. We’ll see whether this government will manage the real threat of right-wing plots better than its predecessors.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad described in an interview with the Swedish Expressen Newspaper the outcomes of Moscow talks as a breakthrough.He further stated that the UN envoy’s Aleppo plan, which is supported by the government, was spoiled by external intervention, renewing his warning that the terrorism imported to Syria will “bite” its backers whenever it has the chance.
He also called on Sweden to influence the EU to lift the economic sanctions imposed on the Syrian people.
“Terrorism is serious and dangerous because it doesn’t have borders, it doesn’t have limits. It could hit anywhere, it’s not a domestic issue. It’s not even regional; it’s global, that’s why it’s always dangerous.”
Al-Assad further mentioned that
“in our case, it’s more dangerous, let’s say, the situation is worse because this time it was having a political umbrella by many countries, many leaders, many officials, but mainly in the West.”
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and that depends on many criteria, some of them related to domestic, internal and military criteria, or factors, let’s say, which is more precise.”
On this level, the head of the Syrian state said:
“Al-Nusra Front which is part of al-Qaeda, and the Turkish government or institutions or intelligence, were like one army in that battle, so it doesn’t depend on the weakening of our army. It depended more on how much support the terrorists have from Turkey.”
On Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, he added:
“They’re not independent countries, so they won’t have their own agenda. Sometimes they have their own narrow-minded behavior or vengeful behavior or hateful behavior that’s been used by others’ agenda, let’s be frank here, sometimes the United States. So, we cannot say that they have their own agenda, but they haven’t changed. They still support the same terrorists, because this behavior is not related to the crisis in Syria. They supported the terrorists in Afghanistan, they supported the Wahhabi ideology, the extremism that led to terrorism recently in Europe, for decades, and now they are supporting the same ideology and the same factions under different labels and names in Syria. So, there’s nothing to change because this is their natural behavior.”
“The Wahhabi ideology, which forms the foundation for every terrorism in the world. No terrorist acts for the last decades in the Middle East and in the world happened without this ideology. Every terrorist bases his doctrine on the Wahhabi ideology.”
According to al-Assad:
“The United States in the 1980s called the same groups of al-Qaeda and Taliban, in Afghanistan, they called them holy fighters, and that’s what president Bush described them as, holy fighters. And then, after the 11th of September 2001, they called them terrorists. The problem with the United States and of course some Western officials is that they think you can use terrorism as a card in your pocket, as a political card. Actually, terrorism is like a scorpion; whenever it has the chance, it will bite. So, they know, but they didn’t estimate how dangerous terrorism is to be used as a political card.”
On the results of Moscow talks, al-Assad said:
“This meeting was the first time to reach – because you know we had many dialogues before – this is the first time to reach an agreement upon some of the principles that could make the foundation for the next dialogue between the Syrians. We haven’t finalized it yet, because the schedule of that meeting was very comprehensive, so four days wasn’t enough. Because when you have a breakthrough, even if it’s a partial breakthrough, it means that the next meeting will be promising in reaching a full agreement about what are the principles of Syrian dialogue that will bring a Syrian, let’s say, solution to the conflict.”
Al-Assad has blamed Norway and other Scandinavian countries for producing “the most dangerous leaders of Isis in our region”, in a video interview with Sweden’s Expressen newspaper.
He said countries like Norway had only themselves to blame for their homegrown “ISIL” fighters, as “European officials” had for years been “selling their values and allowing the Wahhabi dark ideology to infiltrate and be instilled in some communities”, in exchange for money from “countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar”.
“The most dangerous leaders of “ISIL” in our region are Scandinavian…that’s what we have as information,” he added.
Al-Assad said that he had warned at the start of Syria’s civil war that it would ultimately lead to terror attacks in Europe and beyond.
“They didn’t listen, so what happened was warned of before, and what we saw in France, in Charlie Hebdo, the suicide attempts in Copenhagen, in London, in Spain, ten years ago, this is only the tip of the iceberg.”
“You have ups and down, you have wins you have losses and that depends on many criteria,” al-Assad said. “We are still running the country.”
Regarding Hizbullah’s presence in Syria, al-Assad clarified:
“For example, we had cooperation between the Syrians and the Iraqis even before the rise of “ISIL” recently during the summer of last year in Mosul. Before that we had good cooperation, intelligence and even military, for one reason; because the Iraqis were aware that the terrorism in Syria could spill over to Iraq, and that’s what happened in Mosul. The same is with the Lebanese. So, Hizbullah is aware that terrorism in Syria means terrorism in Lebanon. Chaos here means chaos there, so this kind of regional cooperation is very important for all of us.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that terrorism has no borders, stressing that it will hit back at its backers.
In an interview with the Swedish Expressen Newspaper, President Assad Terrorism is serious and dangerous because it doesn’t have borders and limits.
“It could hit anywhere; it’s not a domestic issue. It’s not even regional; it’s global.”
The Syrian leader noted that the seriousness of terrorism is because it has “political umbrella by many countries, many leaders, many officials, but mainly in the West.”
“It’s more dangerous this time because we don’t have international law, and you don’t have the effective international organization that would protect a country from another country that uses the terrorists as a proxy to destroy another country. That’s what’s happening in Syria.”
Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Are Not Independent Countries
While talking about the terrorism’s backers, President Assad stressed that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not independent countries, “so they won’t have their own agenda.”
“Sometimes they have their own narrow-minded behavior or vengeful behavior or hateful behavior that’s been used by others’ agenda, let’s be frank here, sometimes the United States,” Assad told the Swedish newspaper, SANA news agency reported.
“We cannot say that they have their own agenda, but they haven’t changed. They still support the same terrorists, because this behavior is not related to the crisis in Syria. They supported the terrorists in Afghanistan, they supported the Wahhabi ideology, the extremism that led to terrorism recently in Europe, for decades, and now they are supporting the same ideology and the same factions under different labels and names in Syria. So, there’s nothing to change because this is their natural behavior.”
When asked whether there were effective results of the meeting which took place recently between the Syrian government and opposition on Moscow, President Assad said “yes.”
“It was first time to reach an agreement upon some of the principles that could make the foundation for the next dialogue between the Syrians.”
“The schedule of that meeting was very comprehensive. It wasn’t enough to finalize the agreement, but because when you have a breakthrough, even if it’s a partial breakthrough, it means that the next meeting will be promising in reaching a full agreement about what are the principles of Syrian dialogue that will bring a Syrian, let’s say, solution to the conflict.”
Source: Agencies
17-04-2015 – 14:50 Last updated 17-04-2015 – 14:50
In the final countdown to the Israeli election, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu charged that there was a vast left-wing international conspiracy against him with the primary perpetrators being the Scandinavian countries. Ironically, right-wing Israeli propaganda outlets and their enablers in the West are often fond of pointing to Israel’s critics as being part of a conspiracy of «anti-Semites» who believe Israel and Jews control the world’s political and financial systems. However comical Netanyahu’s statements about Scandinavia serving as the center of anti-Likud worldwide operations, it is true that Israel has, for decades, infiltrated Scandinavian political parties, parliaments, newspapers, and intelligence agencies to promote Israel’s cause diplomatically and in the media.
Denmark has borne the brunt of Israeli infiltration. While he was the chief of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), Jakob Scharf, who is of Jewish descent, steered Danish intelligence closer to Israel’s Mossad than had any of his predecessors. Danish intelligence first became associated with Mossad in 1974 when the Kilowatt Group, which brought together Israeli intelligence officials with Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and other European intelligence agencies to deal with growing Arab terrorism.
As the head of the PET, Scharf quickly pounced on Danish Islamist leaders who were outraged by the publication in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in unflattering and blasphemous terms.
Jyllands-Posten’s cultural editor, Flemming Rose, who approved the publication of the cartoons, was identified as being linked to various neo-conservative and Israel Lobby operatives in Washington, including the pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute. While Scharf warned against international Islamist conspiracies to carry out terrorism, he was conveniently silent on the international conspiracy by Israeli propagandists to incite violence by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The cartoon operation, which incited violence that resulted in deaths from riots staged in cities throughout the Muslim world, never registered on Scharf’s “criminal conspiracy meter” since he was part and parcel of it.
Rose is not the only pro-Israel agent-of-influence in the Danish media. In 2010, Danish-Israeli «journalist» Herbert Pundik, also known as Nahum Pundak, in an interview with the Dagbladet Information, a Danish daily newspaper, admitted that he had worked for Mossad for ten years while working as a journalist for both Dagbladet Information and Politiken. In fact, Pundik only «officially» severed his relationship with Mossad after he was appointed Politiken’s editor-in-chief in 1970. Moreover, Danish military intelligence was aware of Pundik’s role as an agent for Mossad since Peter Isloe, the deputy chief of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS), received copies of Pundik’s intelligence reports submitted to Mossad. Among the intelligence passed on to Mossad by Pundik were reports from predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria and Somalia. Pundik’s double agent status as a Mossad spy working for two major Danish newspapers was never discovered by the Nigerians or Somalis.
Denmark has also served as a choice base of operations for Israel’s clandestine commerce with Iran, including illicit weapons sales. Although this clandestine commercial link reached its crescendo during the Iran-contra operations run by Lt. Col. Oliver North and his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) colleagues in the 1980s, it continues to this date albeit at a diminished pace.
It is also known that Mossad has used Danish intelligence to keep tabs on Danish citizens of Arab, particularly Palestinian descent, as well as Arab permanent residents and political asylum seekers in Denmark. This surveillance has also been extended to Norway as a result of links between Mossad and the Norwegian Intelligence Service.
Relations between Mossad and its Norwegian counterpart improved following the 1973 botched attempt by Mossad to assassinate in Norway the «Black September» Palestinian terrorist Ali Hassan Salameh. Mossad’s Special Operations Unit’s assassination team included a number of Mossad agents of Scandinavian descent, including Dan Arbel, a former Danish citizen, and Marianne Geldinkof, a former native of Sweden. However, the man the Mossad assassination team shot at point blank range on a street in Lillehammer was not Salameh but fluent Norwegian-speaker Ahmad Bushiki, a waiter in a Lillehammer restaurant. The error was costly for Mossad. Norwegian intelligence severed all official ties with Mossad and a chill in Israeli-Scandinavian relations even affected Mossad’s warm links with their Danish counterparts.
The Israeli government relied on Norwegian attorney Annæus Schjødt to represent the Israeli agents, four men and two women, arrested by the Norwegian police for Bushiki’s murder. Schjødt later married one of the female assassins. Schjødt’s father, also an attorney, prosecuted wartime Norwegian Nazi leader Vikdun Quisling at his trial in Oslo after the Second World War. Israel’s attempt to use the son of a Norwegian prosecutor of the Nazi leader to argue for leniency for the Mossad assassins, thus playing up the «Holocaust card», proved fruitless. Five out of the six Mossad killers were sentenced to prison terms in Norway but were granted early release in 1975 after pressure was exerted by Israel and its agents-of-influence in Oslo. Arbel reportedly gave Norwegian intelligence details of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program in return for a better prosecution deal. Salameh was assassinated by Mossad in 1979 in Beirut. It was later discovered that Mossad killed Salameh while he was an active CIA agent.
Mossad was also known to have set up a number of front companies in Denmark from which they recruited agents to spy for Israel. A number of Danes, Jews and non-Jews, were never made aware that they were collecting intelligence for Israel, often to the detriment of Danish national security.
One of Israel’s proactive agents-of-influence of the Norwegian parliament, Jan Simonsen of the right-wing and anti-immigrant Progress Party, made a laughing stock out of himself for constantly nominating George W. Bush and Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize. Simonsen cited their role in eliminating Iraq’s «weapons of mass destruction», weapons, which it turns out, never existed.
Mossad’s activities in Sweden have been no less alarming. Gunnar Ekberg, a former agent for Swedish military intelligence (IB), wrote in his book, «They’ll Die Anyway», that Mossad approached Swedish military intelligence and offered to assassinate a number of leading Swedish left-wing intellectuals. Specifically, Mossad offered the IB to assassinate Jan Guillou, a Swedish journalist who exposed the existence of the IB, which was, at the time, a partner of the Mossad in tracking down Palestinian activists resident in Sweden.
Israel’s influence operations in Sweden are mainly centered on the media assets of the Swedish Jewish Bonnier family, which owns outright or has a controlling interest in the newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Dagens Industri, and TV4. The family’s influence is also felt in Finland, where it owns the newspapers Iltalehti and Kauppalehti. A number of Scandinavian publications also pick up pro-Israeli (and anti-Russian) items from the Baltic News Service, which is also owned by the Bonnier family. A member of the family, Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier, while, coincidentally serving as Sweden’s ambassador to Israel, launched an attack against journalist Donald Bostrom in 2009 for an article in Aftonbladet, a competitor of the Bonnier family’s media, reporting that the Israeli military was harvesting organs from dead Palestinians.
One of Israel’s most prominent agents-of-influence in Finland was Finnish diplomat Max Jacobson. He was almost elected Secretary General of the United Nations had it not been for a veto from the Soviet Union.
Netanyahu talks of a non-existent Scandinavian conspiracy against Israel when there is no evidence of any such fanciful plot. However, when the tables are turned, the history of Israeli plotting against Scandinavia is worthy of a large history volume.
Arabs are puzzling, they have not left one of the supporters of their cause who they have not crushed, marginalized, and severed their relations with. It’s as if they were their own enemies, rather as if they – the regimes – were enemies of their people and their righteous causes.
When Venezuela severed its relations with the Zionist entity, Morocco severed its relations with Venezuela. This happened in the peak of the Zionist aggression on Gaza, which raised a thousand questions regarding the priorities that govern the foreign relations of Arab states with the rest of the world.
Today bears witness to another incident, one that incites great wonder and surprise and is fully worthy of condemnation:
Sweden, the European country that pioneered the way for the recognition of the Palestinian state in the West, is being punished, reprimanded, and barred from speaking at the Arab League by the order of “Big Brother”, Saudi Arabia.
What’s funny, rather nauseatingly so, is that it seems that Arabs are indeed professionals in repulsing friends, dispelling any sympathy towards their cause, and creating problems for whoever wishes to come closer to them.
The story began when Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish minister of foreign affairs, criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, which was not unordinary as criticisms are delivered every day to a number of Arab countries without any severe backlash. This time, the authority in Saudi Arabia took these criticisms to heart in order to launch a major attack on Sweden, which led to a dwindling of bilateral relations, including Arabo-Swedish relations.
Statements were made by the highest figures in Saudi Arabia, criticizing Sweden and condemning the statements of the Swedish foreign minister. Moreover, the Saudi government pressured the Arab League to prevent the Swedish foreign minister from speaking at the League’s Council in Cairo, which was held following the Arab League Secretary General’s invitation for her to speak before the Council in honor of her country after it paved the way ahead of European countries to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia did not stop there. It pushed the League’s council to issue a pan-Arab condemnation from the League’s Council against the Swedish statement in a wanton, unprecedented move. Saudi Arabia then worsened relations between the two countries when it withdrew its ambassador from Stockholm, with matters headed towards increased escalation.
Onlookers may find themselves asking: Are regular criticisms from a foreign minister against the human rights record of an Arab country deserving of such sanctions and procedures? Is it permissible for matters to become so vindictive?
This Saudi reaction against Swedish statements push onlookers to look for other ways to approach the subject. This “Saudi upheaval” against Sweden and the statements of its foreign minister push one to think whether it was Sweden’s work on the recognition of a Palestinian state that lies behind the deep anger directed towards Sweden on more than one level, and whether this Saudi upheaval is just part of that campaign which groups together a number of states or parties, both in the West and in the Arab world.
This Sweden- the Sweden of Olof Palme and Anna Lindh- which was the first of Western countries to acknowledge some Arab rights in Palestine is thus rewarded and so undignifiedly treated, whereas the kings and princes of Arab states seek the good favors of Western states which refuse to do anything unless they serve the Zionist entity, and which eat away at Arab rights in their lands, rights, and possessions, and threaten their present and future.
What manner of freak standards are Arabs using to deal with the world? How can this ill-mannered behavior against our causes be justified? And what sort of backwards minds are managing this nation’s resources, delimiting its options and plotting its course?
It is of note that Olof Palme, – the former Swedish Prime Minister – was assassinated by gunshot on his way out of the cinema with his wife on February 28th, 1986, whereas Lindh – former Swedish foreign minister – passed away on September 11th, 2003, after succumbing to several stab wounds to her back whilst shopping with her friends in broad daylight. The two were of the most opposed to Washington and “Tel Aviv”.
In the final countdown to the Israeli election, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu charged that there was a vast left-wing international conspiracy against him with the primary perpetrators being the Scandinavian countries. Ironically, right-wing Israeli propaganda outlets and their enablers in the West are often fond of pointing to Israel’s critics as being part of a conspiracy of «anti-Semites» who believe Israel and Jews control the world’s political and financial systems. However comical Netanyahu’s statements about Scandinavia serving as the center of anti-Likud worldwide operations, it is true that Israel has, for decades, infiltrated Scandinavian political parties, parliaments, newspapers, and intelligence agencies to promote Israel’s cause diplomatically and in the media.
