AMAL CLOONEY’S SILENCE ON GAZA SHOWS THE LIMITS OF LIBERALISM

APRIL 15TH, 2024

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Alan Macleod

Amal Clooney, the internationally acclaimed lawyer, is a liberal icon. She and her organization, the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), never shrink from pronouncing their global verdicts on human rights matters. And yet, despite being Lebanese and of Palestinian descent herself, Time magazine’s 2022 Woman of the Year has maintained complete silence on Israel’s continued bombardment of those very countries – a crime other human rights experts have labeled a genocide.

It has now been six months since the October 7 attack, Israel’s wholesale destruction of Gaza and its attacks on Lebanon, yet Clooney has made no public statement on the matter, either in public or on social media, despite mounting calls for her to do so.

CONDEMNING ENEMY NATIONS, IGNORING CRIMES OF FRIENDS

Born in Lebanon to a Druze Lebanese father and a Sunni Muslim mother of Palestinian descent, Clooney’s family sought refuge in the United Kingdom after the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. After practicing law for many years in the U.K. and U.S. in 2016, she founded the CFJ alongside her film star husband, George. “​​We founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable for their crimes and to help victims in their fight for justice,” the pair explain on their website.

Today, the CFJ works in over 40 countries. This includes many countries the U.S. treats as enemy nations or candidates for regime change. Clooney and her foundation have taken strong stances against many of those nations. She has demanded that Russia be prosecuted for war crimes. “Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse. Right in the heart of Europe,” she told the U.N. Security Council in 2022. The following year, the CFJ filed three cases in Germany. The cases accused Russia of many war crimes, including leveling a civilian building in a missile strike on Odesa, killing 40 people, unlawfully detaining, torturing and killing four Ukrainians in the Kharkiv region, and sexual violence and looting in the Kiev region. The CFJ is also suing the Venezuelan government over alleged human rights abuses.

In 2016, Clooney condemned Iran and North Korea for serially abusing their citizens’ human rights. She did this at a conference in the United Arab Emirates, attended by the country’s ruler, Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi. Far from criticizing the UAE’s dismal human rights record, she praised the government and merely offered friendly “advice” to the emirate on how it could improve.

And yet, the Clooney Foundation has been entirely silent regarding arguably the dominant human rights issue of our time. A search for the words “Israel,” “Gaza,” and “Palestine” on both its website and its Twitter account elicits zero relevant results.

While we cannot expect either Clooney or her organization to work on every country simultaneously, it has disappointed many of Clooney’s admirers that neither has even put out a statement about the country of her birth and the country of her ancestry being torn apart by a Western-backed power.

Even when directly questioned about it, George Clooney appeared to dodge the question, stating:

“The whole area [the Middle East] is just on fire, and it is heartbreaking all the way around. All you can do is pray that there is some version of this that comes to some peaceful end soon. But I don’t see it happening in the very near future, and I don’t think anybody does.“

This relative silence on Gaza contrasts with other major Western human rights organizations, who have vociferously condemned the state of Israel. Amnesty International, for example, wrote that “there are alarming warning signs of Genocide given the staggering scale of death and destruction” and that “The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population by Israeli authorities is a war crime – it is cruel and inhumane.” This sentiment was shared by Human Rights Watch, which noted that “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Why have Clooney and her foundation shown little to no interest in Palestine (or Lebanon)? Firstly, the CFJ is sponsored primarily by large liberal institutions, such as the Ford Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and foreign sources like the German and Swedish Postcode Lotteries, none of whom have shown any interest in pro-Palestine activism.

Moreover, Clooney herself has close connections to many in the Democratic Party establishment, including some of the most hardcore pro-Israel zealots anywhere. In 2016, she and her husband hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton with Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban at their mansion. Tickets for the event cost $34,000 each.

Saban is one of America’s most influential political donors but considers himself a “one-issue guy.” “And my issue is Israel,” he once said. He has also called for “higher scrutiny” of Muslim Americans, suggesting they are a threat to the country’s security, and branded Muslim-American Democrats such as Keith Ellison “anti-semites.” Clinton, who describes herself as an “emphatic, unwavering supporter” of Israel, wrote Saban an open letter promising to stamp out the spread of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement by any means necessary.

George and Amal Clooney, right, pose with Hillary Clinto and Bryan Lourd and Bruce Bozzi at at an event at the Clooney home in Hollywood. Photo | Instagram

Moreover, Clooney has accepted a number of U.K. government posts – positions that rarely go to radical outsiders but rather to those firmly inside the establishment beltway. Those posts include being appointed to the Attorney General’s Office Public International Law Panel, meaning she represented the British government in domestic and international courts. The government also appointed her the U.K. Special Envoy on Media Freedom and the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.

One senior position Clooney publicly rejected, however, was to serve on the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry looking into Israeli war crimes in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge (2014). When pressed to explain her decision, she simply cited a scheduling conflict (while refusing to condemn Israel), stating:

“I am horrified by the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, particularly the civilian casualties that have been caused, and strongly believe that there should be an independent investigation and accountability for crimes that have been committed… I am honored to have received the offer, but given existing commitments – including eight ongoing cases – unfortunately could not accept this role. I wish my colleagues who will serve on the commission courage and strength in their endeavors.“

“MORAL MERCENARY”

The refusal to investigate Israeli war crimes is especially notable, given that Clooney has made her career taking controversial posts concerning the Middle East. She previously served as an advisor on Syria to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. She currently represents hundreds of Yazidi survivors of ISIS massacres and is in the process of suing cement maker Lafarge. The lawsuit alleges that the French company provided material support to the terrorist group, which kept many Yazidi women as slaves.

In 2014, she defended Abdullah al Senussi, the Former Chief of Intelligence under Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. The International Criminal Court charged Senussi with crimes against humanity, who was alleged to have overseen torture, assassinations and public executions.

Perhaps most surprising, however, was her appointment as legal advisor to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain during the Bassiouni Commission – a royal investigation into the events of the Arab Spring. The people of Bahrain briefly participated in their own popular anti-government uprising before the monarchy called in Saudi, Emirati and Kuwaiti forces to crush the revolt, killing hundreds and injuring or torturing thousands more. In this instance, Clooney worked on behalf not of the oppressed but of the monarchy, presumably attempting to absolve it of any blame or responsibility for the crackdown on civil liberties, leading one commentator to dub her a “moral mercenary.”

SILENT ON GENOCIDE

It is barely in doubt that Israel is currently engaged in some of the most egregious crimes against humanity seen anywhere in the 21st century, from genocide to attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and churches to the deliberate targeting of journalists and other civilians, to the leveling of entire cities and the systematic starvation of a people.

And despite this, Amal Clooney, who presents herself as a champion of progressive, liberal values and human rights, has had nothing to say about it. This is doubly noteworthy, given her country of birth and her ancestry. As an ethical leader with a considerable audience, any pronouncement she utters on the issue would likely make a significant impact.

Palestine is so often, however, the rocks on which the moral and ethical underpinnings of liberalism are dashed. While Western liberals constantly speak in the language of human rights, using them as a weapon against enemy states and even justifying the bloodiest military interventions on their basis, they fall silent when allied nations carry out similar barbaric actions.

This “progressive except for Palestine” mentality is pervasive across the Western world and highlights the profound limits of modern liberalism. While foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin, Nicolás Maduro or Xi Jinping (or even domestic ones such as Trump) are considered beyond the pale for their transgressions on human rights, beltway politicians like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are held up as heroes. This is despite their crimes, which range from using jihadists to overthrow the most prosperous country in Africa to bombing seven countries simultaneously.

It should, therefore, be of little surprise that Clooney and her foundation have remained tight-lipped about the current slaughter. Those who are shocked by their inaction underestimate the moral bankruptcy of modern liberalism.

Speaking on a panel with Michelle Obama and Melinda Gates (two other liberal icons), Clooney outlined the “real driving force” behind her work.

“My son drew a picture the other day of a prison, and he was like, ‘Putin should be here,’” she said before continuing:

“I do think about in a few years when they’re more than five when they start to learn about some of these issues that we’re talking about and what’s happening in the world… When they ask us, ‘What did you do about this? What did you say about that?’ I’ve thought about what will my answer be, and I hope it will be a good one.“

If Clooney’s son ever asks her what she was doing as Israel carried out war crimes across the Middle East, she will also have a clear answer: she was silent on genocide.

Biden and Netanyahu: United in goal, divided by strategy

APR 5, 2024

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US President Joe Biden’s goals in Gaza align with Tel Aviv’s. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s execution of these objectives is heavily clashing with US interests, undermining its soft power elsewhere in the region.

(Photo Credit: The Cradle)

Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

In an interview with MSNBC last month, US President Joe Biden took a rare firm stance against his staunch Israeli ally, insisting that an invasion of Rafah by the occupation army – devoid of a civilian-focused plan – would cross a “red line.” He then countered his warning by affirming Washington’s unwavering support of Tel Aviv and promising that he would never “leave Israel.”
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, citing unnamed political sources, said that the phone call between Biden and Netanyahu on 4 April was “more difficult than expected.” The White House said that Biden’s tough tone during the call reflected “growing frustration” over Tel Aviv’s lack of cooperation in protecting civilians.

This contradiction in words and behavior highlights the dilemma the White House faces in its interactions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. You can’t have it both ways. While the US aims to temper Netanyahu’s aggressive policies – at least for public consumption – it seeks to do so without undermining the stability of his extremist coalition government. 

In short, every word is weighed in public US announcements to balance that fine line. Following a virtual meeting between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Israeli officials on 1 April, which included talks on the proposed Israeli incursion in Rafah, a statement from the White House merely noted: “The two sides, over the course of two hours, had a constructive engagement on Rafah. They agreed that they share the objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah.”

On 26 March, an Israeli Defense Ministry briefing revealed that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “expressed the view that Hamas’ remaining battalions in Rafah must be dismantled, that that’s a legitimate goal that we share.” He added that “Rafah should not be a safe haven for Hamas. Nowhere in Gaza should be.”

It is safe to conclude from these bland statements that there is a meeting of the minds between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government over the war’s objectives. From the onset of hostilities, the US has actively collaborated with Israeli decision-making processes, ensuring alignment with strategic goals. High-ranking US officials, including Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary Austin, have participated in Israeli War Cabinet meetings.

Three days after the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood, Biden made it “crystal clear” that “We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.”

Tensions grow with Tel Aviv 

Despite this shared strategic vision, recent developments have highlighted emerging disagreements between Netanyahu and Biden. The differences revolve around the methodologies used to safeguard Israel’s security and future. The core of the dispute can be summarized as follows:

The Biden administration views the path to normalization, as set out in the Trump-era Abraham Accords of 2020, as a historic opportunity to strengthen regional peace, with the jewel in the crown being a Saudi–Israeli normalization deal. 

Blinken, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, warned that ongoing military operations in Gaza might jeopardize the Saudi–Israeli normalization prospects, which is a major strategic interest for Tel Aviv at the regional level:

“Almost every country in the region wants to integrate Israel, to normalize relations with it, and to “The reality is to help Israel provide protection for it. But this requires in particular the establishment of a Palestinian state, and it also naturally requires ending military operations in Gaza.” 

A Palestinian state is, of course, anathema to Netanyahu’s coalition, the most extremist government in Israel’s short history. But US concerns are also growing over the possibility of the war in Gaza leading to a broader regional war, one which the US will be forced into to protect its settler-colonial ally. 

From Washington’s perspective, Israel’s identity as a “functional entity” is significant because it fulfills US geopolitical objectives in the region. Conversely, Netanyahu and the Israeli right prioritize Israel’s identity as a Jewish nation-state. This divergence becomes pronounced in the face of existential threats when national identity overshadows functional roles, posing greater risks to Israel than to the United States.

Regional interests and domestic politics 

But the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now limiting the US’s ability to provide international support for Israel’s continued warfare, with Netanyahu’s actions exacerbating the situation and destroying the US’ human rights ’advocacy’ reputation across the globe. 

In recent months, Washington has been forced to adopt rhetoric stressing the need for Israel to abide by international laws and protect civilians. At the same time, however, it continues to support the occupation state with all the tools necessary to kill the population of Gaza. 

It has become abundantly clear that despite Israel’s persistent violations of international laws, norms, and conventions, the US is continuing to provide, and even increase, significant military support for Israel – all while other allies of Tel Aviv are contemplating halting the transfer of weapons to the occupation army. 

Actions, after all, speak louder than words.

US public opinion reflects growing opposition to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, with recent polls showing a majority of Americans against the occupation army’s brutalities. A Gallup poll conducted between 1 and 20 March shows that 55 percent of US respondents oppose Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, a 10 percent rise from November polls.

Crucially, this public sentiment suggests a growing dissonance between US government actions and voter preferences, with Biden’s popularity plummeting in domestic polls. 

Concurrently, the US-dominated global “rules-based” order is coming under sharp fire from peer adversaries like Russia and China, which advocate for a return to international law. Israel’s brutal Gaza assault contradicts everything Washington has preached for decades about its ‘rules.’

Tel Aviv has blanketly ignored the binding UN Security Council Resolution 2728, which stipulates a ceasefire during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, and stands accused of violating all respects of international humanitarian law. 

Netanyahu’s government is responsible for the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza – two-thirds of them women and children – which saw Israel dragged for the first time to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. He then proceeded to violate the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, on 1 April.

Netanyahu’s fight for survival 

Several fundamental reasons drive Netanyahu to support, confront, and even ignore Biden’s stances. At the core is the Israeli premier’s uncertain political future: He is acutely aware that halting the war without securing strategic victories that translate into political capital will devastate his political legacy, making him bear the brunt of all outcomes since 7 October. 

Faced with limited alternatives, Netanyahu opts for confrontation, banking on enduring until the upcoming US elections in November.

For Israel, the stakes in the ongoing war are significantly higher than for the US because Tel Aviv’s top brass widely views it as an existential threat. This perspective galvanizes even those within Israeli society and its hawkish military who might not necessarily align with Netanyahu’s policies.

Central to Netanyahu’s resistance is his rejection of a two-state solution. He perceives the invasion of Rafah as a tactic to either circumvent negotiations with Hamas or to weaken the movement’s bargaining position. Importantly, Netanyahu aims to prevent the war’s conclusion from being interpreted as a step towards Palestinian statehood, rightly framing the conflict as a Palestinian liberation struggle.

Meanwhile, the White House continues on its impossible trajectory to balance pressure on Netanyahu with a clear commitment to Israeli security interests, including defeating Hamas. Netanyahu does not miss a beat in manipulating this situation to his advantage, twisting the narrative to ensure Israel’s interests are met, with a keen eye on how this plays out for him politically at home.

Re-evaluating relations 

Commentary from both Israeli and US corners is starting to shine a light on the potentially thorny path ahead. 

As Doron Matza recently wrote in the Israeli newspaper Maariv: 

In the near future, the aid directed to Israel will decrease and be limited, and with it international legitimacy, not to mention the erosion of the Abraham Accords and the challenges represented by additional enemies waiting for the zero hour to turn the 7 October flood into a broader and greater catastrophe.

John Hoffman in Foreign Policy adds a scathing critique, questioning the very fabric of the US–Israel relationship: “The special relationship does not benefit Washington and is endangering US interests across the globe.”

It is time for the US to recalibrate its relationship with Israel. This isn’t about turning Israel into an adversary but about interacting with it as Washington does with any other state – with a measured distance and pragmatism. 

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

Israel’s Quest for a Palestinian-free Palestine Continues

MARCH 29, 2024

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US support enables Netanyahu to ignore international pressure.

Philip Giraldi

Israel’s plan to expand into an Eretz or “Greater” state incorporating large chunks of its neighbors’ land starts with eliminating the pre-1948 inhabitants of a place once known as Palestine. That nearly all of those who think of themselves as Palestinians must be killed or otherwise removed is perhaps reduced to an aphorism, like “Israel has a right to defend itself,” to absolve the Israeli state and its rampaging army of any guilt in the process. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ability to avoid any serious consequences for his behavior is remarkable, and it generates further atrocities that might have been unimaginable when the fighting in Gaza started back in October. Al Jazeera has reported how Netanyahu is now pushing ahead to formalize what has been referred to as the “colonial project,” whereby “the appropriation of all Palestinian Lands will follow on… the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland.” Bibi said in a speech to supporters that “These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.”

Journalist Patrick Lawrence, writing at Consortium News, recently described how “Israel’s savagery in its determination to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza — and we had better brace for what is next on the West Bank of the Jordan — marks a turn for all of humanity. In its descent into depravity the Zionist state drags the West altogether down with it.” Indeed, and the United States of America is the foremost great power to be reduced to the status of a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Jewish state, unable to advance its own interests when confronted by the juggernaut of the so-called Israel Lobby and associated Jewish and Zionist-Christian organizations that have corrupted and controlled American foreign as well as select domestic policies.

Witness what has occurred in the last several weeks when the international community has rallied to end the slaughter and deliberate starvation of largely defenseless Gazan civilians. First came a United Nations Security Council move by the United States, which introduced a resolution calling for, but not demanding, an immediate though possibly temporary cease fire in Gaza. When the resolution came up for a vote it was vetoed by Russia and China. There were several problems with the text as it inevitably sought to give Israel considerable flexibility in managing the situation. It included an admonition that the effort to secure a ceasefire must be “in connection with the release of all remaining hostages,” which is an Israeli demand with the willingness of Israel to participate at all very much dependent on the hostage issue. The resolution allowed the fighting to continue and it put control of the entry and distribution of urgently needed relief supplies under the ”security” management of the Israeli army. Then came a Russian and Chinese resolution, approved by all members of the council but the US which “abstained.” The US immediately declared the resolution to be “non-binding” and while the document was meant to permit a ceasefire through the end of Ramadan, it has yet to be enacted by Israel which continues to block food and medicine relief shipments and has focused its latest attacks on the few remaining hospitals, killing hundreds more Gazans. Even though the resolution demanded action on the ceasefire and access to relief supplies Israel has ignored it and so has Washington. As only the United States can compel Israel to change course the fact that it continues to fund Israel and provide it with secret shipments of planeloads weapons, without which Netanyahu would be unable to continue his war, speaks for itself in terms of who is controlling whom.

And don’t be fooled by President Joe Biden’s alleged pressure on Netanyahu to “protect civilians” even as Bibi draws up plans with his war cabinet to invade Gaza’s southernmost Rafah Region, where 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge and are now confronted by imminent death with no way out. Biden is responding to opinion polls in the US that indicate that more than half of Americans are opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza and the percentage is steadily growing, so he is pretending to have humanitarian impulses and a conscience, neither of which is true, in a cynical effort to support his possible reelection.

To be sure both the White House and Congress, supported by the Jewish dominated media, are totally in Netanyahu’s pocket, something which he has admitted to publicly more than once, saying that the United States is “easily moved” by someone like him. But if one really needed proof positive about who is in charge in the US-Israel relationship, one need only look at the recent omnibus federal government budget bill of $1.2 trillion. Activist Pascal Lottaz has taken the time to go through the complete 1,012 page document detailing where the money goes and discusses his findings in a 9 minute podcast on YouTube. Lottaz has confirmed both the immediate cash payment of $3.8 billion in “tribute money” to Israel plus the already reported blocking of any federal government funding of United Nation Relief and Works Agency for Gaza (UNRWA) for at least a year. As UNRWA is the key humanitarian aid agency, the latter is a prohibition completely inconsistent with Biden’s expressed desire to confront the “surging” humanitarian aid crisis for the Gazans who are facing starvation in the context of an active genocide. The prohibition is in spite of the continuing lack of evidence to substantiate Israel’s claims of “terrorism support” leveled against the UN agency and despite the famine conditions already present in Gaza. In his review of the document, Lottaz has also discovered those and other specific benefits that involve Israel in 10 sections of the bill.

The bill also seeks to protect Israel from accountability under existing or new international law and to limit Palestinian efforts to resist or defend themselves. It requires any organization receiving US funding to show that it is actively taking steps “to combat anti-Israel bias” and it prohibits any funding to support Palestinian statehood unless it is shown that a list of specified conditions are met including satisfactory “cooperation with Israeli security organizations.” It prohibits any funding to the Palestinian Authority if Palestine is granted statehood status by the UN or any UN agency without Israel’s consent. It oddly prohibits any security support to the West Bank or Gaza unless it is shown that satisfactory steps are being taken by the Palestinian Authority to “end torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees.” It should be noted that the Palestinians, not Israel, are required to end abuse of detainees even though it is Israel that routinely engages in those practices. The detailed sections of the bill expanding on what is blocked or prohibited are as follows:

1. The bill forbids any US funding of the UN International Commission of Inquiry investigation into Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory: Sec. 7848(C)(2) None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be made available for the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
2. The bill defunds the UN Human Rights Council unless the organization drops all inquiry into human rights violations by Israel: Sec. 7048(b)(2)(c) UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL. (1) None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be made available in support of the United Nations Human Rights Council unless the Secretary of State determines and reports to the appropriate congressional committees that participation in the Council is important to the national interest of the United States and that such Council is taking significant steps to remove Israel as a permanent agenda item and ensure integrity in the election of members to such Council.
3. The bill requires any international organization, department, or agency receiving US funding to show that it is taking “credible steps to combat anti-Israel bias”: SEC. 7048. (a) TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall report to the Committees on Appropriations whether each organization, department, or agency receiving a contribution from funds appropriated by this Act under the headings ‘‘Contributions to International Organizations’’ and ‘‘International Organizations and Programs’’:
4. The bill prohibits funding of any support to Palestinian Statehood except under US State Department confirmation that its government meets specified conditions including that is is “cooperating with appropriate Israeli and other appropriate security organizations.”
5. The bill prohibits any support to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation: SEC. 7038. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to provide equipment, technical support, consulting services, or any other form of assistance to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation.
6. The bill prohibits any funding to security assistance to the West Bank or Gaza unless the State Department reports on “the steps being taken by the Palestinian Authority to “end torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees”: 7039(C)(2) SECURITY ASSISTANCE AND REPORTING REQUIREMENT. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds made available by this or prior appropriations Acts, including funds made available by transfer, may be made available for obligation for security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza until the Secretary of State reports to the Committees on Appropriations on the steps being taken by the Palestinian Authority to end torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees, including by bringing to justice members of Palestinian security forces who commit such crimes.
7. The bill prohibits any funding of the Palestinian Authority if Palestine achieves recognition of statehood by the UN or any UN agency without Israel’s agreement or if the Palestinians initiate an investigation of Israel in the International Criminal Court: Sec.7401(k)(2)(A)(i) None of the funds appropriated under the heading ‘‘Economic Support Fund’’ in this Act may be made available for assistance for the Palestinian Authority, if after the date of enactment of this Act the Palestinians obtain the same standing as member states or full membership as a state in the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof outside an agreement negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians or the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.
8. The bill extends existing loan guarantees to Israel under the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act through September 30, 2029: SEC. 7034(k)(6).
9. The bill grants $3.3 billion in “Foreign Military Financing” to Israel, to be disbursed within 30 days: 7401(d) ISRAEL.—Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Foreign Military Financing Program’’, not less than $3,300,000,000 shall be available for grants only for Israel which shall be disbursed within 30 days of enactment of this Act: Provided, That to the extent that the Government of Israel requests that funds be used for such purposes, grants made available for Israel under this heading shall, as agreed by the United States and Israel, be available for advanced weapons systems, of which not less than $725,300,000 shall be available for the procurement in Israel of defense articles and defense services, including research and development.
10. The bill authorizes half a billion dollars in military aid to Israel for “Iron Dome” and other missile defense systems: SEC. 8072. Of the amounts appropriated in this Act under the headings ‘‘Procurement, Defense-Wide’’ and ‘‘Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide, $500,000,000 shall be for the Israeli Cooperative Programs.

The bill has passed through Congress, is written into law, and is on its way for Joe Biden’s signature. In other words, the US is willingly complicit in thousands of deaths already plus the impending deaths of some tens of thousands more innocent people. It is funding Israel’s war of extermination against the Palestinians and is opposed to any attempts by the Palestinians to either defend themselves or their interests as a people. It is shameful and our government is behaving monstrously, controlled by a foreign power that has thoroughly corrupted it. And the rot is spreading throughout our political system to include the death of our own right to freedom of speech. Only last week Governor Greg Abbott of Texas boasted of new legislation to stamp out alleged antisemitism and as criticism of Israel or the behavior of Jews is defined as being antisemitic it is likely that students demonstrating against the Jewish state and in support of Gaza will be expelled from universities and even prosecuted. And it is also reported that the Israel Lobby in the US is busy assembling a war chest of $100 million to fund the removal of politicians and other public figures who are critical of Israel. This is serious stuff that will affect all of us. Time to wake up America!

ISRAEL’S SHADOW OVER FREE SPEECH: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE TIKTOK BAN BILL

MARCH 28TH, 2024

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Kit Klarenberg

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

On March 13, U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill forcing TikTok’s foreign owner, ByteDance, to sell up or face a stateside ban. Its advocates claim the popular video-sharing app is a Chinese Communist Party-controlled national security threat that could be weaponized as a tool of surveillance and manipulation if it isn’t already. Yet, despite the anti-Beijing hysteria running wild, many haven’t swallowed the bait, with even some typically pliant mainstream outlets alleging a far darker rationale.

For a start, the ominous vision of TikTok as a CPC Trojan Horse is demonstrably absurd. While parent company ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing and was founded by local internet entrepreneurs, court filings, financial returns, official submissions to Congress, and even Chinese government documents show the company is 60% owned by foreign investors, including many in the U.S., while a fifth is in the hands of its own employees, including thousands of Americans.

Despite this, the monolithic narrative of a CPC-run spying app maliciously taking over the phones of young Western citizens has long abounded. In January, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi Chew was subject to relentless McCarthyite grilling by Republican Tom Cotton on his loyalties and relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. A visibly bemused Zi Chew repeatedly explained he was a patriotic Singaporean, married to a U.S. citizen. These inconvenient facts did not deter the Senator’s bullying, xenophobic interrogation.

Now that the anti-TikTok “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” has passed, much of the media is fraudulently claiming the app is confirmed to be Beijing-owned and controlled. One might argue this is a deliberate smokescreen designed to obscure the true rationale behind the app’s Congressional attack, the individuals and organizations behind it, and who precisely benefits from TikTok being run by U.S. government-approved figures and entities.

In every case, the answer lies in plain sight and is the same. TikTok has long been in the crosshairs of powerful pro-Israel lobbying organizations due to the speed and ease with which content critical of Israeli atrocities and apartheid spreads on its platform. The risk younger users might question the concertedly concealed, horrific reality of Israel’s occupation has become all the graver throughout the Gaza genocide. Now, those same groups have corralled U.S. lawmakers into launching a fatal attack on free speech online.

‘A TIKTOK PROBLEM’

In November 2023, a leaked recording of Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), appeared online. In it, he despaired over how much sympathy for the Palestinian struggle was apparent online in the wake of October 7’s Al-Aqsa Flood and inevitably disproportionate Israeli response. Expressing shock at how terms such as “Zionist entity,” a delegitimizing characterization applied to Israel, had proliferated, he singled out a particular social media app and demographic as responsible:

“We have a major, major, major generational problem…all the polling I’ve seen, ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling, suggests the issue of US support for Israel is not left and right, it is young and old…We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem.“

“We have a major Tiktok problem.’“

'We have a major Tiktok problem.'

Leaked audio of ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt freaking out because global youth aren't buying Israel's propaganda anymore. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/tzU02bSXAm

— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) November 16, 2023

It is indeed no coincidence that in the same month, several prominent Jewish celebrities and influencers sought to lobby TikTok behind closed doors to erase any “anti-Israel content” from its platform and generally “do more to address a surge of antisemitism and harassment” on the app following October 7. Among the assembled was Sasha Baron Cohen. As MintPress documented in January, his cinematic oeuvre is almost exclusively rabidly Islamophobic and rife with genocidal pro-Israel propaganda tropes.

Cohen is also a repeat ADL confederate, actively complicit in the organization’s online censorship connivances. In September 2020,  he temporarily suspended his Instagram account to protest purported antisemitic “hate speech” on the platform and Facebook. The League led this action, which saw over 1,000 businesses suspend their ads on the social network for a month. At the secret TikTok meeting, he told Adam Presser, the app’s head of operations, and himself Jewish, “Shame on you.”

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat Paved the Way for Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza

What is happening at TikTok is it is [sic] creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Cohen fulminated, telling Presser:

“If you think back to October 7, the reason why Hamas were able to behead young people and rape women was they were fed images from when they were small kids that led them to hate,” he continued, accusing TikTok “of feeding similarly incendiary content to young people.”

Reported unquestioningly in the Western media, dubious claims that Hamas committed a wave of rapes and beheaded infants on October 7, as the group conducted an extremely dangerous lightning strike mission behind enemy lines to kidnap hostages, all along hunted by Israeli Occupation Force soldiers, helicopters, and tanks, have come apart in the weeks and months since. Likewise, no evidence has to date emerged that TikTok is indeed a hotbed of antisemitic hate, let alone uniquely so in the digital realm.

‘WONDERFUL VEHICLE’

On March 6, Nikki Haley suspended her Republican Presidential candidacy. The Israel lobby was no doubt crestfallen. As U.S. Ambassador to the UN from January 2017 to December 2018, she distinguished herself as perhaps the most aggressive and ardent advocate for Israel ever to fill the post—a highly competitive category indeed. During her tenure, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice hailed Haley’s “Zionist spirit,” an accompanying cartoon bizarrely depicting her as Xena: Warrior Princess.

On the campaign trail, Haley was given to frequent Israeli propaganda outbursts. A common occurrence in U.S. politics, most of these utterances flew under the radar. Nonetheless, in December 2023, she elicited much ridicule for unbelievably declaring during a primary debate:

“We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why. For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day, they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.“

Nikki Haley: “For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day, they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas.”pic.twitter.com/ECCriiax80

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) December 7, 2023

It appears Haley was misrepresenting the results of a recent survey conducted by MarketWatch. Yet, her self-evidently ludicrous – and thoroughly discredited – claim was cited without irony in a statement published by the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), applauding the passing of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The statement further charged:

TikTok’s parent company is beholden to the Chinese government, which has squarely positioned itself against Israel since October 7th. China has filled its state-controlled media and social media channels with antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric.

That TikTok is antisemitic because it is controlled by the Chinese government is an entirely novel slander for both the app and Beijing. Yet, following Congressional ratification of the Act, JNFA would have every reason to talk a big game. As The Times of Israel reported in mid-March, the organization, along with the ADL, was at the forefront of public campaigning in support of the bill.

We want Congress to tell TikTok that their time is up: We’re done with the lies the platform spreads about the Jewish people and Israel. Click the link below to say #TimesUpTikTok: https://t.co/4IXoKMziiu pic.twitter.com/mmZR6N1r7m

— The Jewish Federations of North America (@jfederations) March 26, 2024

These efforts saw JNFA gather Jewish community leaders across the U.S. for “crucial” briefings on the pending legislation. Conspicuously, the organization’s New Jersey chapter explicitly referred to the Act as “aimed at antisemitism on TikTok,” with no reference to Chinese government influence at all. Meanwhile, Israeli media took aim at Jewish billionaires Arthur Dantchik and Jeffrey Yass over their 15% stake in ByteDance. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency lambasted Dantchik for failing to curb “anti-Israel content” on TikTok despite sitting on its board.

These attacks were likely intended to ensure neither investor – both of whom give generously to Jewish and Zionist foundations – voiced any criticism of the Act. While successful, the Jewish news website The Forward acknowledged that several Jewish TikTok creators vehemently opposed its U.S. government takeover, including several rabbis. One told the newspaper that the app was “a wonderful vehicle” for teaching the Torah and “educating young people about Judaism,” arguing that “the platform’s value outweighs concerns about antisemitism that led some Jewish organizations to push for its ban.”

Of course, their entreaties fell on deaf ears. So, too, did the condemnations of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who both denounced the legislation as state censorship. Their broadsides were particularly notable, as neither could be plausibly accused of holding even vaguely pro-China or anti-Israel sympathies. In Musk’s case, he has even collaborated with the ADL to suppress anti-Israel posts and users on ‘X,’ his rebranded version of Twitter.

‘A STRANGLEHOLD ON CONGRESS.’

Despite its near-unanimous rapid passage through Congress, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act could run into trouble in the Senate. Republican Rand Paul has pledged to block the legislation on free speech grounds. U.S. citizens “choose to use TikTok to express themselves,” Paul argues, believing the Act would “take away the First Amendment rights” of 170 million users. The Washington Post quoted the Act’s Congressional architect, Mike Gallagher, as retorting:

“[The Act] is about foreign adversary control of a social media application…not about shutting down speech. As long as the ownership structure has changed, TikTok can continue, and Americans can say whatever the heck they want on the platform.“

The newspaper did not mention that on March 13, Gallagher let slip the true motivation behind his anti-TikTok push. Namely, it is “becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30.” This very much chimes with the concerns of ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt.

Also unmentioned is that Gallagher’s biggest political donor is the infamous American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), accurately described by U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer as “a de facto agent for a foreign government, [with] a stranglehold on Congress.”

The chief architect behind the TikTok bill is Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, whose biggest donor is AIPAC

Since October 7, 2023, AIPAC has made no secret of its mission to rid Washington, DC, of any lawmaker even mildly opposed to or critical of Israel’s unrelenting war on Gaza, openly earmarking Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, among others, for defenestration. Chillingly, the organization’s 2022 report on “policy and political achievements” that year brags that it provided $17.5 million – the most of any U.S. PAC – to “pro-Israel candidates,” a staggering 98% of whom won their elections.

QUESTIONING ISRAELI INFLUENCE DEEMED ‘ANTISEMITIC’

Meanwhile, despite JNFA’s brazen public victory lap following the Act’s Congressional assent and its own central involvement in shilling for TikTok’s censorship, the ADL had the audacity to publish an investigation into how “antisemitic conspiracy theories” spread online after the vote. It charged that “influencers and extremists from across the political spectrum” framed the bill as “a product of Jewish or Zionist influence…an effort to infringe on free speech by limiting the reach of pro-Palestinian content.”

An example of an antisemitic remark about the TikTok bill published by the ADL

The ADL has published a relentless deluge of reports, uncritically amplified by the mainstream media, alleging “antisemitic incidents” throughout the Western world have reached record levels since the Gaza genocide began. Yet, as MintPress has revealed, the League produces these mindboggling figures by categorizing anti-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies and corresponding chants and signage at both as individual “antisemitic incidents.

ADL Data on Rise of Anti-Semitic Incidents Doesn’t Add Up

The anti-TikTok Act’s untrammeled passage is an epic testament to “Zionist influence” in the U.S. That such far-reaching, disturbing legislation was rubberstamped with virtually zero public, political or media debate or scrutiny, despite intense civil society and American Jewish community opposition, sets a terrifying precedent for future aggressive action being taken against digital platforms allowing inconvenient, brutal truths about Israel to escape into the public domain.

If the Act becomes law, it will undoubtedly be used to target other social networks, apps, and websites on similarly spurious grounds. Indeed, the legislation is explicitly not intended to be restricted to TikTok. Its wording openly states that any tech company “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the U.S.” can be in the White House’s firing line. Joe Biden has already made it abundantly clear that he will sign the moment it reaches his desk.

In December 2023, MintPress investigated The 10/7 Project, a new Zionist lobby entity founded by AIPAC, ADL, AJC, JFNA, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The outfit was initially intended to be a very public affair, promoting human interest stories and atrocity propaganda generated by Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in the media while elevating its eponymous date to 9/11 levels in the American public mind.

The 10/7 Project has, to say the least, failed in this mission not least because citizen activists and journalists have challenged Israeli propaganda and exposed the realities of the Gaza genocide, with such devastating effect, on platforms such as TikTok. As such, it is only to be expected that the same lobbying organizations behind this effort have redoubled their quest for narrative control. If the information war cannot be won fairly, the only option is to nobble all opposition via straight-up censorship.

From Israel’s perspective, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Since October 7, 2023, as Jonathan Grimblatt bemoaned in that leaked recording, poll after poll has shown U.S. public support for Israel is almost exclusively restricted to older generations of Americans. For example, on March 21, Pew Research published a survey showing 46% of 18- 29-year-olds viewed Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza as “unacceptable,” while 35% of 30 – 49-year-olds – a majority – agreed.

As the entire Zionist project – and the unending, slow-motion genocide it necessarily executes – is wholly contingent on U.S. support to endure, in the face of nigh-universal condemnation from citizens of the world and governments throughout the Global South, such an attitudinal shift could spell the end of Israel as we, unfortunately, know it. That is quite some “generational problem” that needs urgent rectification.

100 DAYS OF WAR: PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE WILL BE NETANYAHU’S DOWNFALL

JANUARY 18TH, 2024

Source

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out.’ His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

Ramzy Baroud

Law number one in the ‘law of holes’ is that “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Law number two, “If you are not digging, you are still in a hole.”

These adages sum up Israel’s ongoing political, military and strategic crises, 100 days following the start of the war on Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was faced with the unprecedented challenge of having to react to a major attack launched by Palestinian Resistance in southern Israel on October 7.

This single event is already proving to be a game changer in the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Its impact will be felt for many years, if not generations, to come.

Netanyahu was already in a hole long before the Al-Aqsa Flood operation took place, and he had no one else to blame but himself.

To stay in power and to avoid three major corruption cases and subsequent trials, Netanyahu labored to fortify his position at the helm of Israeli politics with the help of the most extreme government ever assembled in a state whose very existence is an outcome of an extremist ideology.

Even the anti-Netanyahu mass protests throughout Israel, which also took place for months before the war, did not alert the Israeli leader that the hole was getting deeper and that the Palestinians, living under a perpetual military occupation and siege, could find in Israel’s political and military crises an opportunity.

He simply kept on digging.

October 7 should not be perceived as a surprise attack since the entire Gaza Division, the massive Israeli military build-up in the Gaza envelope, exists for the very purpose of ensuring that Gaza’s subjugation and siege were perfected according to state-of-the-art military technology.

According to the Global Firepower 2024 military strength ranking, Israel is number 17 globally, mainly because of its military technology.

This advanced military capability meant that no surprise attacks should have been possible because it is not humans but sophisticated machines that scan, intercept, and report on every perceived suspicious movement. In the Israeli case, the failure was profound and multi-layered.

Subsequently, following October 7, Netanyahu found himself in a much deeper hole. Instead of finding his way out by, for example, taking responsibility, unifying his people, or, God forbid, acknowledging that war is never an answer in the face of a resisting, oppressed population, he kept on digging.

The Israeli leader, flanked by far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and Amichai Eliyahu, worsened matters by using the war on Gaza as an opportunity to implement long-dormant plans of ethnically cleansing Palestinians, not only from the Gaza Strip but also the West Bank.

Were it not for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and strong rejection by Egypt and Jordan, the second Nakba would have been a reality.

All mainstream Israeli politicians, despite their ideological and political differences, unanimously outdid one another in their racist, violent, and even genocidal language. While Defense Minister Yoav Gallant immediately announced that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed” to the Gaza population, Avi Dichter called for “another Nakba.”

Meanwhile, Eliyahu suggested the ‘option’ of “dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza.”

Instead of saving Israel from itself by reminding the Tel Aviv government that the genocidal war on Gaza would also bode poorly for Tel Aviv, the US Biden Administration served the role of cheerleader and outright partner.

Aside from an additional $14 billion of emergency aid package, Washington has reportedly sent, as of December 25, 230 airplanes and 20 ships loaded with armaments and munitions.

According to a New York Times report on January 12, the CIA is also actively involved in collecting information from Gaza and providing that intelligence to Israel.

US support for Israel, in all its forms, has been maintained despite the shocking reports issued by every respected international charity that operates in Palestine and the Middle East.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said that 1.9 million out of Gaza’s entire population of 2.3 million people have been displaced. Israeli rights group B’tselem said that 2.2 million are starving. Save the Children reported that over 100 Palestinian children are killed daily. Gaza’s government media office has said that about 70 percent of the Strip has been destroyed.

Even the Wall Street Journal concluded that the destruction of Gaza was greater than that of Dresden in WWII.

Yet, none of this concerned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited the region five times in less than 100 days with the same message of support for Israel.

What is so astonishing, however, is that Gaza’s threshold of resilience continues to prove unequaled. This is how determined the Palestinians are to achieve their freedom finally.

Indeed, fathers or mothers, in a scene repeated numerous times, would be carrying the bodies of their dead children while howling in pain, yet insisting that they would never leave their homeland.

This dignified pain has moved the world. Even though Washington has ensured no meaningful action will be taken at the UN Security Council, countries like South Africa sought the help of the world’s highest court to demand an immediate end to the war and to recognize Israel’s atrocities as an act of genocide.

South Africa’s efforts at the International Court of Justice soon galvanized other countries, mainly in the Global South.

But Netanyahu kept on digging, unmoved, or possibly unaware that the world around him was finally beginning to truly understand the generational suffering of the Palestinians.

The Israeli leader still speaks of ‘voluntary migration,’ of wanting to manage Gaza and Palestine, and of reshaping the Middle East in ways consistent with his illusions of grandeur and power.

One hundred days of the war on Gaza has taught us that superior firepower no longer influences outcomes when a nation makes the collective decision to resist.

It has also taught us that the US can no longer reorder the Middle East to fit Israeli priorities and that relatively small countries in the Global South when united, can alter the course of history.

Netanyahu may continue digging, but history has already been written: the spirit of the Palestinian people has won over Israel’s death machine.

The Gaza Genocide Continues

 NOVEMBER 4, 2023

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Israel is an unrestrained monster that endangers all of us

Philip Geraldi

Mainstream media and official government commentary on the violence in Gaza appears to have acquired a certain rhythm to make sure that everyone understands that it is the poor Israelis who are the real victims being assailed by a group called Hamas that is invariably labeled as “terrorists.” It is absolutely obligatory in the first paragraph of an article on developments in the fighting to remind the reader that on October 7^th the “terrorist” group Hamas “invaded” Israel and killed 1,400 peace loving Israelis, taking 200 additional Israelis as hostages. Israel is described as “retaliating” and it is frequently seen as relevant to state that it was the most dreadful mass killing of Jews since the alleged “holocaust.” To add a bit of current cultural and historic relevance, “9/11” and “Pearl Harbor” are often also cited to suggest that it was a both a surprise attack and a game changer in terms of how Israel now sees the external threat and will have to harden its national security imperatives. And there might even be inserted a comment from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi or Senator Chuck Schumer that “Israel has a right to defend itself!” Joe Biden was also quoted as saying it was 15 “9/11”s for Israel given the comparative size and populations of the US and the Jewish state, emphasizing the enormity of the tragedy.

And that’s just in the first paragraph to make sure that the reader gets his or her mind right. The second paragraph is the really important contribution to the discussion, raising the issue of “surging antisemitism” in the United States and Europe, frequently including a quote from the relentless Jonathan Greenblatt of the redoubtable and widely feared Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Greenblatt is cited frequently, often intoning something along the lines of “There is a growing, radical movement on many campuses in which opposition to Israel and Zionism is required to be fully accepted, effectively marginalizing campus Jewish communities.” The intention of raising the antisemitism issue is to lead the reader away from any possible perception that an apartheid Israel was attacked because of its exceptionally brutal behavior towards the Palestinians over the past 76 years and was instead a victim of vicious terrorists who did what they did largely because they hate Jews. In that fashion, the possible issue of Israeli responsibility for what occurred goes away and Benjamin Netanyahu and his fanatical and racist colleagues Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir get a pass to do whatever they want to solve their Arab problem. Both men have expressed their dream of an Israel without any Palestinians, whom they regard as not quite acceptably human, and have endorsed shoot to kill authority for policemen and soldiers who are confronted by any Arab demonstrators. More than 100 Palestinians have already been killed on the West Bank by armed settlers, police and soldiers who will not be held accountable for the murders while there have also been hundreds of arrests of protesters.

In America Fox News has been a leader in pumping out the interviews and reports suggesting that America’s Jewish students are so terrified by the threats implicit and explicit in the antisemitic rage that is manifest on college campuses and elsewhere that they have stopped eating at the university kosher dining halls lest they become the targets of a madman. And there are the inevitable calls to completely ban gatherings expressing sympathy with the Palestinians or even waving or displaying Palestine’s flag. The moaning about surging antisemitism is indeed all over the mainstream media even though there are quite a few things wrong with the narrative about Israel-Palestine and the events on October 7^th and subsequently. In short, the American and European public are being subjected to the usual con job when it comes to anything having to do with Israel. And the propagandization is certainly also given additional effectiveness when it is repeated by senior politicians coming from both parties with a unanimous Senate vote of 97-0 and a House of Representatives vote of 412 to 10 on resolutions pledging unconditional and total support for Israel and whatever it chooses to do, backed up by two US carrier groups plus Marines standing by in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Colleges and universities have been particularly targeted by Israel’s many friends, with mostly Jewish alumni holding back donations from those schools that do not explicitly denounce Hamas and praise Israeli “restraint” or that permit demonstrations by students supporting Gaza. Students who sign on to protests about what is being done to the Palestinians are being identified and placed on lists that will be submitted to potential future employers and universities to make it more difficult for them to get good jobs or secure academic appointments and fellowships. Ambitious politicians out to endear themselves to Jewish campaign donors and voters, like Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, have gone to extremes, banning Palestinian political groups at state universities and considering prosecution of members of such organizations for “hate crimes” as they are automatically being regarded as motivated by “antisemitism.” DeSantis has also vowed that his state will not accept any Palestinian refugees, though it is not clear how he would enforce that, basing his decision on his judgment that they are “all antisemites,” and Florida has recently purchased $135 million’s worth of so-called Israel Bonds to help in the Jewish state’s war effort. Senator Lindsey Graham has said that there should be “no limit” on Israelis killing Palestinians while Donald Trump has called for all Palestinian students in the US to be deported. It is just one more example of how low and even inhumane our politics have become when Israel is in any way involved, but it is also interesting to note that several European countries and Israel itself are also silencing critics of the Gaza massacres, in some cases by firing them from their jobs.

Part of the problem is that the narrative of what took place on October 7^th and subsequently has been so spun by the media and talking heads that it continues to be somewhat unclear regarding what actually happened. The Israelis have persistently claimed that 1,405 Jews and Asian farm workers were killed by Hamas, 386 of whom were apparently soldiers. But how they died is where the tale goes adrift. Israeli survivors of the attack have told journalists that they were treated well when captured by Hamas and that the real killing began when Israeli Army units including tanks, artillery and helicopters counter-attacked Hamas, creating a brutal cross fire referred to in the trade as “friendly fire” which killed many if not most of the civilians. Houses in one kibbutz, where civilians were sheltering, were largely destroyed by fire from heavy weapons, which Hamas did not possess.

What we now also know from a growing body of evidence obtained from the Israeli media and eyewitnesses is that the Israeli military appear to have been overwhelmed by the day’s events. The reaction may have triggered an apparently long-standing policy referred to as the “Hannibal procedure” that seeks to prevent Israeli soldiers from being taken captive due to the high price the Israeli public insists on paying to make sure that the soldier-prisoners are returned. As a result, the military command has authorization to order Israeli troops to kill fellow soldiers rather than allow them to be taken prisoner. For the same reason, Hamas expends a great deal of energy in trying to find innovative ways to seize soldiers.

The possible reality that the Israeli military killed many of its own soldiers and civilians is, of course, being suppressed in the mainstream and by politicians eager to assist Israel in the Gazan genocide, but it is nevertheless out there. There is, however, another part of the story that is devastating in terms of its implications, and that is the immediate response to the crisis by offering to send Israel $14.5 billion to help in its defense, an incomprehensibly large figure that appears to have been pulled out of some lobbyist’s behind, which translates to performing genocide in Gaza and committing a host of war crimes along the way. The tribute payments, as some have described it, was approved by a party-line 226-196 vote in Congress last Thursday. The vote would have been closer to unanimous but for a partisan dispute over the funding of the measure. If Joe Biden and Congress are not aware that genocide is a big time crime against humanity as defined by the United Nations charter and by the Geneva Conventions and most international lawyers would agree that arming and funding an organization or state that is exterminating a nation or identifiable ethnicity is complicity or even participation in the crime.

Biden and Blinken may not have any idea of how much money Israel gets from the American taxpayer at all levels of government in a year beyond the $3.8 billion per year that it gets in direct “military assistance,” a gift from Barack Obama. Additional money flows from joint military projects, through dubious charities and via state and even local level development boards that bring the total up to roughly $10 billion. That contributes to making Israel a wealthy country which can afford to give its Jewish citizens free health care and college education as well as subsidized housing and it does not need additional US support to fight its wars.

And, by the way, that brings us to the final issue, Israel’s secret nuclear program which certainly should be of concern to US policymakers confronted by an exploding conflict that could engulf the entire Middle East and even spread beyond that area. The fact that Israel uniquely has the nukes in the region, numbering more than 200 by some estimates, is significant. In the United States government there exists a so-called “legislative rule” that no federal employee can confirm that Israel has nuclear weapons. The rule is ridiculous as the existence of the Israeli nuclear arsenal is well attested, including by Colin Powell, who once confirmed that “Israel had over 200 nuclear weapons pointed at Iran.” Powell made the statement when he was out of office but even prominent Israel-firster Senator Chuck Schumer has confirmed the existence of the arsenal.

The reason for acute sensitivity by the Israel Lobby and its bought-and-paid-for politicians over its nukes is the Symington Amendment in Section 101 of the US Arms Export Control Act of 1976 which bans foreign aid to any country that has nuclear weapons and has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Which means that Israel’s annual $3.8 billion in aid would be in jeopardy if Washington were to enforce its own laws, though one cannot imagine that President Joe Biden or the Attorney General Merrick Garland, both fervent Zionists, will take the necessary steps to do so.

Another sticky bit of law consists of the so-called Leahy Amendments, which prohibit the US Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights “with impunity.” Israel’s numerous brutal assaults on Gaza, including the current one in which it is targeting hospitals and churches, bombing and killing helpless civilians, half of whom are children, is a textbook case for when the Leahy Amendments should be applied, but, of course, they never will be. That reality illustrates once again the actual political power of the Jewish Lobby in the United States backed up as it is by Christian Zionists like the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Finally, one must take a look at the Israeli nuclear arsenal itself coupled with the country’s reckless and aggressive leadership and what that represents, a subject that no one currently is even considered as a factor in what the expanding Gaza war might lead to. Twenty years ago, when the United States President George W. Bush initiated his disastrous neocon devised “war on terror” Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saw the war as an opportunity and Israel as a major beneficiary, poised as it was to draw the US into the much-desired attack against Iran coupled with a renewed drive to terrorize the remaining Palestinians into fleeing into the neighboring Arab states. Israel clearly intended its nuclear capability to be used against its neighbors if needed, as described in the 1991 book by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, entitled The Samson Option. The book’s title refers to the Israeli government’s nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was under threat from outside forces and was in danger of being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and the thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated. One of Hersh’s sources in the Israel intelligence service reportedly told him “We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.”

When Sharon was queried about how the rest of the world might respond to Israel using its nukes to effectively wipe out its Arab neighbors, he responded “That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’ I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”

So, there we are, poised on the edge of what might plausibly be the second avoidable nuclear war mishandled by Joe Biden and the muttonheads that he has chosen to “advise” him. Colonel Douglas Macgregor is rightly referring to the exploding crisis that contains a nuclear threat as an “Armageddon War.” Few Americans know that Israel only has nuclear weapons because it stole the enriched uranium and triggers from the United States with the cooperation of a Jewish industrialist Zalman Shapiro, owner of the NUMEC plant in Pennsylvania and a Jewish-Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, neither of whom has ever been seriously held accountable by the US government. So, we have an Israel with a secret nuclear arsenal that no American official can even mention and that it currently is at “war” and is in theory prepared to use the weapons, most likely against an arch-enemy like Iran, but if threatened, to “take the world down.” As for the mostly silent majority of us Americans who would like to see a government that actually tries to do good for the people who live here and pay taxes, having a world at peace where Washington leaves everyone alone and is in return left along by others, is an aspiration whose time seemingly has expired.

THE REALITY OF GAZA’S FORCED EXODUS: UNVEILING ISRAEL’S SECRET PLAN

NOVEMBER 3RD, 2023

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Jessica Buxbaum

Last weekend, Israeli newspaper Local Call leaked an official Israeli government document recommending what Palestinians have been saying Israel is already trying to execute with its war on Gaza — the forcible transfer of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinian population to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office acknowledged the Intelligence Ministry’s proposal exists. Still, it dismissed it in a statement to the Times of Israel as a “concept paper, the likes of which are prepared at all levels of the government and its security agencies.”

Yet Israeli actions, circulating information, and international support all signal that this policy on paper is quickly transitioning to the policy on the ground.

FROM DRAFT POLICY TO REALITY

The document dated October 13 calls for Israel “to evacuate the [Gazan] civilian population to Sinai” first by establishing tent cities and then building new towns in northern Sinai. Following the resettlement, the paper recommends “to create a sterile zone of several kilometers inside Egypt and not allow the population to return to activity or residence near the Israeli border.”

Netanyahu is already attempting to put this plan into action. Last week, the Israeli prime minister sought to convince European leaders to pressure Egypt into accepting refugees from Gaza, according to the Financial Times. Diplomats from France, Germany, and the UK, however, dismissed the idea, citing Egypt’s strong rejection of the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

With that avenue failing, Netanyahu is now reportedly proposing to write off a large chunk of Egypt’s debt through the World Bank to incentivize the country to take in Gaza’s population.

“Everything that has been spelled out in this document in terms of the modalities is everything that we’re seeing right now,” international human rights lawyer Diana Buttu told MintPress News.

The plan’s first phase details Israel’s aerial bombardment of the northern section of the Gaza Strip and the moving of the population of over one million people to the south. The second stage outlines Israel’s ground invasion, beginning in the north and then taking over the whole region.

“Compressing Palestinians to smaller and smaller areas may just be the first of what will ultimately be the fulfillment of these plans on paper,” Adam Shapiro, Israel/Palestine director for rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told MintPress News.

The controversial Intelligence Ministry document isn’t the only policy paper recommending 2.3 million Gazans’ forcible transfer to Egypt. Israeli security think tank Misgav (or the Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy) published a paper written by Misgav researcher Amir Weitmann on October 17, entitled, “A plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza: economic aspects.” Weitman is an activist with Netanyahu’s Likud Party and reportedly a close associate of Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel.

The report calls for “Israel…[to] transfer as many Gazans as possible to other countries; Any other alternative, including PA rule, is a strategic failure. Therefore, Gaza’s population should be transferred to the Sinai Desert and the displaced absorbed in other countries.”

Misgav published the paper on X (formerly known as Twitter) along with a tweet outlining the paper’s central arguments. The post was deleted following widespread backlash.

The original tweet read:

There is currently a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate [sic] the entire Gaza Strip in coordination with the Egyptian government. An immediate, realistic and sustainable plan for the resettlement and humanitarian rehabilitation of the entire Arab population in the Gaza Strip is required which aligns well with the economic and geopolitical interests of Israel, Egypt, the USA and Saudi Arabia.

• In 2017, it was reported that there are about 10 million vacant housing units in Egypt, of which about half are built and half are under construction. For example, in the two largest satellite cities of Cairo…there is a huge amount of built and empty apartments owned by the government and private parties, and construction areas sufficient to house about 6 million inhabitants.
• The average cost of a 3-room apartment with an area of ​​95 square meters for an average Gazan family consisting of 5.14 people in one of the two cities indicated above is about $19,000. Taking into account the currently known size of the entire population living in the Gaza Strip, which ranges from about 1.4 For approximately 2.2 million people, one can estimate that the total amount required and to be transferred to Egypt to finance the project, will be on the order of $5-8 billion.
• Injecting an immediate stimulus of such size into the Egyptian economy would provide a tremendous and immediate benefit to al-Sisi’s regime. These sums, in relation to the Israeli economy, are minimal. Investing a few billion dollars (even if it is $20- or $30-billion) to solve this difficult issue is an innovative, cheap and sustainable solution.
• There is no doubt that in order for this plan to be realized, many conditions must exist concurrently. Currently, these conditions are optimal, and it is unclear when

another such an opportunity will arise, if ever.

Misgav subsequently published another paper related to Gaza entitled Hamas Enjoys Widespread Support Among Gaza’s Population, written by Misgav fellow Yishai Armoni on October 19.

In this essay, Armoni details the considerable support Hamas enjoys from its constituents, writing:

Despite claims now being made that the majority of the public in Gaza desires peace and is being held captive by Hamas, data and evidence collected over the past two decades consistently demonstrates the opposite. Hamas enjoys widespread support among Gaza’s civilian population”

The paper then concludes “that claims regarding the existence of a clear ideological or political demarcation between the majority of Gaza’s residents and Hamas are entirely unfounded.”

While Armoni makes clear not to conflate civilians with Hamas militants, he does note that Hamas’ popularity among Gaza’s residents should be taken into account with “regards to decisions related to the military campaign, and to post-war arrangements in the Gaza Strip.”

The Misgav Institute did not respond to MintPress News’ requests for comment on these position papers.

Israeli legal advisor Itay Epshtain explained on social media how the views outlined in Misgav’s recent documents are already translating into action.

From the people that orchestrated #Israel annexation of the West Bank and the ancillary "judicial overhaul" come these two position papers, which will likely determine the position on #Gaza. Premeditated grave breaches of international law in two steps: pic.twitter.com/gM6ZG1DnGd

— Itay Epshtain (@EpshtainItay) October 25, 2023

According to leaflets airdropped on northern Gaza from the Israeli military, anyone who doesn’t leave for the south could be considered affiliated with Hamas.

Furthermore, Misgav’s executives already appear integral in crafting government legislation. Misgav is headed by former Netanyahu National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat, an influential figure in the Israeli security sphere and one of the architects of Israel’s normalization deals with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. Misgav is also funded by Kohelet Policy Forum, now notorious for being behind the current Israeli government’s judicial overhaul plans.

The Institute’s founders and former chairs are also entwined with the Israeli government. Former chairman Yoaz Hendel served as Israel’s Minister of Communications. Moshe Yaalon served as Defense Minister under Netanyahu. Moshe Arens also worked as Israel’s Defense Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. Natan Sharansky served as Interior Minister and as Deputy Prime Minister.

THE US IS ‘COMPLICIT’

One of the critical points in the Intelligence Ministry’s document stressed the need for harnessing international support for the expulsion plan — something analysts argue Israel’s Western allies are already doing.

On October 20, the White House sent a $14 billion funding request to Congress for aid to Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine. The letter’s language has come under scrutiny for suggesting the forcible displacement of Gazans to other countries.

The letter reads:

These resources would support displaced and conflict affected civilians, including Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the West Bank, and to address potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries…This crisis could well result in displacement across [the] border and higher regional humanitarian needs, and funding may be used to meet evolving programming requirements outside of Gaza.”

DAWN slammed the White House request’s language and called on Congress to reject the supplementary funding bill.

“The Biden administration isn’t just giving a green light for ethnic cleansing—it’s bankrolling it,” Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director, said in a statement. “Gaslighting Americans into facilitating long-held Israeli plans to depopulate Gaza under the cover of ‘humanitarian aid’ is a cruel and grotesque hoax.”

While the White House request acknowledged the possibility of Gazans being expelled during the war, U.S. President Joe Biden has previously advocated against this forcible displacement. The White House did not respond to MintPress News’ inquiries for comment on the aid bill.

“The Americans are supporting Israel and creating the conditions on the ground that are catastrophic from a humanitarian perspective,” DAWN’s Shapiro told MintPress News.

So far, the U.S. has repeatedly rejected calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. However, Biden recently advocated for a “pause” to secure the release of American captives held by Hamas. The U.S. has also sent senior army officials to advise Israel’s military on its ground invasion into Gaza and increased its arms and troops in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean regions. This has included shipments of armored jeeps and advanced weaponry to Israel.

משרד הביטחון קלט לפני שעה קלה בישראל מטוס מטען אמריקני עם משלוח ראשון של ג'יפים ממוגנים לצה״ל. הג'יפים מועברים בשעה זו לצה"ל כדי להחליף כלי רכב שנפגעו במלחמה.

להמשך קריאה: https://t.co/IYPTj2lkyZ pic.twitter.com/szUOJzzvvu

— משרד הביטחון (@MoDIsrael) October 19, 2023

מזכיר ההגנה האמריקני, לויד אוסטין, מלווה בידי מנכ"ל משרד הביטחון, אלוף (מיל') אייל זמיר וסגן הרמטכ"ל, אלוף אמיר ברעם, קיבלו לפני זמן קצר בבסיס נבטים של חיל האוויר מטוס מטען אמריקני ראשון, שנחת בישראל מאז פרוץ המלחמה, עם משלוח של חימושים עבור צה"ל.
להמשך>> https://t.co/IYPTj2lkyZ pic.twitter.com/4rgv0u6MuD

— משרד הביטחון (@MoDIsrael) October 13, 2023

משרד הביטחון מפרסם תיעוד מנחיתת מטוס המטען, שהביא לישראל משלוח ראשון של חימושים מתקדמים.
הציוד נרכש והובא לישראל במבצע משותף למנהל הרכש (מנה"ר), משלחת הרכש של משרד הביטחון בארה"ב ויחידת הממונה על השינוע הבינלאומי, אשר גייסה את מטוס המטען, שהביא את החימושים בטיסה ישירה מארה"ב. pic.twitter.com/xZodTxX41y

— משרד הביטחון (@MoDIsrael) October 11, 2023

Footage circulating online has also shown U.S.-manufactured weapons containing white phosphorus being used in Israel’s assault on Gaza. These artillery shells were made by Pine Bluff Arsenal, a chemical weapons manufacturer based in Arkansas known for supplying white phosphorus ammunition.

Barak Mayer "To all those who doubted
when I wrote that Israel uses white phosphorus
in Gaza: this is a shell of white phosphorus
(M825A1, made by Pine Bluff Arsenal, USA)"

[The IDF has claimed it uses white phosphorus
in Gaza not as a weapon, but for illumination/as marker] https://t.co/haiiGwNVbL

— Marian Houk (@Marianhouk) October 30, 2023

תיקון ועדכון חשוב:
קיבלתי מידע שפגזי הזרחן הלבן מסומנים בפס צהוב או אדום ולא חום כמו בתמונה. אני חושב שהמידע מדוייק, אבל מאחר ויש תמונות שפורסמו מהמערכה הנוכחית (צולמו ב-9.10), עם הפגזים המדוברים, המסומנים בפס צהוב, אשאיר את הציוץ עם ההבהרה.https://t.co/KIcvRzi6X7 pic.twitter.com/rHCDipGSkR

— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) October 30, 2023

“The majority of the world is opposed to this attack on Gaza,” Buttu said. “But still, Western Europe, the United States, and Canada are not.”

Buttu described the U.S. as “totally complicit” in Israel’s displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, saying, “This is an Israeli plan that will be signed off on by the Americans, by the Canadians, by Europe, and so on.”

Israeli policy papers promoting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza simply mirror what many Israeli politicians and media pundits have expressed since the beginning of this war.

A member of Israel’s parliament, Ariel Kallner, called for repeating the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during Israel’s establishment as a state in 1948, known as the Nakba or ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, except on a much larger scale.

“Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948,” Kallner wrote on X.

Dror Eydar, Israel’s former ambassador to Italy, called for the complete destruction of Gaza during a live interview with Italian channel Rete 4.

“For us, there is a purpose: to destroy Gaza, to destroy the absolute evil,” he said.

As Israel continues carpet-bombing Gaza and as even a sliver of humanitarian aid struggles to trickle into the besieged enclave, another Nakba — or arguably just another chapter in this genocidal series — is rapidly being carried out.

“This has just been a continuation since ‘48,” Buttu said. “It’s just this slow drip to get people to leave and, in some cases, not a slow drip, but even a faster one.”

Trouble ahead for the US and Israel in Gaza

OCT 17, 2023

Source

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Hasan Illaik

The US and Israel have different end goals in bombing Gaza to bits: Tel Aviv wants to ethnically cleanse it of Palestinians and Washington wants to bring back the PA. Both plans, however, are likely to hit an Axis of Resistance wall.

As wholly expected, and in line with decades of its foreign policy, Washington has thrown its full weight behind “standing with Israel” and its genocidal onslaught on Gaza. But while the two allies’ public stances line up prettily at this stage of the conflict, their views diverge on what comes next – specifically over the elimination of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza. 

The devastating impact of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the occupation state has presented an opportunity for the US and Israel to permanently eradicate the threat posed by the Palestinian resistance.

As the resistance’s unprecedented political, military, and psychological gains began to sink in, Washington immediately jumped into the fray:

For starters, the US dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean – with another on its way – and has mobilized British and Italian warships in those waters in a show of support for Israel. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is playing a pivotal role in coordinating with Israel, openly participating in its cabinet meetings, and fronting diplomatic negotiations on behalf of Tel Aviv. 

Simultaneously, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has arrived in Israel to provide his “unwavering” support, which includes the deployment of 2,000 US Special Forces troops to the Occupation state. The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) commander is also set to visit the border with Lebanon in the coming days. 

And then tomorrow, the US president himself will arrive in Amman, Jordan, from where Joe Biden will travel to Jerusalem – the Israeli “capital city” that neither nations nor international law recognizes –  to demonstrate the his country’s substantial support for Israel.

Warnings to the Resistance 

These actions leave little doubt that it is Washington taking the lead in this war, not Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister, or his chief of staff. Tel Aviv isn’t remotely trying to conceal this fact either. As prominent Israeli journalist Yossi Yehoshua stated, “the United States has complete control over the battle in Gaza.”

Because, truth be told, after the Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood, nobody has a whole lot of confidence in Israel’s military, which took the brunt of the resistance’s blow. This meant that the world’s preeminent naval power needed to be summoned to confront an armed group from the 365 square kilometer virtual cage that is Gaza. 

In its essence, this is a standoff between Israel, the US and its NATO allies, and the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, which has endured a relentless, brutal siege for 18 years. 

But Washington’s military build-up is not intended for a confrontation with Gaza. The introduction of US naval fleets into the Eastern Mediterranean has been orchestrated to deliver a deterrence message to Palestine’s resistance ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

With good reason, the Americans view Hezbollah as “the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor.” They also quite correctly believe that the Lebanese resistance’s intervention in the war on Gaza will alter its course and potentially prevent Israel from achieving its objectives.

Although no credible source can confirm the exact number of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, regional and western analysts estimate the number to be as high as 130,000 missiles – possibly more – most of which are unguided.  But Hezbollah Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed in a televised statement aired on February 2022 that Hezbollah can convert rockets into precision missiles, and is fully capable of producing drones. A year prior, Nasrallah also confirmed that his party was now 100,000 men strong – with all missiles aimed toward Israel. 

When Hezbollah did not respond to the warnings Washington sent via multiple Lebanese, Arab, and UN channels, the Americans decided to get more explicit: Threats were made to the group and its allies that Hezbollah’s entry into the war would lead to Lebanon’s destruction. Similar threats were also delivered to Iraq’s many resistance organizations. 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received a more unique warning – that if he allowed a Syrian front to be opened against Israel, he would personally suffer the consequences. This, while Israel was bombing Syria’s international airports in Damascus and Aleppo.

Delaying the Gaza ground invasion 

The Southern Lebanese Front has been active since 8 October. Hezbollah, adamant that it won’t remain on the sidelines, has been launching frequent attacks on Israeli positions in the occupied Sheba Farms and along the Lebanese-Palestinian border. 

The group has inflicted casualties on the Israeli army in response to the deaths of Hezbollah fighters, journalists, and Lebanese civilians. Alongside Hezbollah are their Palestinian allies in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), who have been engaging in cross-border operations in recent weeks.

In Gaza, the occupation army continues its systematic destruction of civilian neighborhoods, so far dropping more than 6,000 bombs weighing a total of 4,000 tons. Despite Israel’s carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip, Hamas reports that its military capabilities remain fully intact.

In the meantime, the Israeli military has mustered a force of approximately 140,000 troops for the now-delayed ground invasion of densely populated Gaza, home to over two million civilians. Israel’s aggression have already claimed more than 2,600 lives, with a significant majority – over 60 percent – being women and children.

Initially, the ground offensive was scheduled to commence on Friday, 13 October, but was postponed citing adverse weather conditions. According to the Jerusalem Post, however, the delay is actually due to “growing concern that Hezbollah is waiting for the moment that most IDF ground forces are committed to Gaza to open a full front with the IDF in the north.”

The Iran-led, regional Axis of Resistance calculates that the Israeli ground offensive is a “real possibility.” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has now issued a warning that continued Israeli aggression against Gaza could prompt the resistance to launch a preemptive strike against Israel “in the coming hours.”

Displacement or de-facto rule 

In a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past few days, Abdollahian has visited Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, and Doha, with Gaza high on his agenda. In meetings with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and the leadership of PIJ and Hamas, Iran’s top diplomat warned that Israel’s continued aggressions against Gaza may imminently escalate the conflict. The Resistance Axis, it appears, has already taken the decision to do everything possible to protect both the Palestinian resistance’s capabilities, and another Nakba. 

Elsewhere, a complex debate has arisen among the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt on the future of the Gaza Strip “after the elimination of Hamas.” Washington intends to use the bombing of Gaza to restructure Palestinian politics and society toward consolidating normalization agreements with Israel. 

According to diplomatic sources, the Biden administration plans to leverage the ongoing conflict to dismantle the resistance in Gaza and transfer control of the Gaza Strip to the corrupt and US-compliant Palestinian Authority (PA). This strategy is seen as a step toward reviving the Saudi-Israeli normalization path, which took a nosedive after Operation Al Aqsa Flood. 

Israel’s current leadership, however, is reluctant to bolster the PA to the extent the US wants; more than anything, Tel Aviv wants to displace Gaza’s Palestinian population outright. Israel’s essentially ethnic-cleansing plan, of course, faces opposition from Jordan and Egypt for entirely cynical reasons that include its economic, security, and demographic fallout – especially in Jordan, where the resettlement of Palestinians is a social and political tinderbox.

These divergent goals between the US and Israel are not rooted in the origins of the conflict. Despite overtly backing Israel and its exclusive “right to defend itself,” Biden has expressed his desire for a resolution and has issued a warning against Israel’s occupation of Gaza. 

His warning essentially rejects any Israeli reoccupation of Gaza after the ground war’s objectives have been met. Interestingly, Biden has not issued a warning against the ground offensive itself – though the US is actively working to influence its direction behind the scenes. Publicly, the US is engaged in image enhancement tomfoolery by touting its support for humanitarian aid provisions set to enter Gaza from Egypt.

Region-wide implications 

Three potential scenarios can be outlined for the next phase of this confrontation:

First, the US may respond to warnings from the Axis of Resistance, and either reduce in scope or altogether scrap Israel’s ground operation in Gaza.

Second, occupation forces may launch their ground invasion, with the specific objective of eliminating Hamas. This, of course, would be a formidable undertaking, even with the involvement of the US naval fleet. With more than 50,000 fighters present in Gaza today, the Israelis would encounter fierce resistance. 

Such a battle is unlikely to conclude swiftly and could extend for months, during which the resistance will aim to make the cost of the ground war unbearable for Israel. Furthermore, the extensive focus on the Lebanese border may offer opportunities for Hezbollah to expand its operations and potentially intensify the conflict. 

If the US follows through on its threat to confront Hezbollah, this could pave the way for the group’s regional allies to target US military assets in nearby countries like Iraq which could flip the conflict into a regional war. 

Third, Saudi Arabia, in alignment with Washington, could propose a “peaceful solution” that effectively results in the surrender of the resistance in Gaza, an exchange of Israeli prisoners for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, and the return of the PA and its institutions, to the Gaza Strip. 

According to Arab diplomatic sources, this proposal could allow Israel to achieve its objectives without resorting to a ground invasion. Saudi Arabia aims to bolster its image as the savior of the Palestinian people and has pledged to assist in the reconstruction of whatever Israel has destroyed.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called for an international summit on Saturday, involving the US, Russia, China, Turkiye, the EU, the Persian Gulf states, Jordan, and the PA. The level of coordination between Saudi Arabia and Egypt in this matter is still uncertain, as both countries support the PA and may be working on side arrangements to normalize relations between Arab states and Israel.

In the days to come, diplomatic discussions will play a crucial role in determining the direction of the military theater. The key question at hand is whether Israel can be deterred from escalating the war, or whether the US will provide the necessary support for a large-scale offensive against the Palestinian population in Gaza, laying the groundwork for a broader regional conflict. 

As Gaza’s regional allies have emphatically stated, the Palestinian people are not fighting this existential battle for survival and national liberation alone.

IN THE SERVICE OF ISRAEL: BIDEN ADMIN BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO TRUMP’S ABRAHAM ACCORDS

JUNE 30TH, 2023

Source

Miko Peled

HR. 3099 was Introduced in the House of Representatives on May 5, 2023. This bill, known as the “Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords Act,” is the latest act by the United States in the service of Israel.

This bill establishes the position of Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords within the Department of State. For anyone who does not remember, the Abraham Accords are agreements to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states that do not recognize Israel. It is an anti-Palestinian accord more than anything. It should be named “a bill to guarantee that governments who go against the wishes of their people and are willing to turn their backs to the plight of the Palestinian people will be rewarded.”

The first four members of the Arab League to sign this accord were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The initial signing took place in the White House during the Trump administration, and it should be noted that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu were the only heads of state present. The other countries sent their foreign ministers, ostensibly so as not to be seen signing this disgraceful agreement. It is worth noting that there was extensive widespread opposition to normalizing relations with Israel in all countries that signed the accords.

A US AMBASSADOR IN THE SERVICE OF ISRAEL

According to the bill’s text, the Special Envoy, who shall have the rank and status of ambassador, shall serve as the primary advisor to the U.S. government for expanding and strengthening the Abraham Accords. The duties of the Special Envoy include:

• Encouraging countries without diplomatic relations with Israel to establish formal diplomatic, economic, security, and people-to-people ties;
• Expanding and strengthening existing relationships between Israel and Muslim-majority countries; and
• Coordinating efforts across the U.S. government and engaging diplomatically with foreign governments, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders to expand and strengthen the Abraham Accords.

The language in the bill demands that we ask why in the world is the U.S. government engaged in serving the interests of Israel so blatantly. Indeed, the U.S. will be selling arms to these countries, but a larger picture here is not being discussed, at least not enough. You have to hand it to Israel and even more to the Israeli lobby here in the U.S.: They got a superpower to work as Israel’s sales agent and pay for it. American taxpayers will now be paying additional millions of dollars to solicit – or rather bully – countries who have not yet established relations with Israel to do so. Is this the best use of American taxpayer dollars? Does this serve Americans in any way? The answer to both questions is “No!”

IMPORTANT NEWS

Needless to say, this bill was reported by the Israel press as another step in advancing the good relations between Israel and the United States. The Times of Israel reported that “the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation mandating the Biden administration to appoint a special envoy for the Abraham Accords. The special envoy will encourage additional countries to follow the lead of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020.”

If there was any doubt regarding the role the Anti-Palestinian, pro-apartheid lobby, AIPAC, played in passing this bill, Representative Ritchie Tores ensured it was set aside. In a tweet, Congressman 703748 thanked AIPAC for its role in passing the bill. He further said that the future belongs to peace and love, not BDS. In other words, the anti-Palestinian bill pushed down the throat of Americans by the Apartheid defending genocide supporting AIPAC will lead to a future of love and roses.

In contrast, the Palestinian call for freedom and justice is equivalent to a hate-filled future. Once again, anti-peace anti-Palestinian legislation is poorly masked with good intentions.

Exporting Occupation: Israeli Business is Booming in Morocco-Occupied Western Sahara

EXPORTING OCCUPATION: ISRAELI BUSINESS IS BOOMING IN MOROCCO-OCCUPIED WESTERN SAHARA

According to the Times of Israel piece, during his announcement of the administration’s decision to establish the new position, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “Israel’s further integration in the region contributes to a more stable, a more secure and more prosperous region. That’s why President Biden has made it a cornerstone of his Middle East policy.”

“We will soon create a new position to further our diplomacy and engagement with governments and private sector, nongovernmental organizations, all working toward a more peaceful and a more connected region,” he added.

THE SAUDI CARD

Those who had expectations that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would join the accords suffered a blow when instead of opening an embassy in Tel-Aviv, Riadh reopened its embassy in Tehran. For Israel and especially for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, having Saudi Arabia capitulate and sign the Abraham Accords would be the greatest of rewards. According to a piece in the Jerusalem Post quoting one of the sponsors of the Bill, Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, “The addition of a special envoy will be critical for bringing Saudi Arabia into the accords.”

The warming of the relations between Riyadh and Teheran was ostensibly a result of Chinese intervention. At the same time, the U.S. was busy with more important things, like passing anti-Palestinian legislation. Now Israel has got President Biden nominating and paying for a full-fledged ambassador to try to bring Saudi Arabia back to fold, as it were.

The question is, of course, what is in it for the Saudis? Apparently, they want nuclear power plants, which Israel and the U.S. will never allow, but Teheran might be able to help them develop. Israel is seriously undermining the Arab and Muslim custodianship of the Holy Basin, which includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in a manner so egregious that the Saudis can no longer ignore it.

Still, one must not lose hope because Congress passed a bill, and President Biden will nominate an envoy. So, for now, the legislative and the executive branches are following the marching order of every Palestinian-hating, apartheid-loving, warmongering, racist lobby working for Israel. The two branches of the United States government are in sync as they serve Israel.

WHY IS THE WEST LAMENTING THE END OF ‘LIBERAL’ ISRAEL?

JANUARY 6TH, 2023

Source

By Ramzy Baroud

Even before the new Israeli government was officially sworn in on December 29, angry reactions began emerging, not only among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern governments but also among Israel’s historic allies in the West.

As early as November 2, top US officials conveyed to Axios that the Joe Biden Administration is “unlikely to engage with Jewish supremacist politician, Itamar Ben-Gvir.”

In fact, the US government’s apprehensions surpassed Ben-Gvir, who was convicted by Israel’s own court in 2007 for supporting a terrorist organization and inciting racism.

US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reportedly “hinted” that the US government would also boycott “other right-wing extremists” in Netanyahu’s government.

However, these strong concerns seemed absent from the congratulatory statement by the US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, on the following day. Nides relayed that he had “congratulated (Netanyahu) on his victory and told him that I look forward to working together to maintain the unbreakable bond” between the two countries.

In other words, this ‘unbreakable bond’ is stronger than any public US concern regarding terrorism, extremism, fascism, and criminal activities.

Ben-Gvir is not the only convicted criminal in Netanyahu’s government. Aryeh Deri, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, was convicted of tax fraud in early 2022 and in 2000, he served a prison sentence for accepting bribes when he held the position of interior minister.

Bezalel Smotrich: Israel’s New Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Takes Aim at the Holy Sanctuary

Bezalel Smotrich is another controversial character whose anti-Palestinian racism has dominated his political persona for many years.

While Ben-Gvir has been assigned the post of national security minister, Deri has been entrusted with the ministry of interior and Smotrich with the ministry of finance.

Palestinians and Arab countries are rightly angry because they understand that the new government is likely to sow more violence and chaos.

With many of Israel’s sinister politicians in one place, Arabs know that Israel’s illegal annexation of parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories is back on the agenda; and that incitement against Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem, coupled with raids of Al-Aqsa Mosque will exponentially increase in the coming weeks and months. And, expectedly, the push for the construction and expansion of illegal settlements is likely to grow, as well.

These are not unfounded fears. Aside from the very racist and violent statements and actions by Netanyahu and his allies in recent years, the new government has already declared that the Jewish people have “exclusive and inalienable rights to all parts of the Land of Israel,” promising to expand settlements while distancing itself from any commitments to establishing a Palestinian State, or even engaging in any ‘peace process.’

But while Palestinians and their Arab allies have been largely consistent in recognizing extremism in the various Israeli governments, what excuse do the US and the West have in failing to recognize that the latest Netanyahu-led government is the most rational outcome of blindly supporting Israel throughout the years?

In March 2019, Politico branded Netanyahu as the creator of “the most right-wing government in Israeli history,” a sentiment that was repeated countless times in other western media outlets.

This ideological shift was, in fact, recognized by Israel’s own media, years earlier. In May 2016, the popular Israeli newspaper Maariv described the Israeli government at the time as the “most right-wing and extremist” in the country’s history. This was, in part, due to the fact that far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman was assigned the role of the defense minister.

The West, then, too, showed concern, warned against the demise of Israel’s supposed liberal democracy, and demanded that Israel must remain committed to the peace process and the two-state solution. None of that actualized. Instead, the terrifying figures of that government were rebranded as merely conservatives, centrists or even liberals in the following years.

The same is likely to happen now. In fact, signs of the US’s willingness to accommodate whatever extremist politics Israel produces are already on display. In his statement, on December 30, welcoming the new Israeli government, Biden said nothing about the threat of Tel Aviv’s far-right politics to the Middle East region but, rather, the “challenges and threats” posed by the region to Israel. In other words, Ben-Gvir or no Ben-Gvir, unconditional support for Israel by the US will remain intact.

If history is a lesson, future violence and incitement in Palestine will also be blamed mostly, if not squarely, on Palestinians. This knee-jerk, pro-Israeli attitude has defined Israel’s relationship with the US, regardless of whether Israeli governments are led by extremists or supposed liberals. No matter, Israel somehow maintained its false status as “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

But if we are to believe that Israel’s exclusivist and racially based ‘democracy’ is a democracy at all, then we are justified to also believe that Israel’s new government is neither less nor more democratic than the previous governments.

Yet, western officials, commentators and even pro-Israel Jewish leaders and organizations in the US are now warning against the supposed danger facing Israel’s liberal democracy in the run-up to the formation of Netanyahu’s new government.

Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Appointment as Minister for National Security is Bad News For Palestinians, Humanity.

This is an indirect, if not clever form of whitewashing, as these views accept that what Israel has practiced since its founding in 1948, until today, was a form of real democracy; and that Israel remained a democracy even after the passing of the controversial Nation-State Law, which defines Israel as a Jewish state, completely disregarding the rights of the country’s non-Jewish citizens.

It is only a matter of time before Israel’s new extremist government is also whitewashed as another working proof that Israel can strike a balance between being Jewish and also democratic at the same time.

The same story was repeated in 2016, when warnings over the rise of far-right extremism in Israel – following the Netanyahu-Lieberman pact – quickly disappeared and eventually vanished. Instead of boycotting the new unity government, the US government finalized, in September 2016, its largest military aid package to Israel, amounting to $38 billion.

In truth, Israel has not changed much, either in its own self-definition or in its treatment of Palestinians. Failing to understand this is tantamount to tacit approval of Israel’s racist, violent and colonial policies in Occupied Palestine over the course of 75 years.

US NON-PROFIT-FUNDED ISRAELI EXTREMISTS POSE IMMEDIATE THREAT TO AL-AQSA MOSQUE AND REGIONAL STABILITY

DECEMBER 7TH, 2022

Source

Robert Inlakesh

As the Religious Zionist Party forms part of Israel’s new government, fears arise of tensions over the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound leading to a new regional escalation. Israeli settler provocations at Jerusalem’s holy sites have a long history of causing civil unrest that runs counter to Washington’s foreign policy goals, which is why U.S.-based non-profits that finance Israeli extremists are all the more outrageous.

With far-right Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir pledging to fight for unfettered access to Al-Aqsa Mosque for extremist settlers, the conditions that could lead to an explosion of violence throughout occupied Palestine – and even regionally – are ripe. In May 2021, Israeli settler incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, combined with routine attacks on worshipers by Israeli police, caused a war to break out between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Once on the fringes of Israeli society, the extremist Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement have now entered the mainstream, with a leader of the second most powerful Israeli political party on their side. The temple mount group openly states on its website its intentions of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as we know it today and building the Jewish “Third Temple” in its place – a virtual declaration of war against the Muslim world.

Although the extremist settlers who routinely storm the mosque are not necessarily close to achieving their end goal, they are hoping to see the new Israeli government grant them the full right to storm at will and perform religious rituals in Al-Aqsa. Such provocations could spark a round of tensions inside the Old City of Jerusalem and its surroundings, leading to a situation that the Secretary General of Lebanese Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed to challenge using a united resistance front, formed of a number of regional actors, including Yemen’s Ansar Allah.

THE ORIGINS OF THE AL-AQSA MOSQUE TENSIONS

Since the early days of the British Mandate period in Palestine, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and its surroundings have been central to both the Palestinian national struggle and to creating the grounds for greater conflict between Zionists and Palestinians.

The Zionist movement’s attempts to take over the Western (Wailing) Wall – attached to the outer walls of the Al-Aqsa site, have sparked a number of riots and clashes, culminating in the bloody 1929 al-Khalil (Hebron) uprising.

During the Ottoman Rule of Palestine, Chaim Weizmann, then head of the Zionist Organization, saw the Western Wall site as a prize to attain, initially in order to bring ultra-orthodox Jews into the Zionist camp. He attempted to purchase the site from the Islamic religious trust known as the Waqf. In Tom Segev’s book, “One Palestine, Complete,” he cites a letter written by Weizmann to his wife, where he described, “the minarets and the bell-towers and the domes rising to the sky are crying out that Jerusalem is not Jewish,” clearly indicating a need to change the city’s character.

According to Yehoshua Porath’s book, “The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918-1929”, during tensions between Zionists and Palestinians in 1920s Jerusalem, the precedent was already set for Muslim fears over any change in the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites. Porath writes that the Palestinians understood Zionist attempts to change the status quo at the Western Wall site as a gradual attempt to take over the Haram al-Sharif (otherwise known as the Dome of the Rocks mosque), located in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

In reaction to Zionist attempts to attain more control in the Old City, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, created a large campaign to both refurbish the site and to signal to Muslims that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was under attack. This campaign ended up increasing the importance of the third-holiest site in the Islamic faith and in the Palestinian national struggle, combining the religious significance of al-Aqsa with the Palestinian fight for national liberation. The fact that Judaization attempts were being made by leaders of the Zionist movement, pre-dating the British Mandate rule itself, remains stored in the Palestinian collective consciousness until this day.

AL-AQSA UNDER THE LAW

The position that is maintained by the United Nations, despite Israel having passed its own legislation to annex Jerusalem in 1980, is that under international law, the territory is considered to be occupied. The international community “rejects the acquisition of territory by war and considers any changes on the ground illegal and invalid”, is the way the issue of Israel’s claims to sovereignty over the city it viewed by the UN. In addition to this, the status quo, as per Israel’s agreement with Jordan, is that the Jordanian Waqf has the right to maintain security inside the Al-Aqsa compound, whilst Israeli forces have the right to manage security on the Holy Site’s exterior.

Despite attempts to change it, Israeli law states that performing acts of religious worship inside the site is forbidden for Israeli Jewish citizens. Jewish Israelis are allowed to enter as tourists, as is the case for non-Muslim international travelers to the site. However, the Israeli police that operate security checks surrounding Al-Aqsa clearly do not abide by this precedent.

Israel has no right, under international law, to any of Jerusalem. One way that Tel Aviv could have been granted legitimacy in Jerusalem was through a potential peace deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with no such deal having yet taken place. Between 1993 and 1995, both Israel and the PLO signed what was known as the Oslo Accords. Oslo gave birth to a semi-autonomous Palestinian governing body – the Palestinian Authority – in some limited areas of the West Bank and Gaza. The series of agreements between the PLO and the Israeli government was supposed to lead to a process by which a Palestinian State could be created.

Palestinian youth are handcuffed after protesting Israelis stroming Al-Aqsa Mosque, April 15, 2022. Ariel Schalit | AP

Although Israeli negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), currently based out of the city of Ramallah, never resulted in a peace deal, the PA had only ever claimed for their state to include East Jerusalem. Under international law, without a viable Palestinian state – one that has its capital in East Jerusalem, Israel has no legal right to any part of the city.

Despite this, in 2000, then-Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, stormed the Al-Aqsa compound, causing a mass Palestinian revolt. Sharon’s move followed a march that had just taken place to commemorate the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres of around 3,500 Palestinians and Lebanese civilians – massacres that Sharon played a central role in facilitating.

For Palestinians, it was the act of an Israeli politician storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque site that served as the straw that broke the camel’s back. The uprising across the Occupied Territories known as the Second Intifada began in September 2000 and continued officially until 2005.

ISRAEL’S GROWING ENCROACHMENT ON AL-AQSA

Over the past two years, the Israeli assaults on Palestinian worshipers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound have been extremely pronounced, especially during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Israeli riot police have repeatedly stormed the site, injuring hundreds of Palestinians and even killing a young man earlier this year. The war between Gaza and Israel in 2021 began as a result of tensions surrounding Al-Aqsa and the threat of an Israeli settler “death to Arabs” march penetrating the compound’s walls.

Leading up to the 2021 conflict, Israeli police had restricted access to the site for prayer during the month of Ramadan and even closed off the minarets at Al-Aqsa to prevent the call to prayer. In 2019, the Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, pushed to install quiet speakers at the Mosque site, which indicates that the action performed by the Israeli police was likely not arbitrary and fits into a trend of extinguishing the Islamic presence in the city.

Going further back, in 2010, an Israeli terrorist attempted to detonate explosives in order to blow up the Al-Qibli Mosque inside the Al-Aqsa compound. This attack was followed by continued attempts by settlers to invade the area. 2015 however, was when the provocations began to take off in an unprecedented manner, with the number of Israeli settlers choosing to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque steadily increasing since that time.

According to Yaraeh – an organization that promotes settler incursions into Al-Aqsa – from August to October 2021, approximately 10,000 Israeli settlers entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, representing a 35% increase from previous years. This October, Yaraeh proudly announced that almost 8,000 settlers stormed the site in one month – the highest on record and more than in the entirety of 2012

In 2021, Hagit Ofran, the director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watchdog, told +972 Magazine that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had been responsible for tensions at the al-Aqsa site, “so much so that it was the reason Netanyahu was no longer in touch with Jordan’s King Abdullah II”. Since the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, Israel and Jordan have been bound by an agreement that maintains the “status quo” at the site, which involves Tel Aviv respecting the Hashemite King of Jordan’s symbolic custodianship over Al-Aqsa.

With Netanyahu returning to power, the Jordanian element to this story is particularly important. Netanyahu is backed by fanatical Israeli lawmakers who would like to see Palestinian citizens of Israel expelled from the country altogether. Although Jordan’s King Abdullah II is not likely to abandon his nation’s 1994 peace treaty with Tel Aviv, it is clear that during the Trump administration years, the Hashemite ruler had been isolated after taking a stance against the Netanyahu-Trump “Deal of the Century” model to end the Palestine-Israeli conflict. There are even reports that Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was involved in attempts to hatch a coup plot to overthrow the Jordanian monarch – one that was publicly quashed in April 2021. The Israeli role in the alleged U.S.-Saudi campaign to undermine Abdullah was said to have been part of an attempt to strip the Hashemites of their symbolic custodianship over Al-Aqsa.

Under the Biden administration’s combined efforts with the former Bennett-Lapid government of Israel, Amman had again grown closer to Tel Aviv and even signed a memorandum of understanding for a “water for clean energy” exchange agreement. However, with Netanyahu’s return to power and the current weakening of the Palestinian Authority, if tensions arise from the growing encroachment upon Al-Aqsa, Jordan’s ruler could again be undermined. The Jordanians and Palestinian Authority have already joined hands, sending a message to the U.S. and E.U. to demand that no change be made to the status quo at Al-Aqsa as the new Israeli government comes to power.

In addition to its plans for the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians in neighborhoods like Silwan, Israel is also demolishing Islamic burial sites in the Old City. The Israeli Supreme Court has also been complicit in rejecting appeals to prevent a cable car project in the Old City, which will economically impact local Palestinians, as well as destroy their heritage sites. Recently, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem has condemned the rising settler attacks on holy sites throughout the city, but his statements largely fell on deaf ears.

Given all the context noted above, it is fair to assume that another escalation is only around the corner and that due to the silence of the international community, the Palestinian people will be left to defend their holy sites on their own. When this happens, however, it is likely that much of the Western world, along with Israel, will act as if the Palestinians are being violent and unreasonable, and motivated purely by anti-Semitism.

U.S. FUNDING OF EXTREMIST TEMPLE MOUNT GROUPS

The Temple Mount movement, which explicitly expresses its desire to not only change the status quo at Al-Aqsa but to build the ‘third temple’ by destroying the Islamic Holy site there, is spearheaded by American-born Israelis. There has been significant financial as well as promotional support from U.S. citizens and organizations. Lately, prominent conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson have themselves entered the site in the presence of extremist Temple Mount figures. Among both Christian and Jewish Americans, the issue has been of importance for starkly different religious reasons.

The Temple Institute, the most notable of a number of organizations that advocate changing the status quo at the Al-Aqsa compound and building the Jewish third temple, was revealed by a Haaretz news investigation to have been funded by a leading U.S. donor to Benjamin Netanyahu. The Temple Institute, founded in 1987 by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, received $96,000 from the U.S.-based One Israel Fund in 2012 and 2013 alone, with a number of other American organizations also contributing donations during that time. The 2015 Haaretz report uncovered that the financing of extremist Temple Mount groups comes from a large pool of tax-exempt charitable organizations that are based in the United States, ranging from New York and California to Texas.

According to the Temple Institute’s last publicly available financial report, for the years 2019 and 2020, the organization received over $2.9 million in funding. Around half came from the Israeli government, with the other half coming from donations. To contribute funds from the United States to the Temple Institute, donors can be directed from a website called America Gives, partnered with Israel Gives, a website from which you can directly aid to the Temple Institute. American Support for Israel, U.K. Gives and Canada Charity Partners are all set up to receive donations from outside of Israel.

American-born ex-Likud Party Knesset member, Yehuda Glick is a prominent figure in the Temple Mount movement and heads the Shalom Jerusalem Foundation. On the foundation’s official website, you can find a donation campaign that hopes to attract people who seek to “see the rebuilding of the Third Temple speedily in our time”. The foundation collects money through a tax-exempt charity based in New Jersey called the Jerusalem Friendship Alliance INC and collected more than $1.8 million in total revenue between 2011 and 2020.

The above-noted means of donating from the United States to the Temple Mount movement are but only a sample of a much larger pool of charitable organizations, through which American organizations and private persons can give money to a cause that runs counter to U.S. policy. Washington supposedly supports maintaining the status quo at Al-Aqsa.

FEARING A REPEAT IBRAHIMI MOSQUE MASSACRE SCENARIO

In 1994, after years of attempts by extremists to change the status quo at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron), the settlers were finally successful. On February 25, U.S.-born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein entered the Ibrahimi Mosque with an automatic weapon, opening fire on Palestinian worshipers. The horrifying terrorist attack resulted in the murder of 29 people and the injury of 125 others, in what Palestinians claimed was a settler plot with indirect support from the Israeli military.

Shortly after the attack, Israel declared the old city of Al-Khalil a closed military zone, later seizing 60% of the Ibrahimi Mosque and turning it into a synagogue closed off to Palestinians. The attack was a resounding success for the Israeli terrorist, who had achieved his goal of making Palestinians pay for falling victim to his actions, and making the life of those living in the Old City miserable and subjected to constant checkpoint stops. Today, Al-Khalil’s Old City is one of the most disturbing areas to visit in all of Palestine, as settlers occupy homes that Palestinians have been expelled from, while simply visiting the Ibrahimi Mosque comes with a humiliating journey through a military checkpoint and a number of stops.

Although violent attempts to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound have not yet returned into the fold, the possibility of extremist attempts to use violence at the site is always a fear in the back of every Palestinian’s head. This fear is not unfounded, nor is it without historical precedent, as the Jewish Underground terrorist group had attempted just this back in the 1970s and 1980s; to not only blow up al-Aqsa Mosque but to detonate bombs on packed Palestinian civilian buses in East Jerusalem. Yehuda Etzion, a former member of the Jewish Underground who attempted to blow up Al-Aqsa in 1984, today still advocates building the third temple. Etzion continued to agitate, heading the Chai Vekayam movement that played a prominent role in promoting the Temple Mount movement in the early 2000s. The Jewish Underground is no longer operating, and many of its members were arrested for their violent attacks and plots. However, interestingly, the funding for this organization came primarily from within the United States.

The extremist settler, Baruch Goldstein, who was responsible for the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, was a protégé of the extremist Israeli political figure known as Meir Kahane, the founder of the infamous Kach movement, whose armed wing was the Jewish Defense League (JDL).  The Kach movement was eventually outlawed in both Israel and the United States, with the JDL being designated a terrorist group for its violent antics. Today, former members of the Kach movement and those sympathetic to its cause, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, are now about to take cabinet positions in the new Israeli government.

Those who follow the beliefs of Meir Kahane, whose group carried out bombing attacks on U.S. soil, are called Kahanists. A 2019 Investigation conducted by The Nation revealed that a web of non-profit American organizations was financing Kahanist groups affiliated with the Religious Zionism Party, which is poised to become the second most powerful Israeli political party under the new Netanyahu administration. An Intercept report in early November then followed up on The Nation’s findings and revealed that tens of millions of dollars had been donated to Israeli far-right groups affiliated with the Religious Zionism Party. Religious Zionism openly advocates for changing the status quo at Al-Aqsa. Its most prominent figures, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have both stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque this year.

The Biden administration has not changed Washington’s long-standing position of maintaining the status quo at al-Aqsa. However, its position of upholding “unwavering support” for Tel Aviv directly contradicts this position. The Israeli government, the recipient of $150 Billion in U.S. aid, directly finances the Temple Institute and other far-right organizations. Some of Israel’s most prominent political figures also support the idea of building the Jewish Third Temple and actively call for changing the status quo at Al-Aqsa.

Organizations that are the most prominent in promoting these ideas receive a large sum of their finances from U.S.-based tax-exempt organizations. If the U.S. government does not decide to put its foot down and make its support for Israel conditional, a major flare-up over the status of Al-Aqsa will be on its hands – an escalation that could cost Washington its relationship with Jordan and even leaderships in the wider Muslim world. The Al-Aqsa Mosque’s status is an issue that is close to the hearts of over 2 billion Muslims worldwide and attempts to destroy it will be tantamount to a declaration of Holy War, funded by tax-exempt U.S. organizations.

Ethnic cleansing “made in USA”

The U.S. is enabling the ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta by providing Israel with military aid and supplying the weapons used to terrorize Palestinians.

OCTOBER 21, 2022 

SPENT ISRAELI TEARGAS CANISTER, WITH A “MADE IN USA” LABEL IMPRINTED ON THE SIDE., OUTSIDE SAMI HUREINI’S HOME. (PHOTO: SAMI HUREINI)

Source

By Muhammad Huraini

“In the spring, when kings march out to war…” 

In 2 Samuel 11, we read of the annual cycle of war. In contemporary Israel, illegal Israeli settlers routinely rally for battle in the spring and the fall in their violent attacks on Palestinians. 

Spring and fall — when crops are sown and eventually harvested. 

Although a minority of Israelis, extremist settlers, who think of the Occupied Territories as their birthright, violently confront Palestinians on the way to and from their fields. Often they are accompanied by an Israeli army escort, which watches on as the settlers attack Palestinians without provocation, and do not intervene. Unlike Palestinians, those settlers are seldom arrested.

A JEWISH SETTLER PEPPER SPRAYS IN THE FACE OF A PALESTINIAN PROTESTER DURING A PROTEST AGAINST A HIGH COURT DECISION TO EVICT EIGHT PALESTINIAN COMMUNITIES IN MASAFER YATTA IN THE SOUTH HEBRON HILLS, JUNE 10, 2022. (PHOTO: MAMOUN WAZWAZ/APA IMAGES)

On September 12, 2022, my village of Atuwani in the Occupied West Bank was attacked by the Israeli Occupation forces — in response to allegations that my father had attacked an Israeli settler. 

Videos would later prove that settlers attacked my father on his own land and broke both of his arms with bats; after ten days, he was released from jail and the charge of attempted murder was dropped. In the meantime, the Israeli army engaged in vicious retaliation attacks against my family and my village.

When the smoke cleared, I stepped out of my house to find a tear gas canister on the ground. I picked it up, thinking about the small weapon that had sent my family, including my small children, scurrying into our home. Although it was not the first time I had seen such canisters up close, this time something caught my eye. Printed on its side: “Made in USA”.

The USA’s support for the Israeli occupation, from cash to teargas canisters, contribute to Israel’s state-sponsored terrorism against Palestinians. Israel, in violation of our basic human rights and in defiance of countless UN resolutions, seeks to forcibly evict us from our homes and our lands. 

Teargas is a weapon of intimidation, aimed indiscriminately at peaceful Palestinian protesters, shepherds, and children. 

It is also often followed by painful and disruptive sound grenades. Then the ultimate violator of human rights: the bulldozers, rolling in to raze a family’s home to the ground. 

By making and supplying such weapons, the USA is supporting Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. These weapons — along with the sound grenades, M16 rifles, military jeeps, tanks, and bulldozers — terrorize us daily, in order to control and colonize lands that are rightfully ours.

PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS DISPERSED AFTER A SCUFFLE WITH ISRAELI SOLDIERS AND JEWISH SETTLERS DURING A PROTEST AGAINST A HIGH COURT DECISION TO EVICT EIGHT PALESTINIAN COMMUNITIES IN MASAFER YATTA IN THE SOUTH HEBRON HILLS, JUNE 10, 2022. (PHOTO: MAMOUN WAZWAZ/APA IMAGES)

Each year, the US gives Israel $3.8 billion from U.S. taxpayer money to perpetuate violence against Palestinians across the entirety of historic Palestine. 

But, according to the Campaign to Defund Racism, U.S. financial support is more than $3.8 billion a year — many more are also funneled through Israeli “charities” involved in some of the most heinous human rights abuses. For example, the US-based Central Fund of Israel (CFI) sends funds to Israeli organizations like Regavim, which seeks to forcibly displace Palestinians in the villages Khan al-Ahmar, Susiya, and now Masafer Yatta.

Khan al-Ahmar and Susiya are small Bedouin herding villages, frequently targeted by the Israeli military and armed settlers, who seek their destruction.

On May 16, 2022, human rights experts in the United Nations called on Israel to immediately cease the forced evictions in Masafer Yatta. Massafar Yatta’s citizens, including at least 500 children, face forced eviction and displacement from their homes. 

Regavim, which received more than half a million dollars from CFI in 2019, has successfully lobbied for the displacement of Khallet ad Dabe’, one of the small hamlets in Masafer Yatta. On September 29, its residents must prepare for forced displacement at any moment. 

U.S. stands alone in enabling ethnic cleansing

While the rest of the world rallies behind the eight communities in Masafer Yatta, the United States stands alone in its support for this violent plan of ethnic cleansing. 

US complicity through international aid, charitable donations, and US-made weapons violently displaces innocent families and wipe out entire cities. We Palestinians are not simply fighting Israeli colonial forces and apartheid laws — we are being crushed under the power of US money and weapons. 

American citizens should know where their taxes go and what they fund. When they see it supports injustice, they should work to stop it. Americans can disrupt the flow of taxes, charities, and weapons that are used against innocent Palestinians. If you’re unsure what you can do, The Campaign to Defund Racism is a good place to start. 

The community of Masafer Yatta, which is made up of twenty villages including my own Atuwani, is on the receiving end of U.S. support for apartheid and settler-colonial violence. We face, almost daily, settler attacks, violence at the hands of Israeli forces, home demolitions, tear gas, and theft of resources — land, water, roads. So we will continue our peaceful forms of protest.

But we ask our allies in the U.S. to speak out against our displacement and demand that their tax dollars be used for good rather than for supporting violence against us.

The return of the two-state solution illusion

 SEPTEMBER 28, 2022 

JOE BIDEN AND ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER YAIR LAPID SIGN THE JERUSALEM US-ISRAEL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP JOINT DECLARATION, JULY 14, 2022 (PHOTO: KOBI GIDEON, GPO)

By Mitchell Plitnick

Source

For Democrats in the United States and the political “centrists” in Israel—represented by Joe Biden and Yair Lapid, respectively—the loss of credibility for the two-state solution has meant losing more and more support for Israeli policies. As the respected polling site 538.com noted recently, among many other sources, younger Democrats are increasingly supportive of Palestinians and less so of Israeli policies. 

These facts explain the theater we have witnessed in recent days at the United Nations General Assembly and in the American media scene, where the lone Palestinian woman ever elected to Congress has come under unrelenting attack from her own party as well as the opposition. 

At the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, Biden devoted one brief mention to the question of Palestine, but what he did say was telling. “And we will continue to advocate for lasting negotiating peace between the Jewish and democratic state of Israel and the Palestinian people,” Biden told the Assembly. “The United States is committed to Israel’s security, full stop.  And a negotiated two-state solution remains, in our view, the best way to ensure Israel’s security and prosperity for the future and give the Palestinians the state which — to which they are entitled — both sides to fully respect the equal rights of their citizens; both people enjoying equal measure of freedom and dignity.”

While stumbling over his words, and certainly unintentionally, Biden said the quiet part out loud. The U.S. will advocate for lasting negotiations, the hallmark of the Oslo process; endless negotiations that lead nowhere while Israeli settlements spread farther across the West Bank, Gaza slowly dies of poverty, and the status quo in East Jerusalem gradually fades into Jewish dominance. And above all, Israeli “security” is guarded “full stop,” and if there is any room left for any Palestinian rights, those will be considered according to Israel’s wishes. 

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke at more length about a two-state solution, but said little more. Spending most of his time urging the world to abandon diplomacy with Iran and instead launch a war, presumably to change the regime there, Lapid stated that “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.”

Lapid’s speech was littered with falsehoods. He went on at length about how Israel is victimized by “fake news,” citing an incident in May 2021 where a photo of a toddler who was said to have been killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza circulated on social media. The post was a fake and was quickly debunked. But Lapid failed to mention that, while the toddler, referred to as Malak Al Tanani, was, indeed, made up, there was an entire family of Tananis–Ra’fat Tanani, 38, his pregnant wife Rawiye, 35, and their children Ismail, 6, Ameer, 5, Adham, 4, and Mohammad, 3—who were killed in an Israeli strike on May 13, 2021. A fact-check by the Agence France-Presse confirmed both the fake photo and the real family. B’Tselem also posted a video in May 2022 interviewing a relative of the Tanani family that was killed. 

Having established, through misleading statements and outright dissembling, Israel as a “victim,” Lapid then made sure to let the assembly know that, while he was coming out in support of more talks, and the idea of a two-state solution, Israel would do nothing to make that solution, or any other, a real possibility. 

“The burden of proof is not on us. We have already proved our desire for peace. Our peace treaty with Egypt has been fully implemented for 43 years now. Our peace treaty with Jordan for 28 years. We are a country that keeps its word and fulfills agreements,” Lapid said

Aside from the fact that Lapid omits the crucial point that these peace agreements have been enforced by billions of dollars of U.S. aid to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, Lapid elides the many times Israel has refused to agree to various conditions or interim deals, or has made demands on Palestinians it knew they could not accept. 

The absence of a single word about what Israel or the United States would do to achieve freedom for Palestinians or to advance any solution, two state or otherwise, to the ongoing conditions of apartheid and dispossession is unsurprising if one considers that the goal was not to appease the Palestinians, but to address domestic constituencies. 

Lapid surely knows he was lying when he said that “Despite all the obstacles, still today a large majority of Israelis support the vision of this two-state solution.” In fact, a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that only 31% of Israeli Jews and only 60% of Palestinian and other Arab citizens of Israel support the two-state solution. 

But his own constituency in the Yesh Atid party supports such negotiations. More importantly, he wants to make sure he has the loyalty of the small Labor and Meretz parties, both of which support the two-state solution, against his center-right rival, Benny Gantz. Right now, all the polls show that neither Lapid nor Gantz will come close to being able to assemble the coalition of 61 seats needed to win the upcoming election, while their far-right competitor, Benjamin Netanyahu, has better, although also far from certain, prospects of reaching that mark. 

Lapid also hopes to bolster his chances by demonstrating his compatibility with Biden and the Democrats, and they are more than willing to oblige. Targeting Rep. Rashida Tlaib plays a key role in both bolstering Lapid as a bulwark against Netanyahu—whom Democrats would not want to see back in office, given his very close ties to the Republican Party—and in trying to smother the growing support for Palestine within the party. 

According to a poll conducted by Pew Research back in March, 61% of Americans between 18 and 29 years of age have a favorable opinion of Palestinians. Among those aged 30-49 it is 55%, and even among older voters, 45-47% have a favorable opinion of Palestinians. While many of these people also hold positive views of Israel, American sympathy for Palestinians has grown immensely over the past two decades, when only 16% of voters viewed Palestinians positively. 

This sits poorly with mainstream Democrats and their corporate, and especially, pro-Israel funders. So, when Tlaib made a self-evident and fact-based statement, Democrats joined Republicans in piling on her and branding her an antisemite. 

Tlaib, of course, stated that you cannot be progressive and support Israel’s apartheid government. The response was as vicious as it was disingenuous, with the usual anti-Palestinian hatemongers like Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, and a long list of Democratic members of Congress stumbling over each other to see who could come up with the most scurrilous and spurious accusations against Tlaib, who did no more than point out what so many international, Palestinian, and even Israeli human rights groups have proven.

It’s no coincidence that these attacks came at the same time as the UNGA speeches. Tlaib was very careful to point her finger only at the Israeli government and its policies; at no time did she ever hint at the question of Israel’s existence nor of the presence of Jews in the land. Indeed, even the avowedly Zionist group Americans for Peace Now rose to Tlaib’s defense, splitting with J Street, which shamefully supported the attacks on Tlaib.

The two-state solution and the myth that you can support apartheid and still be true to progressive values go hand in hand. Consider the words Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz used in her hateful rant against Tlaib. “The outrageous progressive litmus test on Israel by Rashida Tlaib is nothing short of antisemitic. Proud progressives do support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler elaborated further. “I fundamentally reject the notion that one cannot support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and be a progressive. I proudly embrace both of these political positions and identities, even as I have criticized some of the policies and actions of democratically-elected Israeli governments over time. I would happily put my progressive record and credentials up against anyone’s. It is both wrong and self-defeating for progressive leaders to abide such an offensive litmus tests.”

The legitimacy of many of the Congressmembers claiming the “progressive” label is clearly questionable, but Wasserman-Schultz, joined by other Democrats, calling Tlaib antisemitic for expressing support for a view that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, al-Haq, and B’Tselem have all expressed and backed up with extensive research is cynically perverse, whether you think Tlaib is right or wrong. 

Both she and Nadler call Tlaib’s statement a “litmus test,” as if the question is not whether Israel practices apartheid, but whether supporting it anyway is acceptable within the bounds of anything that can be labeled “progressive politics.” 

Nadler also talks about his occasional criticism of “Israeli policies,” as did many of the Democrats who ganged up on Tlaib. How must those words look to a Palestinian in Gaza or Masafer Yatta, or to a Palestinian-American who might be a constituent of one of these Democrats who express such passionate solidarity with Israelis and such stony indifference, if not outright hostility, to Palestinians? 

For years, the idea of a two-state solution in Palestine and Israel has been exposed as a pipe dream. However viable it may once have been, more and more people have come to realize in recent years that it simply isn’t a realistic option anymore. 

Some years ago, a well-informed colleague observed to me that the two-state solution is never impossible, but the costs—fiscally, politically, diplomatically—just keep getting higher. He was right, of course. It is never physically impossible to dismantle Israel’s settlements, sever the existing infrastructure in the West Bank from Israel, work out realistic borders, open Gaza, and pour the many billions of dollars into Palestine that would be required after seven decades and counting of occupation to build a truly viable state. 

It’s all possible, but the cost would be enormous, and the price—allowing the option of refugees returning to their homes, allowing Palestine the means to defend itself like any other country, compensating Palestinians for their dispossession and suffering, all on top of reining in the most radical of the nationalist settlers, resettling the hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the West Bank, shifting borders to accommodate a connection between Gaza and West Bank, sharing water resources equitably, and a hundred other details—is far higher than anything Israel would consider in its wildest dreams. 

But that doesn’t mean the two-state solution isn’t seen as crucial for Israel and the United States. Its implementation may be undesirable for Israel, but the idea of it serves a crucial purpose: it is the very lifeblood of the myth that one can support a “Jewish and democratic” apartheid state and reconcile that with liberal or progressive values. That allows them to characterize their “disagreements” with Israel as being about specific policies, not an apartheid system at the very heart of Israel’s character. 

Apartheid is not a policy; it is an institution. It is a political and legal system. It is a crime under international law. It is not merely one decision to demolish a home, to detain a Palestinian without charge, to beat an elderly man at the al-Aqsa Compound, or to launch one missile at a Gaza apartment building. 

That system is not just incompatible with progressive values, it’s incompatible even with classical Liberalism. To maintain the self-deception many Democratic supporters of Israel, in and out of politics, need for their consciences, they need to believe that there is a genuine striving for a Palestinian state that can deliver rights to those living under Israeli rule right now. 

But it’s an illusion. Israel has been disrupting the possibility of it from the beginnings of Oslo through today, with massive settlement expansion, the isolation and starvation of Gaza, and the gradual erosion of the long-standing agreements on the holy sites in Jerusalem. 

Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are desperately trying to save this phony duality, this illusion that you can support an Israeli ethno-state that, by definition, cannot be a state of all its citizens and must, by its nature discriminate against Palestinians and still call yourself a progressive without irony. 

No one would suggest you can be progressive but be against a woman’s right to decide about what to do with her own body. Nor can you be progressive and oppose LGBTQIA* rights. Nor can you support racial discrimination, or autocracy. 

Similarly, no matter how loudly you insist otherwise, you cannot be progressive and be in support of an apartheid regime. The illusion of a two-state solution that hasn’t been a viable possibility for many years doesn’t change that. It only reinforces one discriminatory illusion with another. 

THE ISRAEL FILES: WIKILEAKS DOCS SHOW TOP HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS WORKING WITH ISRAEL TO DEFEND ITS WAR CRIMES

SEPTEMBER 23RD, 2022

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THE ISRAEL FILES IS A NEW MINTPRESS SERIES EXPLORING AND HIGHLIGHTING THE MANY REVELATIONS ABOUT THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE THAT WIKILEAKS DOCUMENTS DISCLOSED. IT HOPES TO SHED LIGHT ON MANY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND UNDERREPORTED REVELATIONS THE PUBLISHING GROUP EXPOSED. 

By Alan Macleod

As Israel was launching a deadly assault on Gaza, killing thousands of civilians and displacing more than 100,000 people, many of America’s top TV, music and film producers were organizing to protect the apartheid state’s reputation from widespread international condemnation.

Together, the Sony Archive – a cache of emails published by Wikileaks – prove that influential entertainment magnates attempted to whitewash Israeli crimes and present the situation as defending itself from an impending “genocide”, liaised with Israeli military and government officials in order to coordinate their message, attempted to cancel those who spoke out against the injustice, and put financial and social pressure on institutions who hosted artists criticizing the apartheid government’s actions.

AS ISRAEL ATTACKS, HOLLYWOOD PLAYS DEFENSE

“[Israel’s message] Must be repeated ad infinitum until the people get it,” wrote Hollywood lawyer and producer Glenn D. Feig, in an email chain to many of Tinsel Town’s most influential executives. This was in response to the unprovoked 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza, one of the bloodiest chapters in over half a century of occupation.

Named “Operation Protective Edge”, the Israeli military engaged in seven weeks of near-constant bombing of the densely populated coastal strip. According to the United Nations, over 2,000 people were killed – a quarter of them children. 18,000 houses were destroyed, leaving more than 100,000 people homeless.

The Israeli military deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, knocking out Gaza’s only power plant and shutting down its water treatment plants, leading to economic, social and ecological devastation in an area Human Rights Watch has labeled the world’s largest “open air prison”.

Many in Hollywood expressed deep concern. “We must make sure that never happens again”, insisted producer Ron Rotholz. Rotholz, however, was not referring to the death and destruction Israel imposed on Gaza, but to the fact that many of the entertainment world’s biggest stars, including celebrity power couple, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, had condemned Israel’s actions, labeling them tantamount to “genocide.”

“Change must start from the top down. It should be unheard of and unacceptable for any Academy Award-winning actor to call the legitimate armed defense of one’s territory…genocide” he continued, worrying that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – a worldwide campaign to put economic pressure on Israel in an attempt to push it to meet its obligations under international law – was gaining steam in the world of the arts. Israel’s legitimacy rests upon political and military support from the U.S. Therefore, maintaining support among the American public is crucial to the long term viability of its settler colonial project.

Rotholz then attempted to organize a silent, worldwide pressure campaign on arts venues and organizations, including the Motion Picture Academy in Hollywood and the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals, to stamp out BDS, writing,

What we can do is urge the leaders of major film, TV and theater organisations, festivals, markets and potentially the heads of media corporations to issue official statements condemning any form of cultural or economic boycotts against Israel.”

Others agreed that they had to develop a “game plan” for opposing BDS.

Of course, when influential producers, festivals and heads of media corporations release statements condemning a certain position or practice, this is, in effect, a threat: stop taking these positions or suffer the professional consequences.

LOACH ON THE BRAIN

The Sony emails also reveal a near obsession with British filmmaker and social activist Ken Loach. The celebrated director’s film, “Jimmy’s Hall” had recently been nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and in the wake of Israel’s assault on Gaza, he had publicly called for a cultural and sporting boycott of the apartheid state.

This outraged many in Hollywood. Ryan Kavanaugh, CEO of Relativity Media, a film producing company responsible for financing more than 200 movies, demanded that not only Loach, but the whole Cannes Film Festival be cancelled. “The studios and networks alike must join together and boycott cannes,” he wrote. “If we don’t we are sending a message that another holocaust is fine with Hollywood as long as it is business as usual,” he added, framing the Israeli attack on a near-defenseless civilian population as a Palestinian genocide of Israelis.

Others agreed. Ben Silverman, former co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios and producer of shows such as “The Office”, “The Biggest Loser” and Ugly Betty” said that the industry should “boycott the boycotters”. Rotholz, meanwhile, wrote to the head of the Cannes Film Festival, demanding that he take action against Loach for his comments. “There is no place for [Loach’s intolerant and hateful remarks] in the global world of film and filmmakers”, he insisted.

.

Others came up with another way of countering Loach. “How about we all club together and make a documentary about the rise of new anti-Semitism in Europe,” suggested British film producer Cassian Elwes, adding,

I would be willing to contribute and put time into it if others here would do the same. Between all of us I’m sure we could figure out a way to distribute it and get it into places like Cannes so we could have a response to guys like Loach. Perhaps we try to use it to rally support from film communities in Europe to help us distribute it there”.

“I love it,” replied publishing oligarch Jason Binn, “And I will promote it in a major way to all 3.2 million magazine subscribers across all on and offline platforms. I can even leverage Gilt’s 9 million members,” he added, referring to the shopping and lifestyle website he managed.

“Me too,” said Amy Pascal, the Co-Chairperson of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Meanwhile, Mark Canton, producer of movies such as “Get Carter”, “Immortals” and “300” busied himself drumming up more Hollywood support for the idea. “Adding Carmi Zlotnik to this growing list”, he replied, referencing the TV executive.

This whole correspondence was from an email chain of dozens of high-powered entertainment figures entitled “Happy New Year. Too bad Germany is now a no travel zone for Jews,” which ludicrously claimed that the European country had become a Muslim-controlled Islamic theocracy.

“It is horrible. But in the end, it is no surprise, because apologists for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians will go to any length to prevent the people opposing them,” Mr. Loach said, when asked for comment by MintPress. “We shouldn’t underestimate the hatred of those who cannot tolerate the idea that Palestinians have human rights, that Palestine is a state; and they have their country,” he added.

SHUTTING DOWN FREE EXPRESSION

The pro-Israel group in Hollywood also put serious pressure on American institutions to crack down on support for Palestinian human rights. Silverman revealed that he had written to Peter Gelb, the general manager of the New York Metropolitan Opera, in an effort to shut down a performance of “The Death of Klinghoffer”, an opera that tells the story of the 1985 hijacking of an airliner by the Palestine Liberation Front. “I suggest though that we each call him on Monday at his office at the Met and your point about the Met’s donors’ leverage is important,” he advised the other entertainment oligarchs, thereby shining a light on how the powerful move in secret to silence speech they do not approve of, and how they use their financial clout to coerce and strong-arm others into toeing their line. A lot of pressure was necessary, because, as Silverman explained, “as members of the artistic community it is very hard to be pro free speech only some of the time and not all of the time.”

Ultimately, the performance did go ahead, but not without a large and coordinated protest both inside and outside the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, as individuals attempted to shut down the performance, claiming it was “antisemitic.”

LIAISING WITH THE IDF

The email conversations of many of Hollywood’s most influential individuals show that they believe they are on the verge of a worldwide extermination of Jews, and that Israel – and themselves – are the only things standing in the way of this impending fate. As Kavanaugh wrote, “It’s our job to keep another Holocaust from happening. Many of you may think that can’t happen, that is extreme…[but] If you pull newspapers from pre Holocaust it seems eerily close to our world today.”

Rotholz was of a similar opinion, writing that,

It is imperative that leading figures in the LA/NY film, tv, media, digital and theater communities who support a strong and potent Jewish state develop a strategy for liasing with colleagues in London and Europe and also with the creative communities here and in Europe to promote and explain the Israeli cause.”

The Sony Archive emails also show that, not only were Tinsel Town’s top brass coordinating strategies to silence critics of Israel, but that they were also closely liaising with the Israeli government and its military.

Producer George Perez, for example, messaged his colleagues in the chain email to introduce them to an IDF colonel, stating (emphasis added),

Everyone please use this “reply all” list from here on.  I have included Kobi Marom a retired commander in the Israeli army. Kobi was kind enough to give my family and I a jeep tour of the Golan Heights during our June trip to Israel.  He also took us to visit an army base on the border of Israel and Syria, an area which has been in the news lately.  Hard to imagine that the “kids” that we met at the base are most likely engaged in combat with our enemies.”

Seeing as the large majority of those who died were Palestinian civilians, it is unclear whether he considers all Palestinians or just Hamas as enemies of Hollywood. Perez also noted that “Kobi works closely with the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF) who are in need of donations,” and advised that Hollywood needed to “dig deep to help in the constant struggle for the survival of Israel.”

Hollywood celebrities including famed producer Haim Saban and actress Fran Drescher, pose with IDF soldiers at the FIDF Western Region Gala

The group also attempted to recruit Israeli-American movie star Natalie Portman into their ranks. But the Academy Award-winning actress appeared more concerned that her personal details were being shared. “How did I get on this list? Also Ryan Seacrest?” she replied, before directly addressing Kavanaugh, writing,

[C]an you please remove me from this email list? you should not be copying me publicly so that 20 people i don’t know have my personal info. i will have to change my email address now.  thank you”.

While Portman’s open contempt for the group of rabidly pro-Israel producers is notable, more so was Kavanaugh’s response, which revealed how close the connection between the Israeli state and Hollywood is. Kavanaugh wrote back,

Sorry. You are right Jews being slaughtered for their beliefs and Cannes members calling for the boycott of anything Israel or Jewish is much much less important than your email address being shared with 20 of our peers who are trying to make a difference. my deepest apologies…I had lunch yesterday with Israel consulate general who brought J street up to me. He was so perplexed confused and concerned when he heard you supported them that he begged me to connect you two.”

Thus, the leaked emails prove beyond any doubt that both the Israeli government and the IDF liaise with some of the most powerful people in the entertainment world in order to push forward a pro-Israel message and stamp out any deviance from that line.

HIP HOPPERS FOR APARTHEID

While their efforts at recruiting Portman fell flat, one star who responded enthusiastically was hip hop mega producer Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Records and the brother of Joseph “Rev.Run” Simmons, one third of Run DMC. Simmons has recently been the subject of controversy, after 20 women have come forward, charging him with rape or other sexual misconduct.

The emails reveal that promoting engagement with Israel within the African-American community is one of Simmons’ primary interests. When asked if he had any ideas how to improve Israel’s image, he said, “Simple messaging from non Jews specifically from Muslims promoting peace and Israel’s right to exist…We have resources and the desire to win rather than lose the hearts of young Muslims and Jews.”

What these resources were, he explained,

We have hundreds of collaboration programs between Imams Rabbis and their congregations We have many respected imams who would join former chief rabbi metzker (spelling) rabbi Schneier and non Jews in promoting the Saudi peace plan”.

“Through this campaign we will be helping Israel,” he concluded.

TURNING THE TIDE

Despite the best efforts of Simmons and others, however, American public opinion has, in recent years, begun to turn against Israel. Young Americans, in particular, are more likely to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinian people and support an independent Palestinian state.

Much of this has to do with the rise of social media and a new generation of activists breaking through the barriers to highlight injustices being carried out by their government. Today, Americans are more likely to see first-hand, unvarnished accounts of Israeli brutality on social media platforms. As veteran political scientist Noam Chomsky explained to MintPress last year, “The veil of intense propaganda [is] being lifted slowly, [and] crucial U.S. participation in Israeli crimes is also coming more clearly into view. With committed activism, that could have salutary effects.”

Despite the best efforts of Simmons and others, however, American public opinion has, in recent years, begun to turn against Israel. Young Americans, in particular, are more likely to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinian people and support an independent Palestinian state.

Much of this has to do with the rise of social media and a new generation of activists breaking through the barriers to highlight injustices being carried out by their government. Today, Americans are more likely to see first-hand, unvarnished accounts of Israeli brutality on social media platforms. As veteran political scientist Noam Chomsky explained to MintPress last year, “The veil of intense propaganda [is] being lifted slowly, [and] crucial U.S. participation in Israeli crimes is also coming more clearly into view. With committed activism, that could have salutary effects.”

Nevertheless, U.S. government support for Israel continues to rise. Between 2019 and 2028, it is scheduled to send nearly $40 billion in aid, almost all of it military, meaning that American taxpayer funds are contributing to Palestinian oppression and displacement.

Loach was even more upbeat on the issue, telling us that those who stand in the way of justice will be judged poorly by history, stating,

The denial of human rights of the Palestinians is one of the great crimes [of the modern era] and Palestinian rights is one of the great causes of last century and this century. We should all support the Palestinians. If you have any care for human rights, there is no question: the Palestinians have to be supported. And these people who oppose them, in the end, will fade away. Because history will show this was a terrible crime. Palestinians suffered ethnic cleansing of their homeland. We have to support the Palestinians, full stop.”

Those people, however, have no intention of “fading away”, and continue to organize on behalf of the Israeli government. Thanks to the leaked documents, those who care about Palestinian self-determination have a clearer understanding of how they operate.

Israel demands full impunity for killing Shireen Abu Akleh – and the Biden administration agrees

 SEPTEMBER 10, 2022 

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER YAIR LAPID (RIGHT), US PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, AND ISRAELI MINISTER OF DEFENSE BENNY GANTZ AT THE CEREMONY WELCOMING BIDEN TO ISRAEL ON JULY 13, 2022. (PHOTO: KOBI GIDEON/ISRAEL GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)

By Mitchell Plitnick

Source

Despite the best efforts of the Israeli and American governments, the spirit of Shireen Abu Akleh simply won’t go away. 

Shireen’s family won’t let her memory fade into the background in Washington or Tel Aviv as the memories of so many thousands of Palestinians have in the past. Neither will the broader Palestinian and Palestine-advocacy communities. But perhaps the most crucial group that is keeping Shireen’s spirit hovering over the politics of Israel’s policies, especially in Washington, are her fellow journalists. 

Israel’s “report” on Shireen’s murder, as expected, admitted that one of its soldiers was responsible for her death, but duplicitously said that it was the result of an errant bullet during an exchange of fire with Palestinian “terrorists.” 

That this is nonsense has been clearly established. The exchange of fire at the time of Shireen’s killing was blocks away. The Israeli military unit involved in the murder was the elite Duvdevan unit, a highly-trained bunch who do not fire wildly, but at targets, generally Palestinian people. The bullet which killed Shireen penetrated a small opening between her helmet and bullet-proof vest, with word “PRESS” clearly written in both the front and back. All of this is substantial proof of, at the very least, an intentional killing. 

But in the wake of the report being published, we saw a very clear, and very disturbing, demonstration of where the Israeli government under Yair Lapid and the U.S. administration of Joe Biden stand, not only the issue of Shireen’s murder but of the entire relationship between Israel and its benefactor and protector in Washington. 

Israel had long since made it clear that it would not prosecute the soldier who murdered Shireen Abu Akleh. In response, the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken modified their very humble request, reducing it to a simple review of Israel’s rules of engagement when their soldiers entered a Palestinian area under their iron-fisted occupation. 

But even this was too much to ask in Israel’s eyes. “I will not allow an IDF soldier that was protecting himself from terrorist fire to be prosecuted just to receive applause from abroad,” Lapid stated. “No one will dictate our rules of engagement to us, when we are the ones fighting for our lives. Our soldiers have the full backing of the government of Israel and the people of Israel.”

Lapid’s message had two intended audiences. The first was the Israeli public, which eagerly gobbles up any example of an Israeli leader defying what they see as the United States ordering them about. Most Israelis would draw the line at any action that might jeopardize the absolute and lock-step U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic support. But, to date, reactions from the Biden administration indicate Israel has not even approached such a line.

This is evidenced by the reaction of Lapid’s second audience, which is the Biden administration itself. State Department Spokesman Ned Price’s initial reaction to Israel’s initial report—an obvious whitewash that Israel, in its hubris, made no effort to disguise—made it clear that the U.S. was unwilling to press Israel about Shireen, but needed also to appease some in the Democratic Party who were unwilling to simply forget about her. 

“We welcome Israel’s review of this tragic incident, and again underscore the importance of accountability in this case, such as policies and procedures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future,” Price said. And when Israel made it clear they would not do this, Price’s understudy, Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel, repeated an embarrassing mantra: “To reiterate, we continue to underscore the importance of accountability in this case, and we’re going to continue to impress our Israeli partners to closely review its policies and practices on the rules of engagement, and consider additional steps that will mitigate risk in this circumstance.”

One could almost feel sorry for Patel, being hung out to dry in front of experienced foreign policy reporters with nothing but this tissue-thin line to offer. Under a series of questions from journalists, he could do nothing but continue to repeat himself, despite the fact that what he was describing was not only the opposite of accountability, but was the United States government once again choosing to shirk its responsibility to protect its citizens from a foreign government that has killed them with impunity. 

That was what Patel had to defend. Shireen Abu Akleh was only the latest American citizen to be killed by Israel. Nearly twenty years ago, it was activist Rachel Corrie, crushed under a U.S.-made and supplied, but Israeli-modified Caterpillar armored bulldozer. Twelve years ago, it was 18-year old Furkan Dogan, killed by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara as it tried to bring food and supplied to people being starved by Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Six year ago, Mahmoud Shaalan was gunned down while his hands were in the air at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank. Earlier this very year, Israeli forces ripped 78-year old Omar Assad from his car, abused him, handcuffed and blindfolded him, causing such stress he died of a heart attack. 

Israel has never been held accountable, nor held anyone accountable, for the deaths of these American citizens. Lapid’s words made it clear they would not stand for anything less than total impunity regarding these murders. 

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett clarified Israel’s stance. “At any given moment,” Bennett tweeted on Tuesday, “there are Palestinian terrorists trying to murder Israelis. Not the other way round. We are not trigger-happy, but our moral duty is to hit terrorists and thereby save lives.” The army, Bennett stated must be “detached from any pressure, internal or external.”

Sifting through the blatant racism and dishonesty of Bennett’s characterization of Israeli military innocence and Palestinian bloodthirstiness, he is plainly stating that an Israeli soldier can shoot any Palestinian any time she or he wishes, and the very nature of their respective identities as Israeli soldier and Palestinian “terrorist” places the Israelis above reproach. And above any kind of law. 

Lapid’s message got through to both the Israeli public and the Biden administration. But how well is that message playing more broadly in the United States? 

Democratic hawks like Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez—who was in Israel earlier this week—have been remarkably quiet about Shireen lately, but even Menendez, earlier this year, expressed concern over her killing and called for a credible investigation of her death. The silence of pro-Israel Democrats is indicative of the difficult position Israel has put them in, and it has left a vacuum which is amplifying the more critical Democratic voices. 

Outgoing Rep. Marie Newman, for example, tweeted, “The @StateDept’s response to Israel’s statement refusing to prosecute the soldiers responsible for killing Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh is woefully inadequate. I expect nothing short of a US investigation that leads to accountability. It’s the least we can do.”

Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN), who earlier this year introduced the “Justice for Shireen Act,” said the Israeli report fails to “address the key questions around Shireen Abu Akleh’s death and falls short of what we expect when a U.S. citizen is killed on foreign soil.”

Rep. Raul Grijalva, said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken “has a responsibility to hold Israel accountable and demand justice for [Abu Akleh’s] death,” and that “the silence is damning and deafening. We need justice for Shireen.”

Perhaps most important was the statement of Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who, while at the progressive end of the Democratic Party is still closer to the center than the Representatives who spoke out and is up for re-election this November (albeit in a race that he is universally seen as safe for him). Van Hollen tweeted, “The crux of the “defense” in this IDF report is that a soldier was “returning fire” from militants. But investigations @NYTimes @AP @CNN @washingtonpost & @UN found no such firing at the time. This underscores need for independent US inquiry into this American journalist’s death.”

There is no factual argument that can refute what these Members of Congress have said, which is why Israel’s supporters on Capitol Hill are trying to avoid engaging with them. Indeed, if anything is to be critiqued it is the call for an impartial U.S. investigation. As unlikely as the investigation is, impartiality should it come about is even harder to imagine. 

It is crucial, however, that these calls be supported. Shireen’s murder must remain on the agenda past the November elections. Until then, even the hardiest Democrats are going to tone down criticism of their President and Secretary of State. 

But in two months, that pressure will be lifted. And the Biden administration must be taken to task for its behavior here. As hypocritical as it was for Biden to fist-bump Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, it’s important to recall that, as important a figure as Jamal Khashoggi was, he was a U.S. resident, not a citizen. 

Shireen Abu Akleh, like Rachel Corrie, Furkan Dogan, Mahmoud Shaalan, and Omar Assad before her, was an American citizen. Foreign countries are not supposed to be allowed to murder American citizens with impunity, especially when they are killed for doing their jobs as reporters. 

But Yair Lapid brazenly stated that Israel must be allowed to do just that. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken supported Lapid in that statement, in effect. That’s something that Shireen’s fellow citizens can’t allow. 

TOP RECRUITS REFUSE TO WORK FOR GOOGLE OR AMAZON OVER INVOLVEMENT IN ISRAELI WAR CRIMES

AUGUST 2ND, 2022

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By Jessica Buxbaum

As Google and Amazon employees fight back against the tech giants’ Israeli military contract, college graduates have also joined the resistance.

Amid Israel’s assault on Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem in May 2021, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to Israel’s public sector and its military, known as Project Nimbus.

In response, Google and Amazon workers formed a coalition opposing Project Nimbus as well as strategizing against the technology’s implementation.

While just over a year old, Google and Amazon have not addressed the Workers Against Nimbus and #NoTechForApartheid campaigns publicly, but the activist network has had success in cutting the corporations’ power —  even if only slightly.

“The students who are graduating from university and who have applied to Amazon and Google are turning down all of these interview requests,” an anonymous Amazon employee told MintPress News, describing how it makes them hopeful to see that kind of community support. “They’re specifically telling Amazon and Google, ‘We’re not going to these interviews because of Project Nimbus.’’’

Earlier this month, activists disrupted the keynote speech at an AWS summit in New York City, drawing attention to the tech behemoth’s controversial contract with the Israeli government.

“By doing business with Israeli apartheid, Amazon and Google will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land,” a website for the #NoTechForApartheid campaign says.

ICYMI—Human rights activists confronted leaders at #AWSsummit to demand an end to @Amazon's surveillance empire—which enables state violence at home and abroad and powers Israeli apartheid.

Take action: https://t.co/vIJnIs4vxV#NoTechForApartheidpic.twitter.com/QvVIgtFTRR

— MPower Change (@MPower_Change) July 26, 2022

Outside the summit’s venue, Google employee Gabriel Schubiner addressed protesters. “As tech workers we need to ask ourselves: do we want a world where militaries around the world are training AI [artificial intelligence] for surveillance and targeting on our hardware?” Schubiner said. “Do we want to give nationalist armies of the world our technology?”

.@Google tech worker Gabi speaks out against @amazon @google powering state violence:

"As tech workers we must ask ourselves: do we want militaries around the world training AI for surveillance on our hardware? Do we want to give nationalist armies of the world our tech?" pic.twitter.com/aBJJWNCuCE

— MPower Change (@MPower_Change) July 12, 2022

Google and AWS beat out IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft for an Israeli government tender last year to jointly build and provide cloud-based regional data centers within Israel’s borders and under Israeli law. Project Nimbus will allow Israeli ministries and other public entities to transfer servers and services into the cloud. Local data centers are expected to be completed within two years. Until then, cloud services will be provided by Google and AWS data centers in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany.

The contract also includes a provision stipulating Amazon and Google cannot shut down operations and deny services to certain government entities, effectively barring the tech firms from engaging in a boycott of Israel or stopping the technology from being used to enact human rights abuses.

The Workers Against Project Nimbus campaign described how they felt during the Israeli 2021 attacks and why they were compelled to join together.

“[W]e had to face the fact that those of us Palestinian tech workers with family and loved ones in Gaza or the West Bank, those of us living in diaspora, would now be enabling violence and oppression against our own communities – all while professing the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,”  The Workers Against Project Nimbus said in a July 26 Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) newsletter.

Google and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment on Project Nimbus or the worker-led campaign against it.

BOLSTERING A DATA-DRIVEN OCCUPATION

Little is known about Project Nimbus as Google and Amazon employees have been kept in the dark about the project’s activities and what the Israeli government may use the technology for.

The Palestinian Amazon worker spoke to MintPress News under the condition of anonymity to avoid workplace retaliation that the corporations have not disclosed any details about Project Nimbus to employees. “We are completely alienated from what our labor bills and the effect it has, all while being the ones who are putting in the work for it,” they said.

However, newly-unveiled documents first reported by The Intercept showcase the tools provided to the Israeli government and may offer a glimpse into how Project Nimbus may be used.

According to training slides and videos accessed through a public educational portal for Nimbus users, Google is offering Israel its full suite of machine learning and advanced artificial intelligence tools on its Google Cloud Platform. These services include facial detection, computer vision, automated image categorization, object tracking, and sentiment detection, a controversial form of machine learning claiming to determine a person’s feelings through their face and statements.

“Even though these training materials are fairly standard, it shows that Google is actively trying to help the Israeli government, including Israeli Defense Forces, to train their own AI systems on top of Google’s Cloud systems,” Jack Poulson, executive director of watchdog group, Tech Inquiry, told MintPress News.

Poulson expressed concerns over training documents detailing an Edge model of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit, an AI application designed to accelerate machine learning workloads.

“Edge is often a codeword for when it’s deployed outside of a traditional location, usually in the field,” Poulson said. “That in many cases include drones, surveillance cameras, cell phones, and places where you would directly be performing measurements or surveillance.”

Poulson is also wary of speech-to-text and language translation capabilities mentioned in the training materials.

“Hypothetically speaking, suppose the Israeli government built a system that had access to the conversations with Palestinians or a lot of footage on Palestinians, then any sort of large collection of audio could be transcribed directly from speech-to-text,” Poulson said. “The text could be translated into another language if needed, and surveillance camera footage could be used to track people of interest.”

A Palestinian man uses a biometric gate at the Qalandia checkpoint in Jerusalem on July 11, 2019. Sebastian Scheiner | AP

The anonymous Amazon employee reiterated how the training materials appear harmless, but with Israel’s criminal track record, these resources can easily be turned into something nefarious.

“There’s a darker side to these things,” they said. “In the American reality, these tools are putting an end to privacy, but in occupied Palestine, it’s enabling the war crimes.”

In the TWC newsletter, workers described how the technology may be used to entrench Israel’s occupation of Palestine:

The cloud technology we build, market, and research would now be used to host an apartheid identification system – one that determines individuals’ freedom of movement and rights based on their identity and where they are born. Such tech would be used to store massive amounts of information collected about Palestinians – from capturing CCTV footage and taking photos at checkpoints and even biometric data – that could be used to surveil and criminalize civilians. 

The newsletter warned that:

Apartheid Israeli government ministries such as the Israeli Land Authority, which systematically segregates and confines Palestinians while allowing for illegal settlement expansion for Jewish Israelis, would use this tech.

Data-driven technology is the backbone of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine. Numerous reports have revealed how Israel is using digital surveillance tools to spy, monitor, and cement control over Palestinians. This technology is deployed on social media, at checkpoints, and through neighborhood CCTV footage. It comes in the form of data collection and analysis, call monitoring, and facial recognition. This mass system of surveillance gives Palestinians the perpetual feeling of being watched, erasing their privacy and autonomy.

NOT JUST PROJECT NIMBUS

While Project Nimbus is in the spotlight due to the worker-led campaign against it, other U.S. tech corporations are also supporting Israel’s occupation.

Israel’s Ministry of Defense adopted Palo-Alto-based Anjuna’s Confidential Cloud software that trains AI models so tech firm employees will not be able to access any of that data. Tech giant Cisco has been involved in growing Israel’s visual surveillance apparatus in Jerusalem. Motorola Solutions Israel, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Motorola Solutions, has been providing the Israeli Defense Ministry with surveillance system technology for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Apartheid Wall, the barrier separating the West Bank and 1948-occupied Palestine or modern-day Israel.

While there have been employee resignations over Project Nimbus, the anonymous worker told MintPress News that they remain with Amazon as a way to implement change from the inside, especially since most corporations are guilty of similar atrocities to Amazon and Google.

Censoring Palestine: Swarms of Israeli Bots Are Crippling Pro-Palestinian Twitter Accounts

While there have been employee resignations over Project Nimbus, the anonymous worker told MintPress News that they remain with Amazon as a way to implement change from the inside, especially since most corporations are guilty of similar atrocities to Amazon and Google.

“It’s more important to try to change things instead of just running,” the employee said. “It’s similar to what the Palestinians are doing; they’re not running. They’re staying and fighting and resisting.”

WHO IS BIDEN WORKING FOR? ON ISRAEL VISIT, “ZIONIST” BIDEN WHITEWASHES ISRAEL’S CRIMES

JULY 15TH, 2022

By Miko Peled

Source

Upon his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, which sits on the lands of the occupied Palestinian city of El-Lyd, President Joe Biden repeated his age-old mantra, “You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.” Indeed you do not. To be a Zionist, you only need to be a racist, a supporter of the hate-filled, violent, intolerant apartheid regime that has been occupying Palestine since 1948. You need to believe that people who are not Palestinians have a right to Palestine and to its resources. To be a Zionist, you don’t need to be Jewish, you just need to repeat the absurd claim that the Bible gives all Jewish people around the world the right to kill people because they are Palestinians who want to return to their homes and their land.

In a nauseating show of hypocrisy, President Biden, Israeli President Yitzhak Hertzog, and Prime Minister Lapid spoke of peace, justice, and human rights as the shared values of the United States and the State of Israel. This was less than twenty-four hours after John Bolton admitted to orchestrating coup d’états in countries around the world. This is also after Israeli military, and political figures openly talked about assassinating Iranian scientists and officials.

The values shared by Israel and the United States are clearly represented in the fact that President Biden is visiting a country that only recently assassinated the American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh and is keeping silent about it. The president of the United States is in Israel, meeting with heads of the Israeli state, and yet rather than using the full force of his position – which is considerable – to demand accountability, he says and does nothing.

American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The murders of Khashoggi and that of Shireen Abu Akleh are not the only crimes committed by the two regimes for which Biden is showing love, but these two were well publicized and involve U.S. nationals, so one would think he would act or at least speak out.

A BAD DEAL

U.S. support for Israel is a bad deal for the American taxpayers. $3.8 billion dollars of American taxpayers’ money gets sent to Israel at the beginning of each year. And with the exception of the military-industrial complex, Americans get little out of this.

American citizens who wish to travel to Palestine, particularly if they have an Arab name or family there, are subjected to harassment by the Israeli authorities. This harassment takes place at Tel-Aviv airport, where the authorities are notoriously racist, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. The harassment can last for many hours and often results in refusal of entry into the country. U.S. citizens are not protected from the inhumane interrogation process that takes place at the airport on the way in, and they are not protected by their U.S. citizenship when they leave the country.

A U.S. passport does not even protect Americans from being shot and killed by Israeli forces. Rachel Corrie and Shireen Abu-Akleh, both citizens of the United States, were killed in broad daylight. They were wearing safety equipment, they were well identified as non-combatant civilians, and they were both butchered in plain sight. Washington made no effort to bring the criminals to justice.

Another U.S. citizen who died at the hand of IDF soldiers is Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad. He died on January 12 after he was arrested by IDF troops. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, the seventy-eight-year-old As’ad “was arrested, handcuffed, blindfolded and gagged,” after which the soldiers left. Also, according to the Post report, “the soldiers did not call for medical assistance and left him there believing that he had fallen asleep.” Although several members of congress did issue statements, no real action was taken to hold Israel accountable.

Where was the U.S. government to protect him? Where was the demand to investigate and bring the culprits to justice? and where are the sanctions against the State of Israel, which shows no regard for the lives of Palestinians?

The Israeli human-rights organization B’Tselem commented that: “The army’s announcement regarding the death of Omar Assad is adorned with empty words about ‘moral failure’ – concluding, as expected, with the faintest of rebukes…In fact, the fundamental moral failure is that of Israel’s senior echelons, leading a regime of Jewish supremacy, one in which the human life of Palestinians has no value.”

NO DEMOCRACY, NO STABILITY

Contrary to what is said about Israel, it is neither a democracy nor an island of stability. It has been several years since Israel has been able to function as a state. This is due to the fact that there has not been a government with a stable majority in place. Elections are held over and over again, and even though the results are predictably the same, no stable government is formed. The election results have been consistent, clearly showing what Israeli voters want, namely, they are in favor of a strong, ultra-right-wing government led by racists like Benjamin Netanyahu, who was indicted for corruption, and war criminal generals like Benny Gantz.

Neither the corruption nor the war crimes seem to have any impact on the voters, and these people are elected over and over again. The only thing that changes are the partnerships between the politicians who rarely last very long and the new generals that join the political arena. The one thing that remains constant in Israeli politics is Benjamin Netanyahu. He and his loyal Likud Party followers are the only stable, consistent element in Israeli politics.

WHO IS JOE BIDEN WORKING FOR?

Judging by his performance, Joe Biden is working for AIPAC and not for the American people. He hit every note, shook every hand and repeated his mantras, clearly trying to please his donors back home. According to reports, he even made sure to tell Benjamin Netanyahu that he likes him. His interview on Israeli television included a commitment to keep the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on the list of terrorist organizations and even to attack Iran if that was what it took to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. That is not what his constituents in the U.S. want, but it is what Israel and AIPAC expect of him.

HOW AIPAC IS LEADING EFFORTS TO DISMANTLE THE UN INQUIRY ON PALESTINE

JULY 1ST, 2022

By Jessica Buxbaum

Source

This month, the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel found that the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine is the root cause of the decades-long conflict in the region. But as the probe gets underway, the Israel lobby’s flagship organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is actively attempting to extinguish it.

In response to the inquiry led by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), members of Congress have initiated legislation to abolish the investigation in both the House and the Senate. On June 14, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen introduced the COI Elimination Act S.4389. The bill is similar but not identical to H.R.7223, also called the COI Elimination Act, introduced by Representatives Gregory Steube, Vincente Gonzalez, and Joe Wilson in March.

Both bills seek to abolish the UN inquiry as well as other UN groups in order “to combat systemic anti-Israel bias at the United Nations Human Rights Council and other international fora.” The legislation also calls for restricting U.S. funding to the UNHRC by 25 percent of the amount budgeted. While the Senate bill only has three co-sponsors currently, the House version has nearly 70 signatories made up of mostly Republican representatives.

The UN inquiry came as a result of the Israeli attacks on Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem in May 2021, with the purpose of investigating human rights abuses that occurred during that period. The U.S., Israel, and 19 other countries have sharply condemned the inquiry following the release of its first report.

“We believe the nature of the COI established last May is further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the Council and must stop,” U.S. Ambassador to the UNHRC Michèle Taylor said during the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as the UN inquiry’s first report was being debated.

The State Department has also rebuked the UN inquiry, its spokesperson Ned Price remarking,

…[W]e firmly oppose the open-ended and vaguely defined nature of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, which represents a one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace.”

The UNHCR did not respond to press queries on the congressional bills, instead reiterating the COI’s goals and that all member states must abide by its actions. However, a UNHCR spokesperson did tell MintPress News that,

The mandate of the Commission of Inquiry was supported by a majority of member states of the Council and the allocation of a budget was then approved by the General Assembly. All members of the Human Rights Council are expected to fully cooperate with its decisions, as reaffirmed in General Assembly resolution 50/251 of 2005.”

‘AIPAC-DRIVEN’

According to Jewish Insider, AIPAC has spent this month lobbying on Capitol Hill for more members of Congress to support the COI Elimination Act as part of its first in-person National Council meeting in Washington, D.C., since the start of the pandemic.

Their efforts appear to have succeeded as nearly 40 House Representatives signed onto the bill over the last two weeks.

“It’s simply another AIPAC-driven effort to demonize the UN in order to obfuscate the cruel and inhumane realities on the ground in Israel-Palestine and to deny the apartheid nature of the state,” historian Walter L. Hixson told MintPress News.

The author of “Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict”, Hixon explained that AIPAC activists don’t have a secret lobbying tactic but rather pressure members of Congress through their financial clout.

“It’s what they always do,” he said. “They let them know that people who support them can get support from AIPAC and people who oppose them can expect their next campaign opponents to be funded by AIPAC.”

“It’s pretty ruthless lobbying that exerts its influence, and unfortunately there are a lot of members of Congress who are very easily swayed, unprincipled, fearful and tow the AIPAC line,” Hixson added.

In addition to lobbying members of Congress directly, AIPAC is also encouraging Americans to urge their representatives to support the legislation.

The COI Elimination Act, led by @RepGregSteube @RepGonzalez @RepJoeWilson @SenatorTimScott @SenJackyRosen, would ensure no U.S. taxpayer dollars fund the anti-Israel Commission of Inquiry.

🔴 Urge Congress to support this important bipartisan legislation: https://t.co/1Sk70tIgpY

— AIPAC | Text ISRAEL to 24722 | #StandWithIsrael (@AIPAC) June 27, 2022

Yet they are not the only Israel lobby organization tackling the COI. Richard Goldberg, senior advisor at the Israel lobby group Foundation for Defense of Democracies published an op-ed in the New York Post railing against the COI. Pro-Israel groups B’nai B’rith International, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the National Jewish Advocacy Center have also come out against the COI.

AIPAC has also pressured Congress on other issues during their recent Capitol Hill tour, such as continuing military aid to Israel, supporting the Stop Iranian Drones Act, and rejecting a Senate letter urging the U.S. government to investigate the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Sent last week, a letter signed by nearly half of the Democrats serving in the Senate calls on President Joe Biden to directly involve the U.S. in probing Akleh’s killing.

Today, 24 of us are calling upon @POTUS to ensure direct U.S. involvement in the investigation into the shooting death of American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, so that all parties can have confidence in the findings and to ensure accountability. pic.twitter.com/HqwOFm4zg0

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) June 23, 2022

AIPAC talking points sent to lawmakers ahead of the letter’s publication and seen by Israeli newspaper Haaretz said “the circumstances surrounding the death of Ms. Abu Akleh remain unclear despite the hasty conclusions of various media outlets,” whereas the letter “implies both Israeli culpability and inability to conduct an objective, thorough investigation of the incident.”

https://twitter.com/dylanotes/status/1539412311760326658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1539412311760326658%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.iframe.ly%2Fapi%2Fiframe%3Fapp%3D1url%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2Fdylanotes2Fstatus2F1539412311760326658key%3Dbab15327a66f873fa9c0d80b90a8205a

AIPAC STILL KING

While the COI Elimination Act has received significant backing, the bill’s stated purpose is far-fetched. The U.S. cannot — with a stroke of a pen — unilaterally eradicate a world agency investigation.

However, according to Hixson, the country does have considerable control over the UN and by withholding a quarter of funding (as promised within the bill) can prove detrimental to the UN’s efforts.

“The UN has always been — from its inception in 1945 — heavily influenced by the United States,” Hixson said, noting how its headquarters are in New York and the U.S. has been a longtime funder of the entity. “They can’t dictate to the UN to change a policy, but they can certainly hurt it financially and influence decision-making,” he added.

Whether the bill comes to fruition remains to be seen. But Hixson believes it has a chance, especially given that Democrats are signing onto it as well. Currently, nine Democrats have sponsored the House version and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal has signed on to the Senate act.

Israel lobby experts have suggested that AIPAC’s influence on Capitol Hill is waning as more Democratic politicians and American Jews become increasingly critical of the Israeli government’s actions. For example, experts have speculated that AIPAC establishing political action committees last year is just a desperate attempt to cement its authority over Washington politics.

While Hixson agrees, he also asserts that AIPAC still remains quite influential. And with in-person lobbying again a feature of AIPAC’s work as pandemic restrictions dissipate, the organization may continue to see its influence balloon.

“AIPAC is very determined. They’ve increased their funding. They’ve increased their office space. They’ve increased their number of personnel,” he said. “It remains a very powerful lobby, not just for a foreign policy for a foreign country, but period. It’s as powerful as any lobby really in Washington, and probably more powerful than the gun lobby.”

Nevertheless, public support for Israel has waned substantially in the last decade, mirrored by an increasing sympathy for the Palestinian cause, especially among Democrats. According to a February Gallup poll, sympathy for Israelis has declined from 64% to 55% from 2013 to 2022 and climbed from 12% to 26% for Palestinians.

While Israel might be losing the battle for public opinion, in the realm of political influence in Washington, it is still winning the war.

As Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ Unravels, Congress Launches New Pro-Israel ‘Cheerleading’ Caucus

January 28th, 2022

By Jessica Buxbaum

Source

In less than two years, former President Trump’s Middle East peace agreement is in shambles and the Israel lobby is desperate to revive it, no matter the cost.

WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, Congress launched the bicameral, bipartisan Abraham Accords Caucus to support normalization between Israel and Arab states. Backed by pro-Israel groups, this new political development can be interpreted as a way for the Israel lobby to regain its power over a U.S. Congress that is increasingly critical of Israel.

Described as a “cheerleading squad” in the Jewish Insider by its co-chair, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the caucus’s stated goals include expanding the Abraham Accords agreements and fostering regional peace. The group’s other co-chairs are Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), David Trone (D-MD), Ann Wagner (R-MO), and Brad Schneider (D-IL).

The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) speculated that one of the caucus’ top priorities may be passing the Israel Relations Normalization Act, a bill requiring the United States Department of State to promote normalization between Israel and Arab countries. The IMEU also outlined why the new caucus is particularly controversial, highlighting how the group could be used to crack down on criticism of the Israeli government.

IMEU said in its policy analysis:

In addition to the problematic nature of reifying Trump-administration deals with authoritarian regimes, this legislation is controversial for additional reasons, among which are: A statement of policy “to oppose efforts to delegitimize the state of Israel.” In other legislative initiatives, this vague phraseology has been used as coded language to propose the suppression and even criminalization of freedom of expression to criticize Israeli policies.

The idea that the Abraham Accords need a “cheerleading squad” is particularly fitting in this political climate in which traditional bipartisan support is waning, Zaha Hassan, a policy analyst at Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka, explained to MintPress News, adding:

The folks that started the Abraham Accords Caucus decided to pursue this because they see that the U.S. administration isn’t being active enough in expanding and deepening the Abraham Accords.”

As Congress votes this week on expanding #AbrahamAccords & putting it on steriods, this thread is critical context for understanding why #Israel Relations #Normalization Act is more about entrenching Israel's illegal settlements than abt peacebuilding & #Palestinian prosperity. https://t.co/7e8z5oPk4L

— Zaha Hassan زها حسن (@zahahassan) January 24, 2022

Hassan noted that the timing of the caucus’s debut is important to note as well, as politicians — specifically Democratic members of Congress — and the public have started questioning or even condemning Israel’s actions. She explained:

We have organizations like Human Rights Watch and various Israeli legal and human rights organizations talking about an apartheid situation in Israel-Palestine.

And just at that moment when we’re having that conversation, there’s all this uptick in activity around talking about peace, prosperity, regional economic integration, and expanding the Abraham Accords, and that’s now become the focus of attention.”

With a failed peace process and congressional members calling for greater accountability for Israel, Hassan said the conversation around Palestine-Israel is shifting, and  that’s where the new caucus steps in to act as a diversionary tactic:

It’s trying to find a new direction for the conversation to go in, recognizing the peace process can no longer be used as an excuse.

The idea is that since there isn’t a possibility in Israel or among Palestinians for a peace agreement, we should focus instead on bettering the economic situation of Palestinians and the region writ large.”

Deceptive praise

The announcement of the Abraham Accords Caucus was met with a flurry of enthusiasm in the press and among politicians, as noted by the founder and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Lara Friedman, in the organization’s Legislative Round-Up, where she wrote:

The announcement of the new caucus was accompanied by praise and welcome from the Biden Administration, from the Bahraini government (among others), and a burst of giddy articles/op-eds/editorials promoting the Abraham Accords and/or the caucus, and pressing the Biden Administration to do more to expand normalization.

Friedman emphasized in her analysis the clear congressional hypocrisy when it came to this ecstatic round of approval for the new caucus:

This bipartisan congressional enthusiasm for expanding Arab normalization with Israel stands in stark contrast to decades of Congress’ demonstrated apathy, timidity, antipathy, and outright obstructionism with respect to anything related to trying to secure normal rights for Palestinians.

She suggested that these various gestures of support were simply tactics to encourage the Biden administration — whose response to the Abraham Accords has been tepid — to warm up to the Accords.

Friedman said in her report:

This sudden burst of enthusiasm/support/pressure around the Abraham Accords all appears aimed at pressuring the Biden Administration not only to more strongly support the Accords but to follow in the footsteps of the Trump Administration in using U.S. sweeteners to achieve normalization deals — sweeteners that under Trump meant that the accords were paid for via U.S. arms deals and by the U.S. changing policy on a critical geopolitical/legal question (i.e., recognizing Morocco’s claims to the Western Sahara).

Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ unraveling

In less than two years, former President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace agreement is in shambles. The deal with the United Arab Emirates — the first country to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Accords — is at an impasse. The UAE decided to buy aircraft from France instead of purchasing American F-35 jet fighters, which purportedly was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the Abraham Accords were a key legislative agenda item for the American Israel Public Relations Committee (AIPAC). With the F-35 sale now off the table, the Accords are proving to be a failure.

The Accords and its new caucus claim their objective is to foster regional stability, including achieving a peaceful solution for Palestine and Israel. From Hassan’s perspective, however, normalization with Israel is actually about normalizing and cementing Israeli settlements.

“Some of the first follow-on agreements [between Israel and the UAE] involved settler enterprises,” Hassan said, mentioning the established trade partnerships between businesses operating in illegal Israeli settlements and the UAE, and how delegations of settler councils visited the Gulf state following normalization. “So Israel’s incentive with the Abraham Accords is to really solidify its control over the West Bank.”

Backed by the Israel lobby

While the caucus boasted of its bipartisan representation, the groups backing it are anything but politically divided. FMEP’s Friedman wrote:

A serious investment of time and effort (and possibly funding) has clearly gone into establishing the caucus and getting its establishment/objectives maximum attention, …managing to pull together a caucus that is bipartisan and bicameral, and that enjoys support from an array of mainly center/right-wing pro-Israel groups (both Jewish and Christian), as well as one mainstream think tank.

According to a congressional press release, the caucus is supported by:

• The Atlantic Council
• The Abraham Accords Peace Institute
• AIPAC
• The Anti-Defamation League
• The American Jewish Committee
• Hadassah — The Women’s Zionist Organization of America
• The US-Israel Education Association
• The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
• The Israel Policy Forum
• Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Action
• The Jewish Federations of North America
• B’nai B’rith International

The money sources behind the group’s establishment and promotional materials are largely unknown. MintPress News reached out to the aforementioned organizations to determine if their organizational support translated to financial backing, but those requests haven’t been answered.

However, being supported by a majority of pro-Israel groups suggests the caucus’s goals may not be as peace-oriented as its PR suggests. Al-Shabaka’s Hassan explained:

The ones leading the caucus’ establishment aren’t necessarily the most actively supportive of a two-state solution. So it’s difficult to imagine this group is going to be prioritizing that as a part of their support for the Abraham Accords.”

Folks in this Abraham Accords Caucus are less interested in an Israeli-Palestinian political solution than in recognizing Israeli sovereignty. If you have organizations like CUFI backing this caucus, you get the idea of what kind of place Palestinian sovereignty or statehood is going to play in the work of the caucus.”

Biden Admin’s Reluctance to Spend Geopolitical Capital Greenlights Israeli Settlement Push

December 15th, 2021

By Jessica Buxbaum

Source

“No U.S. administration wants to be perceived as picking 10 fights every day with Israel, even if Israel is engaging every day in 10 things that really demand a response from the U.S.” – Lara Friedman, Foundation for Middle East Peace.

OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM — Last week, Israel bowed to American pressure and scrapped the controversial Atarot settlement in the Palestinian neighborhood of Qalandiya just north of Jerusalem. But on the heels of that decision, the state advanced another Jewish settlement in Palestinian neighborhoods along Jerusalem’s southern tip, even as the residents there are grappling with a severe housing shortage.

The plan is to develop a new neighborhood called Givat HaShaked on land extending beyond the Green Line (Israel’s de facto border before the 1967 War, which saw it occupy East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and adjacent to the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa in Occupied East Jerusalem.

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem municipality’s Planning and Building Committee recommended the development plan for deposit, meaning it will now head to the Jerusalem District Planning Committee, which will decide whether to deposit the plan for objections or public review. The project calls for the construction of 473 homes, schools and synagogues to be built on about nine acres of open land.

During Wednesday’s committee hearing, Israel’s Custodian General, the authority within the Justice Ministry overseeing properties whose owners are unknown, was represented by its economic unit director, Hananel Gurfinkel. Gurfinkel is a right-wing activist known for supporting Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

Givat HaShaked is not the only settlement in East Jerusalem being pushed by the Custodian General. Documentation obtained by Haaretz reveals Givat HaShaked is one of six Jewish neighborhoods Israel is currently advancing across East Jerusalem. These include one in Sheikh Jarrah, one near Damascus Gate, one in Sur Baher, one in Beit Hanina, and another in Beit Safafa.

Activists emphasized that Gurfinkel’s appointment is directly intertwined with the heightened settlement activity and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Amy Cohen, director of international relations and advocacy at the Jerusalem-focused Israeli human rights organization Ir Amim, said of Gurfinkel:

What we’ve seen is that since his appointment in 2017, there has been a substantial increase in eviction lawsuits against Palestinians and the expansion of Jewish settlement in Palestinian areas.”

Settlement expansion under the guise of helping Palestinians

According to Ir Amim, the acreage set for Givat HaShaked is actually on land that is undergoing formal land registration in the Sharafat area of Beit Safafa.

Israel’s 2018 Government Decision 3790 was marketed to the public as a means to push economic development in East Jerusalem and reduce socioeconomic inequality. The initiative reserved 50 million shekels (nearly $16 million) for the registration of land rights in East Jerusalem, an important prerequisite needed to secure building permits. Israeli authorities often use the absence of building permits as justification for demolishing Palestinian homes.

However, as uncovered by Ir Amim, land registration procedures are being used to advance Jewish settlement – as found in Sheikh Jarrah – rather than develop Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

sraeli authorities demolish an East Jerusalem Palestinian home for “being built without obtaining a permit” June, 2021. Photo | Activestills

“On one hand, [Government Decision 3790] is depicted as a tool to aid Palestinians,” Cohen told MintPress News. “And yet it’s being used to further the expansion of Jewish settlement and confiscation of Palestinian land and property.”

Land registration is supposed to be a transparent and publicized process, Sari Kronish, East Jerusalem planner at Israeli planning rights organization Bimkom, explained. “The state is supposed to publish a map of the areas of the plots and invite people to make claims. And if claims are made that contradict each other, then the registrar is supposed to send those claims to court to be clarified,” Kronish said. “But the way the state is actually doing it, we see that it’s being done quietly. People often don’t know that it’s happening.”

“We don’t know yet of a single case where the Palestinians will be able to benefit from it,” Kronish added.

East Jerusalem’s housing crisis

Like other areas of East Jerusalem, Beit Safafa is suffering from an extreme housing shortage.  This is a result of a bureaucratic labyrinth of building permits and a lack of zoning plans. While the Palestinian population has quadrupled to nearly 40% of Jerusalem’s total population since 1967, Israeli authorities have allowed Palestinians to develop only 9% of the land in East Jerusalem.

Abu Ghassan, chairman of the board of directors for Beit Safafa-Sharafat, dismissed the notion that the Israeli government is merely recommending the development of Givat HaShaked. “Israel is not promoting the plan,” Ghassan said. “It’s a reality that we are living and the plan is going to happen.” He said Beit Safafa residents are up in arms over the Givat HaShaked plan, given they have been requesting the city for more housing for young couples in Beit Safafa. But their demands have failed to be heard.

“What’s happening in Beit Safafa is a political situation. They’re doing the same thing in many other Arabic villages in Jerusalem.” Ghassan said. “Jerusalem’s government is just ignoring the Arabic community as if they don’t live here at all. They’re ignoring us while developing their own community.”

According to Ghassan, former Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who served until 2018, promised 400 homes to Beit Safafa but the current mayor, Moshe Lion, walked back this commitment.

Ghassan explained Beit Safafa’s housing shortage is the result of infrastructure and encroaching settlements. Beit Safafa is currently surrounded by three Israeli settlements – Gilo, Givat Hamatos, and East Talpiot – and the majority Jewish neighborhood of Pat, which has made it difficult for Beit Safafa residents to obtain construction permits. Beit Safafa was also split in two when the Begin Highway and HaRav Ovadia Yosef Road were built, leading to a lack of open space.

The Bennett doctrine

The area reserved for Givat HaShaked was once sought after for development by former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In 1995, Rabin put forward a housing project for the land, sparking international outcry. The UN Security Council voted to have Israel halt the plan, with the United States vetoing the resolution. Rabin shelved his expropriation efforts days after the UN vote, in what has been speculated to be an exchange for the U.S.’ veto.

Extremely important.

The Jerusalem Municipality today "approved" a new East Jerusalem where Rabin ז"ל promised Clinton NOT to build.

Atatrot, E-1, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and now Givat Hashaked reveal the Bennett Doctrine:

"Leave no eye un-poked". https://t.co/ozycYeA8Qd

— Daniel Seidemann (@DanielSeidemann) December 8, 2021

Now, the current Israeli government is going beyond what any previous leadership dared to do, Daniel Seidemann, founder and director of Israeli non-profit Terrestrial Jerusalem, emphasized.

“These [settlement] plans are now on the agenda,” Seidemann told MintPress News. “Relations between the United States and [Israeli Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett are charged at the moment,” Seidemann continued. “The Americans have made their concerns very clear about [the settlements of] E1 and Atarot, so why is Bennett having another poke-in-the-eye over something like this?”

Lara Friedman, president of the American non-profit Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), agreed the new government is stepping into territory even Bennett’s predecessor wouldn’t touch. “They’re as bad as the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government and in many ways, they’re worse,” Friedman said. “These settlements are absolutely incompatible with any commitment to anything other than permanent Israeli control over the entire area,” Friedman added, highlighting the record number of home demolitions throughout Area C of the Occupied West Bank as another way Bennett’s government is pushing increased annexation.

Israeli police arrest a Palestinian boy during the demolition of a Palestinian shop in East Jerusalem. Photo | AP

From Ir Amim’s Cohen’s perspective, despite Bennett’s government being a politically diverse coalition, hardline voices are the ones in power. “Far-right members of the coalition are put in very strategic, high-level positions, like in the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice,” Cohen said. “All of these portfolios are very senior and they have a lot of weight. And what we’ve seen is because of this, they are quietly able to advance this very far-right-wing agenda.”

Prominent right-wing politicians hold top spots in Israel’s government: Ayelet Shaked is Interior Minister; Ze’ev Elkin is the Minister of Housing and Construction; and Gideon Sa’ar serves as the Minister of Justice.

Biden versus Israel?

As settlement expansion becomes the defining feature of Bennett’s government, the other side of the Atlantic is becoming increasingly more vocal about Israeli occupation and land theft.

In November, 26 U.S. House Democrats penned a letter urging Secretary of State Antony Blinken to stop Israel from moving forward with the settlement plan in the E1 area of the West Bank.

The move was led by Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, who recently toured a Palestinian village in the West Bank with New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman. And Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum has become a strong advocate for Palestinian rights in Congress. The Democrat has sponsored two bills related to U.S. military aid to Israel and said the state practices apartheid. On the Givat HaShaked proposal and ongoing settlement expansion in Palestine, McCollum told MintPress in a statement:

Israel’s state-sponsored expansion of settlements on Palestinian land – while the Israeli government’s bureaucrats deny Palestinians permits to even build homes and bulldoze existing Palestinian homes, schools, and businesses – is destroying the prospect of a Palestinian state and the prospects for peace.

The global community views Israeli settlement expansion as illegal and lethal to any future peace process, and the U.S. government should not be silent. This situation has reached a point in which the Palestinians are clearly a people denied even basic human rights while under Israeli government subjugation.

U.S. lawmakers are emerging as more and more critical of Israel, but that hasn’t stopped Israeli state violence. In fact, Israel appears almost fueled by the condemnation.

FMEP’s Friedman suggested President Joe Biden’s administration can’t keep up with the sheer number of controversial actions Israel has initiated this year, referring to increased settlement activity and Israel’s designation of six Palestinian organizations as terrorist entities.

“How much political capital does the Biden administration have to spend on any one of these things while it’s also working on Iran?” Friedman asked, arguing that the U.S. can’t expend all its political energy on Israel. So if a provocative move slips under the radar, Israel might view that as American approval. “If things like a new settlement in East Jerusalem are not on the agenda, it’s seen as a green light from Israel, that the U.S. is not opposing it,” Friedman said. “And if the U.S. does put it on the agenda, it means there’s that much less political capital that it can spend on other things.”

But at the end of the day, the U.S.-Israel alliance is a lot stronger than any notion of democracy or human rights.

“No U.S. administration wants to be perceived as picking 10 fights every day with Israel, even if Israel is engaging every day in 10 things that really demand a response from the U.S.,” Friedman observed.