The Gaza ‘aid pier’: a US geopolitical ploy?

MAY 10, 2024

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While presented to the world as a humanitarian effort, the US-led ‘Maritime Corridor’ in Gaza is a strategic maneuver aimed at consolidating US and Israeli control over land and sea.

(Photo Credit: The Cradle)

Suat Delgen

Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza, which has killed over 35,000 civilians, predominantly women and children, has been executed alongside the denial of humanitarian aid since the war’s onset last October.

With cases of famine already in evidence, Tel Aviv’s utter disregard of the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling demanding immediate access to aid, and Washington’s veto of UN Security Council resolutions advocating for a Gaza ceasefire, both Israel and the US have come under significant global fire.

This backlash is notably strong on the campuses of major US universities, a growing student movement that has arguably breathed new life into the Palestinian solidarity movement. Concerns about the Gaza genocide’s potential damage to the global image of the US have belatedly reached the White House, with US President Joe Biden only now threatening – in advance of the November elections – to curtail the transfer of large offensive munitions to Israel.

A Maritime Corridor for Gaza 

Curiously, despite his robust support of Israel’s Gaza assault until recent days, Biden appeared to take an atypical stance during his 7 March State of the Union address:

“Tonight, I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier on the Gaza coast in the Mediterranean. This pier will facilitate the arrival of large ships loaded with food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.“

That atypical initiative, during a period when hundreds of tons of US weapons were being airlifted to Israel daily, raises many questions about whether the establishment of a temporary pier in Gaza – under the guise of ‘humanitarian’ concern – is purely aimed at mitigating international criticism, or if it also serves Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives in the region.

If the US was indeed concerned about rushing aid to Gaza on an urgent basis, it could simply have done so via the Strip’s many land border crossings with Israel and the Egyptian one with Rafah, where hundreds of aid trucks have been lined up for months to deliver emergency food and medicine.

So why delay land aid for months to build a sea pier, one that potentially violates international maritime law? And is “humanitarian aid” just a ruse to occupy the seacoast of Gaza illegally?

According to Washington’s narrative, the maritime corridor is intended to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid from Cyprus to Gaza via a new pier. The corridor plans to start with 90 trucks rolling off to Gaza, and then scale up to 150 trucks. However, this volume is still far below the hundreds of trucks needed daily.

There are several hurdles and concerns associated with the maritime corridor. The operations will include Israeli inspections in Cyprus, which could lead to delays and complications. The sensitivity around inspections and security, especially concerning items deemed as “dual-use” goods (usable for both civilian and military purposes) – which in the past, per Israeli diktats, have included biscuits, chickens, and toys, and today includes maternity kits, sleeping bags, and dates – could impede the smooth processing of aid.

In its provisional measures decision, the ICJ emphasized that humanitarian aid to Gaza must not be obstructed. Therefore, Israel’s blockade has become void under normal circumstances. 

In maritime operations, if a blockade is applied, no ships should be able to enter the area. Now, since the US has established a humanitarian corridor, this effectively nullifies the blockade and helps Tel Aviv pretend there isn’t one. Consequently, the US is practically invalidating the blockade decision recorded in the provisional measures decision by the ICJ, which was not supposed to be implemented – a legal loophole to provide succor to Israel’s massive international law violations.

Humanitarian aid or geopolitical strategy?

There’s significant political tension surrounding the corridor, with plenty of suspicions that it might slow down land routes or be associated with a siege strategy. The involvement of military entities and international politics adds layers of complexity and potential for delays or the politicization of aid.

Another aspect that casts doubt on the efficacy of the humanitarian aid corridor is its reliance on the Netzarim Corridor, also known as Route 749, imposed by the occupation army during the carnage. This east–west passage divides the northern and southern regions of the Gaza Strip and is a fortified road constructed by the Israeli army primarily for military access.

The route’s strategic placement and military significance complicate the entry and distribution of aid throughout Gaza. For the aid arriving through the maritime corridor, once the goods are offloaded at the pier, they still need to be transported across Gaza to reach the populations in need.

The Netzarim Corridor’s checkpoints could become bottlenecks for these deliveries. It is uncertain whether these checkpoints will allow seamless transportation of goods from the maritime corridor to the northern parts of Gaza, where famine has struck badly.

Consolidating control 

Critics argue that the corridor could serve as a smokescreen for political maneuvers, posing a major threat not only to Gaza but to Egypt too, which stands to “lose its strategic advantage” over the Palestine file. 

The suspicion is that the project, while ostensibly “facilitating” aid delivery, might also allow for increased control over the entirety of Gaza under the guise of humanitarian assistance. This control could potentially streamline Israel’s military operations and fortify its strategic positions within Gaza, ultimately influencing the broader geopolitical dynamics of the conflict.

Furthermore, the positioning of the pier may strategically protect Gaza’s nearby offshore gas fields, aligning with Israeli and US interests in stealing Palestinians’ energy resources.

The positioning of the aid entry points away from the northern parts of Gaza, where famine is most acute, to areas controlled by the Israeli army suggests a strategic alignment with Israel’s military objectives to remain physically in Gaza despite ceasefire negotiations that demand their complete exit from the Strip.

Concerns have also been raised about the potential for the US to take over control of the Egyptian border, effectively aiding in a permanent blockade of Gaza from Egypt, which could sever Gazans from access to any non-Israeli access to goods – forever. 

In essence, while the maritime corridor could indeed alleviate a tiny portion of Gaza’s immediate humanitarian needs, its broader implications suggest a tangled web of geopolitical strategies. 

Instead of establishing a floating pier for humanitarian aid, one of the most practical solutions is to send aid directly to Israel’s Ashdod Port, and from there to Gaza under UN supervision. However, in line with Israel’s military strategy, sending the aid through the Netzarim Corridor under Israeli military control to the assembly areas in the south of Gaza and directing the Palestinians to these aid points has facilitated the assault on Rafah.

Historical and strategic significance 

To understand Washington’s geopolitical calculations, it’s worth examining Biden’s statements to Congress on 20 October 2023, in which he requested assistance for Israel’s security.

“This is a prudent investment. It will benefit American security for generations to come,” “We will make Israel stronger than ever,” and “We will build a good future in the Middle East.”

Palestine, situated at the crossroads between Asia and Africa and on the border of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, has been a source of contention since the earliest known great powers of history.

Historically, for powers in Africa or those controlling Egypt, Palestine has been key to securing the strategic Suez point for military strategy. Similarly, for powers in Asia or those emerging from the continent, controlling Palestine was crucial for accessing the Suez. 

Today, the US faces the potential loss of access to the Bab el-Mandeb passage due to Yemen’s maritime operations in and around the Red Sea, which are now expanding to the Mediterranean. Such a loss would likely shift the balance of power in the Red Sea strategic area and further across West Asia.

When considering historical and current rivalries, it is evident that a significant benefit for Washington, as noted by Biden, is to control the Suez Canal through Tel Aviv. 

It is plausible that Israel’s dominion over the Gaza Strip and the US control of the offshore waters of Gaza under the guise of humanitarian aid could facilitate US control over the exits of the Suez Canal, as well as the routes from Iran and Russia to the Eastern Mediterranean through Lebanon and Syria. The alignment of Israel’s objectives in Gaza with Washington’s strategic goals explains the continued US support of Israel – in spite of intensifying global outrage over its enabling of ethnic cleansing and land grabbing. 

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

‘Genocide Joe’ Suffers Another Mortifying Slap-Down at the United Nations

MAY 10, 2024

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Mike Whitney

In a clear rejection of US policies and leadership in the Middle East, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership. The western media have mostly ignored Friday’s balloting since the widely-anticipated results represent another black eye for Washington. But the outcome of the vote is a blow to the Biden administration’s failed Gaza policy as well as a clear indication that America’s blanket support for Israel’s genocide is increasing Washington’s isolation and irrelevance.

The assembly vote was 143 to 9, which means that US diplomatic influence has eroded to the point where the White House could barely coerce 9 of their most-loyal vassal states to reject the motion. It is imperative that people fully grasp the meaning of this vote, which suggests that the so-called “Rules-Based Order” is a withering fraud that grows more anemic by the day. Additionally, the vote provides compelling evidence that the American Century is officially over and that the vast majority of the world’s nations are no longer willing to comply with Washington’s self-serving edicts.

Naturally, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, used the opportunity—not to express his remorse at being a participant in his nation’s sadistic rampage in Gaza—but to scold the other members of the assembly for acting courageously on a matter of principle. Without a trace of irony, Erdan accused the other members of “shredding the UN charter with your own hands. Yes, yes, that’s what you’re doing. Shredding the UN charter.”

What Erdan failed to mention is that Israel holds the world’s record for breaking UN resolutions and has yet to encounter an international law that it won’t break with impunity. Israel decided long-ago that its future depended on its ability to use the world’s biggest bully as its personal bodyguard thus allowing it to ignore any legal or moral restraints on its behavior. This is an excerpt from an article at the UK Guardian:

Friday’s resolution …. does not make Palestine a full member, or give it voting rights in the assembly, or the right to stand for membership of the security council, but the vote was a resounding expression of world opinion in favour of Palestinian statehood, galvanized by the continuing bloodshed and famine caused by Israel’s war in Gaza.

Even before the vote in the assembly on Friday morning, Israel and a group of leading Republicans urged US funding be cut anyway because of the new privileges the resolution granted to the Palestinian mission.

The US mission to the UN, which voted against the resolution, warned that it would also use its veto again if the question of Palestinian membership returned to the security council for another vote.

“Efforts to advance this resolution do not change the reality that the Palestinian Authority does not currently meet the criteria for UN membership under the UN charter,” the mission’s spokesperson, Nathan Evans, said. “Additionally, the draft resolution does not alter the status of the Palestinians as a “non-member state observer mission”. UN general assembly votes to back Palestinian bid for membership, The Guardian

Try to appreciate how hypocritical and morally bankrupt the US position really is. For the last 57 years, Republicans and Democrats alike, have paid lip-service to a two-state solution based on UN Resolution 242 which requires Israel to remove its settlements from Palestinian land in occupied Gaza and the West Bank. “Get off Palestinian land and there will be peace.” That is US policy which is backed-up by international law. But, now, under Biden, the US not only opposes Palestinian statehood (which would improve their chances of getting a fair deal.) but is also providing the money, bombs and logistical support for blowing 2 million Palestinians to smithereens. This is the Biden policy in a nutshell, and—in case you hadn’t noticed—it is a clear departure from more than a half century of US foreign policy. The reason Biden is now commonly referred to as “Genocide Joe” is because he is unilaterally breaking international law by providing material support to Israeli barbarism which makes him—and the United States—equally culpable in the premeditated annihilation of the Palestinian people. Here’s more from the Guardian:

…the resolution also makes plain that “the state of Palestine, in its capacity as an observer state, does not have the right to vote in the general assembly or to put forward its candidature to United Nations organs.”

…. “In essence, it gives the Palestinians the airs and graces of a UN member, but without the fundamental attributes of a real member, which are voting power and the right to run for the security council.”….

Despite the wording in the resolution making clear Palestine would not have a vote, Israel called on the US to cut funding for the UN because of the resolution, and a group of Republican senators announced they were introducing legislation to do that.

…. Senator Mitt Romney said in a written statement. “Our legislation would cut off US taxpayer funding to the UN if it gives additional rights and privileges to the Palestinian Authority and the PLO.” The Guardian

Nice, eh? So, the vote didn’t turn out the way Uncle Sam wanted, so now he’s going to “take his ball and go home.” That’s called, ‘being a crybaby,’ and it helps to explain why more and more leaders are joining an alternate bloc of nations called the BRICS. There’s simply no reason to align oneself with a waning superpower that is so morally corrupted that it believes that mass murder is an acceptable foreign policy. (Note: The other countries that opposed Palestine’s bid for membership were Micronesia, Argentina, Hungary, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Israel. The list helps to illustrate the ineffectiveness of US diplomacy which has virtually collapsed under Anthony Blinken.)

Not surprisingly, Russia’s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia offered the most intelligent analysis. Here’s what he said just prior to the vote:

It is our common duty to correct the historical injustice regarding Palestinian aspirations for their own sovereign unified state, which should have been admitted to the United Nations as early as 1948. We are convinced that Palestine’s full UN membership would help to equalize the starting negotiating positions with Israel, which received is status as a UN member state more than 75 years ago.

Admission of the State of Palestine to the UN would be the first practical step towards a just solution of the Palestinian question on the UN-approved platform and within the universally recognized international legal framework. …..

This process should result in the implementation of the internationally recognized two-state solution providing for Israel coexisting in peace and security with Palestine in the 1967 borders and with the capital in East Jerusalem. For this dialogue to succeed, Israel and Palestine must be on an equal footing in accordance with the decisions of the UN Security Council….

….When this draft resolution is adopted, Palestine… will receive a number of additional opportunities for more effective work in the United Nations General Assembly and at the meetings held under UNGA’s auspices. We see this as an opportunity to at least partially correct the historical injustice against the long-suffering Palestinian people, who have lost an unprecedented number of peaceful lives over the past seven months…

… Palestine must become a full member of the UN…. We believe that the most important element of this draft is contained in its recommendation to the UN Security Council to reconsider Palestine’s application for UN membership. It is a moral obligation for all of us. Only full membership will allow Palestine to join the ranks of other members of the Organization and fully exercise the rights that this status implies. ….The Palestinian people have long deserved it. Statement
by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at the 10th Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly

Well said.

Bottom line: Biden and his handlers do not want the Palestinians to have their own state which is why he is assisting Israel in annihilating the native population and replacing them with Jewish settlers. Fortunately, under international law the Occupied Territories will be Palestinian land into perpetuity and there’s nothing the United States or Israel can do about it.

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.

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

April 12, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ISRAEL’S CELEBRITY CHARM OFFENSIVE: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE GLAMOROUS TRIPS

APRIL 5TH, 2024

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Jessica Buxbaum

Since Israel launched a war on Gaza in October, it’s been accused of genocide, been on trial for war crimes, and seen allies stop approving weapons shipments. Yet amid the storm of negative press and genocidal war, some organizations are attempting to shift the narrative in Israel’s favor by taking celebrities and social media influencers on propaganda-fueled trips to Israel.

According to the Israeli newspaper Globes, the Maccabee Task Force (MTF) and Rova Media are the organizations working to send celebrities to Israel. Israeli television production company Eight Productions helps document the trips for media purposes.

It turns out the organization that has been bringing celebrities such as Noah Schnapp, Nikita Dragun, Michael Rapaport, Scooter Braun, Tiffany Haddish, and Debra Messing on propaganda trips to Israel is the Maccabee Task Force, a right-wing Israel advocacy group.

— Josh Kadish (@kadish_josh) March 18, 2024

WHO IS GOING ON THESE TRIPS?

The list of celebrities who’ve toured with MTF includes Nathaniel Buzolic, Michael Rapaport, Debra Messing, Scooter Braun, James Maslow, Montana Tucker, Guy Nattiv, Eve Barlow, Lee Kern, Kosha Dillz and Matisyahu.

Even before the war, MTF was sending celebrities to Israel, but according to one of MTF’s media directors, Uriel Dison, these trips were less politically charged.

“But now we don’t bring people to travel around,” Dison told Globes. “They have to come and see with their own eyes the results of the war and become sort of wartime ambassadors.”

Dison added that it was challenging to convince high-profile individuals to come to Israel, but after a few trips, his “phone is bursting with requests from people. Influencers connect us to other influencers and celebrities to other celebrities, so it’s self-perpetuating.”

Rova Media hasn’t disclosed who it’s sending to Israel, only mentioning to Globes that “there are journalists, social media influencers, artists, and more.”

However, according to their social media accounts, they’ve partnered with social media influencer Caroline D’Amore to produce content in Israel and hosted Aboriginal Australian athlete and former politician Nova Peris and social media influencer Brooke Bello in Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, the agency documented American singer Tucker’s trip.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Caroline D'Amore (@carolinedamore)

MTF and Rova Media didn’t respond to requests for comment on these tours.

WHO IS BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN?

ova Media was founded in October 2023 by Dan Luxenberg and actor Buzolic with support from BZ Media to shape Israel’s image as the war began. The organization’s Facebook page was created on October 27, 2023.

Buzolic, who is a born-again Christian, has frequently traveled to Israel throughout the years and explained to the Times of Israel his mission with Rova Media:

My next-door neighbors, who are Lebanese and Palestinian, tell me how deluded I am. I speak to the people in the middle, I’m trying to shift them,” Buzolic said. “One thing I’ve learned about the pro-Palestinian narrative is they just have content, no context. We want to provide context for the content we’re providing.”

The company has partnered with entertainment firm Roc Nation, founded by rapper Jay-Z, and the Hostage and Missing Families Forum (“Bring Them Home”), the Israeli movement to free hostages taken by Hamas during its attack on October 7, 2023.

Rabbi Ari Lamm and Justin Hayet run the New York-based BZ Media and produce pro-Israel content targeting a Gen Z audience. Lamm founded SoulShop, a faith-focused entertainment company, where Rova’s Luxenberg is CEO. Hayet was a university campus fellow for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a pro-Israel media watchdog often targeting journalists for perceived anti-Israel coverage and paying students to write articles smearing pro-Palestine activists. He also worked for Danny Danon, a lawmaker with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, during his term as the ambassador to the United Nations.

MTF was founded by the late pro-Israel billionaire donor, Sheldon Adelson, in 2015 to combat the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on college campuses, harassing activist groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and leading smear campaigns against pro-Palestine students and faculty.

A DEI program coordinator at the @UofMaryland DEFENDED Hamas terrorists and justified October 7. How are Jewish students supposed to lodge antisemitism complaints to the DEI office when the program coordinator is a hateful antisemite? pic.twitter.com/nIcIp2lmZk

— Maccabee Task Force (@MacTaskForce) March 18, 2024

Former Manhattan College professor Shellyne Rodriguez has made vile and dehumanizing propaganda targeting Jews and Zionists. And yet @Columbia invited her for a panel. https://t.co/G9eVIbUXyc

— Maccabee Task Force (@MacTaskForce) March 18, 2024

Instead of taking accountability for creating a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus, pro-Palestine, anti-Israel student groups at @Columbia have chosen to gaslight Jewish students, claiming that the university is “silencing” pro-Palestine voices. pic.twitter.com/ALvzKEbdhE

— Maccabee Task Force (@MacTaskForce) March 11, 2024

Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson’s wife, currently serves as MTF’s president, while infamous pro-Israel lawyer Alan Dershowitz is one of the organization’s directors. Miriam Adelson’s son-in-law and new owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, Patrick Dumont, serves as treasurer. David Brog, former head of Christians United for Israel, an evangelistic Israel lobby group, is the current executive director. The Adelson family primarily funds the organization, pumping over $10 million into MTF in 2022. Joseph Fisch, founder of United States Beverage, has also contributed to the organization.

MTF funds Hillels, Jewish student groups, and other Jewish life institutions on college campuses to find students for its tours. According to its most recent tax filings, it funds Jewish campus life groups at the following universities in the U.S. and Canada: American University, Arizona State University, Binghamton University, Boston University, Brandeis University, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, Florida International University, Florida State University, George Mason University, George Washington University, Hunter College, Indiana University, Kent State University, Michigan State University, Northeastern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Syracuse University, Temple University, University of Arizona, University of British Columbia, University of California Los Angeles, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Florida, University of Maryland, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of Southern California, University of Vermont, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin Madison, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Vanderbilt University, Virginia Tech, Washington University, Wayne State University and Yale.

Its largest contribution in 2022 was to Chabad on Campus International, the campus educational arm of the Chabad Lubovitch movement. This movement consists of ultra-Orthodox radicals who often carry out revenge attacks on Palestinians. It also supports Jewish student unions in Australia, New Zealand, France, Austria, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. In 2022, it spent over $5 million on Jewish student groups and other related organizations.

While touting itself as a campus educational program, behind the scenes, MTF is financing several Israeli propaganda campaigns. The organization was one of the primary funders of Act.il, the now-defunct app set on creating an anti-BDS, pro-Israel troll army. MTF currently supports Students Supporting Israel, a pro-Israel movement working to pass university initiatives favoring Israel, like investment resolutions and stopping Israel divestment acts. MTF also funds Prager University, a billionaire-bankrolled media empire attempting to turn today’s youth into right-wing extremists.

The organization is notorious for taking non-Jewish university students on trips to Israel and returning them as brand ambassadors for Israel at their schools. MTF specifically targets student “influencers,” which often translates to individuals of color and those involved in Black and Asian student unions.

“They say they’re targeting ‘student leaders’ who they hope to convince to vote no on potential divestment resolutions,” University of Minnesota student Josh Spencer-Resnik told Jewish Currents in 2019. “[And it’s], especially leaders of minority student groups.”

According to MTF’s donation page, it sends 25 students to Israel yearly and has boosted its efforts amid the war, saying they’ve reached thousands of students since October 7, 2023. These trips are generously subsidized.

“[W]e are working to make sure campus anti-Israel groups face consequences for openly endorsing Hamas’ terror, and we are arranging a special Wartime Fact-Finding mission to Israel for some of our most influential non-Jewish MTF trip alumni,” MTF wrote on its website.

In January, the Times of Israel profiled a recent MTF student trip. According to the publication, the trip consisted of meeting with Israelis — but not Palestinians — on the current situation. The group visited bomb shelters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot and toured Kfar Aza, a kibbutz (Jewish commune) Hamas militants attacked in October. They met with Miri Eisin, a retired colonel and former political adviser, Jonathan Elkhoury, who uses his Lebanese-Israeli nationality to advocate for Israel on U.S. college campuses, survivors of the Hamas attacks at the Nova Music Festival, and a volunteer medic about sexual assault allegedly committed by Hamas militants during the October attacks.

“Campuses have become battlegrounds. We wanted students who document what life in Israel has been like since October 7 and who could make a difference on campus when they return,” MTF national director Ben Sweetwood told the Times of Israel.

MTF appears to be succeeding in its campaign — churning out Israeli propaganda puppets at universities while genocide rages in Gaza. Many of its recent wartime alums are now acting as Israeli state mouthpieces on social media.

Following his MTF trip, USC student Logan Barth wrote on Instagram, “[E]very IDF soldier I spoke to emphasized that the last thing they want are innocent Palestinians dead – they want peace. But that is difficult when the people who killed his family members are hiding behind Palestinian civilians.”

“This is NOT genocide,” Barth added.

Feature photo | Colombian singer Shakira visits the the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Oded Balilty | AP

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.

Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.

Israel’s desperate fan club attempt to redefine ‘Extremism’

March 16, 2024

Well, they are the experts.

After working on jet fighters in the RAF Stuart became an industrial marketing specialist with manufacturing companies and consultancy firms. He also “indulged himself” as a newspaper columnist. In politics, he served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor and member of the Police Authority. Now retired he campaigns on various issues and contributes to several online news & opinion sites. An Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, he has produced two photo-documentary books – Paperturn-view.com.
Also, check out Stuart’s book Radio Free Palestine, with Foreword by Jeff Halper. It tells the plight of the Palestinians under brutal occupation and explains why the Zionists who control Israel should be brought before the International Criminal Court.

By  Stuart Littlewood

Michael Gove is the UK’s Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and he’s been tinkering with the meaning of ‘extremism’ to see if he can squeeze political advantage out of it for his doomed party and his own misguided ideology.

He saw an opportunity in all the noisy pushing and shoving between Muslims and Jews as a result of the human misery and despair generated by Israel’s insane genocide in Gaza.

Gove has just introduced a New Extremism Definition to Parliament. His ministerial statement mentions the “October 7 terror attacks in Israel” 3 times in as many paragraphs, including the headline. I searched frantically for corresponding references to the hundreds of Israeli terror attacks on Gaza and massacres in the West Bank but found none.

You see, Gove has described himself as “a proud Zionist” with a desire to “celebrate everything that Israel and the Jewish people have brought to the life of this world, so his stance is pitifully lopsided. I agree with him about the wonderful contribution by some Jewish people. But Israel? What planet is he on?

Of course, he’s a member of Conservative Friends of Israel and condemns the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel as antisemitic. Gove has also said jihadist terrorists “hate Israel, and they wish to wipe out the Jewish people’s home, not because of what Israel does but because of what Israel is – free, democratic, liberal and western.” Yep, I think he must be on Pluto. Or something stronger.

Gove hopes his New Definition will ensure the Government are “not inadvertently providing a platform, funding or legitimacy to groups or individuals who attempt to advance extremist ideologies that negate our fundamental rights and freedoms and overturn the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy”. Surely the real risk to our liberal democracy is Gove’s own extremist ideology imported from the hateful apartheid regime that’s been making life hell in the Holy Land for 76 years.

That’s not all. The enforcer of the New Definition is Lord Walney, described as the Government’s “independent” adviser on political violence and disruption. He’s been dispatched to persuade political leaders to ban their MPs from engaging with the Palestine solidarity movement. But milord Walney (aka John Zak Woodcock) is a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel and can hardly be called independent.

No, you couldn’t make it up. And yes, law experts will have a field day tearing it apart.

Stuart Littlewood
15 March 2024

Israel Uber Alles?

MARCH 15, 2024

Source

Or is there finally a reckoning developing for its sins?

Philip Giraldi

There have been some interesting developments over the past few days relating to Israel’s demonstrated subjugation of the government at all levels in the United States as well as its domination of the entertainment and news media. Nearly everyone now accepts that the current situation is not due to ordinary Americans actually liking what Israel represents and is instead rather a consequence of the US Israel lobby’s deep pockets and the corruption that can be bought by being willing to spend billions of dollars to support a single highly focused cause. And there is also the tool used frequently to keep potentially troublesome politicians in line, which is the willingness to do whatever is necessary to discredit and marginalize any and all critics of the Jewish state, to include the liberal often bogus claims of the alleged crimes of antisemitism and holocaust-denial to demonize those who are targeted.

Both current and previous Israeli Prime Ministers have boasted that they control the United States and the evidence is there that they can in fact do so. Most dispiriting in the Zionist induced sturm und drang which is a covert war of sorts directed against the United States Constitution has been the impact on the actual rights of all Americans, including freedom of speech. Last week South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate hopeful Kristi Noem boasted of new legislation in her state that would criminalize antisemitism. As criticizing Israel is considered to be ipso facto antisemitism and criminalized as a so-called “hate crime” it means, as some have observed, that Americans in South Dakota and also in Florida (thanks to Ron DeSantis) can criticize their own country, but not the self-declared Jewish state. Paul Craig Roberts puts it another way, observing that “I find it extraordinary that Jews alone among all ethnicities can control what can be said about them. The real threat is not anti-semitism. The real threat is the destruction of free speech and the rise of status based law that protects some chosen ethnicities and persecutes others. What is really needed is an alliance against those who are destroying the foundations of truth, freedom, and accountable government.”

Last week there was also an interesting vote in Congress, blocking or forcing the sale of the Chinese social media and networking site TikTok, which has become very popular among young people worldwide. What was not much discussed in the media in the lead-up to the vote, which claimed the site was a “national security threat,” was who was pushing for the bill. In reality, the story within the story was again all about Israel. “We have a major TikTok problem” complained the grotesque Anti-Defamation League chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt, apparently freaking out because global youth aren’t buying Israel’s propaganda anymore since the site has something like a “memory” that directs readers and viewers to new information or videos that they had previously expressed an interest in. Many users were, per Greenblatt, interested in what is going on in Gaza and were receiving information hostile to Israel. The passage of the bill overwhelmingly, which was rushed through Congress, demonstrates yet again the Israel Lobby power. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was reportedly heavily engaged in lobbying up until the voting took place. It unfortunately demonstrates how Israel is able to decide how Americans choose to communicate and socialize with one another and the world. Summarizing the Israel Lobby’s view on the issue was the ever-delightful ex-presidential candidate Nikki Haley who responded to the legislation with “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.” And there’s even more to the damage done. The bill doesn’t just ban TikTok. It also creates a new unilateral authority for any president to ban any app or website he or she deems to be a “national security threat” if its owned or controlled by a “foreign adversary,” which includes not just China but also Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Goodbye free speech and association!

So, in return for considerable pain and nothing tangible to benefit the United States and its citizens, Israel is celebrated as America’s best friend and closest all” while also getting a free ride of billions of dollars from the US taxpayer and complete political protection bestowed by the clowns that run Washington no matter what it does and how much damage it actually inflicts on American people or interests. Along those lines, the biggest story recently has been Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s denunciation of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 40 minute speech delivered from the Senate floor followed up by an X tweet.

Schumer, who is the highest ranking elected Jew in the US government, accused Netanyahu of continuing the Gaza war and running it is such a fashion so as to demonstrate that he “has lost his way to allow his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.” Schumer observed that Israel’s government, whoever heads it, must make “course corrections” and that “[Netanyahu] has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah” among nations, which has already to a certain extent taken place. In light of that, Schumer recommended that “At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel,” Schumer said in a speech, adding that it’s “a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.”

Schumer also criticized Netanyahu for rejecting the Biden administration’s proposal to discuss the establishment of a Palestinian immediately after the war ends. “As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7. The world has changed — radically — since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.” He added that “As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may. But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice. There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel. In my opinion, that is best accomplished by holding an election.”

An election would not necessarily produce a change in Gaza policy, with most Israelis supporting the war by a large margin, according to opinion polls. But one survey released in January suggested that only 15% of voters wanted Netanyahu to remain in office after the conflict ends. War cabinet minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s rival and most likely successor, basically supports the ongoing Gaza slaughter with only minor deviations from what the prime minister is currently doing.

Many congressional Democrats praised Schumer’s speech and a follow up X tweet but Republicans in the United States and leaders in Israel quickly responded negatively to his remarks. Israel’s Likud party saying Israel is not a “banana republic” while House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement “It is highly inappropriate and simply wrong for Senator Schumer to be calling for new elections in Israel.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed with that judgment: “It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader of Israel. This is unprecedented.” Opposing the Republican onslaught, some Democrats pushed back, including Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who observed that “Netanyahu has certainly not been shy about trying to interfere in American politics.”

Schumer’s speech must be placed in context. Schumer, who has been in the US Senate for 25 years, has always been a strong and uncritical supporter of what Israel does and how it manages its security. He has described his own surname as derived from the Hebrew word “shomer” which means “protector” or “guardian” and has elaborated on that theme to declare openly that he is “Israel’s protector” in the Senate. That said, it is quite possible that Schumer does believe that Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinians with no end in sight is doing grave damage to the long-term viability of the Jewish state. Many other prominent American Jews and friends of Israel like Tom Friedman of the New York Times, are likewise warning that the Jewish state is acting recklessly, not in its own self-interests. Polls suggest that Israel is the most despised nation in the world due to its torturing, starving and outright killing of Palestinian civilians. Number two in those polls is the United States, which is paying the price of being Netanyahu’s political, financial and weapons supplier, enabling the deaths and making it complicit in the conflict, much of it being done in secret by Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and covered by a series of lies.

The impact of Israeli actions with elections coming up in the US might well have motivated Schumer to speak up now while there is still time to correct course and reduce both the Palestinian death toll and the damage being done to the White House. President Joe Biden almost certainly would have approved of the Schumer speech, but he characteristically did not want to get too far in front on the issue. The trick will be making the Gaza conflict look like it is Netanyahu’s war while also establishing one’s “humanitarian” principles in a way that does not actually blame Israel. It will be difficult and there is no certainty of success, but Schumer and Biden might be smelling electoral defeat in November with the margin of difference being the Gaza war and how the Democratic Party base and independent voters have responded to it.

The White House has powerful allies, interestingly enough, in the Republican Party, which has been transformed into a hardline Israel loving propaganda machine, as well as in the mainstream media, which continues to slant its coverage of Gaza to favor Israel. Indeed, Schumer’s remarks came, not coincidentally, a day after Senate Republicans invited Netanyahu to speak as their special guest at an upcoming party retreat in Washington. Voters who are genuinely antiwar might well vote Democratic as the lesser of two evils, particularly given Donald Trump’s advice to the Israelis to “finish the job” in dealing with the Palestinians. In any event, it is likely that such possibilities are currently swirling through the heads of Biden and Schumer as well as those who are directing the Democratic Party campaign.

And make no mistake that the Administration is currently making sure that those who want to continue the struggle against what is being consistently labeled the international terrorist threat, which justifies ongoing wars, will have something to promote. Top US intelligence officials last Monday at an annual hearing on global security threats held at the Senate Intelligence Committee offices warned that the war in Gaza could embolden terrorist groups, which are aligned in their opposition to the United States for its support of Israel. “The crisis has galvanized violence by a range of actors around the world. And while it is too early to tell, it is likely that the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism,” said Avril Haines, who is of course Jewish, the director of national intelligence. At the meeting Senator Tom Cotton a Republican from Arkansas and a stalwart backer of Israel, prodded CIA Director William Burns and Haines to refute critics’ allegations that Israel is ‘exterminating the Palestinian people’ with its military campaign.” Indeed, Zionist apologists like Cotton aside, no one in the room suggested that putting an end to the Israeli genocide might be the best way to put an end to the proliferating terrorism threat.

And so the beat goes on. How to do everything Israel wants without appearing to do so has plagued every White House since Harry Truman, only it has gotten harder to execute as Israel behavior has worsened and American politicians have become more corrupted and openly dependent on Jewish political contributions. It will be interesting to see if the Schumer speech will actually have some resonance or will only serve to trick the public into believing that the US government has actually regained its independence. Only time will tell but it might become an interesting run politically speaking between now and November.

GLOBETROTTING FOR GENOCIDE: FOREIGN FIGHTERS FROM US, FRANCE AND INDIA ARE FIGHTING ISRAEL’S WAR IN GAZA

MARCH 6TH, 2024

Source

Jessica Buxbaum

Israelis aren’t the only demographic among the IDF’s forces in Gaza. Foreign fighters from as far away as the United States, France, Spain, the Netherlands and even India actively participate in the hostilities. While the exact number of internationals fighting in Gaza isn’t known, what is known is that citizens from numerous countries appear to be at least complicit in what has been called a genocide.

Under Israel’s Law of Return, any individual with at least one Jewish grandparent or spouse can obtain Israeli citizenship. In this regard, many born abroad can serve in Israel’s military while still keeping their birthplace’s nationality. They often emigrate and then serve in the army.

Currently, 45% of the Israeli army’s “lone soldiers,” those who serve but don’t have family in Israel, are new immigrants. The current “lone soldier” program has troops from over 60 countries, with approximately 35% from the U.S. It’s important to note, though, that individuals part of Israel’s “lone soldier” program are not considered mercenaries, who are professionals hired by a country’s government to fight in its war and aren’t citizens of said country.

To widen the recruitment pool, the Israeli military now accepts great-grandchildren of Jews to join. While they aren’t eligible to become Israeli citizens under the Law of Return, they can serve in the Israeli army.

Another route is volunteering in Israel’s Mahal program, which permits Jewish youth from other countries to join the army without becoming citizens. There are currently 500 Mahal volunteers in Israel’s military.

“Most mercenaries fighting for Israel now are welcomed based on their religious affiliations and dual citizenships, making their accountability pretty complex,” Mustafa Fetouri, a Libyan journalist and analyst, told MintPress News. “Many countries whose citizens are fighting for Israel, including the USA, have laws criminalizing such actions, but it is not a straightforward issue when the dual citizenship is factored in.”

Fetouri expanded on this, writing in the Middle East Monitor that “America’s Neutrality Act, dating back to the founding days of the US, mak[es] it illegal for any American citizen to take part in any foreign war, or establish a militia for that purpose.” He noted the legislation, however, hasn’t been reinforced lately “as hundreds of Americans have participated in wars in Ukraine, in Libya in 2011 and, now, in Gaza.”

The Israeli military also openly recruits nationals of other countries. For instance, the Israeli consulate in Toronto has advertised appointments with its military representative for those wishing to join the military.

From November 11-14, the Israeli consulate in Toronto will be recruiting Canadians to serve in Israel’s terrorist military.

It is obscene that @justintrudeau’s government allows this terrorist recruitment to occur on Canadian soil.#Palestine #Israel #terrorism @CanadaFP pic.twitter.com/pOXyrQHLRJ

— Dimitri Lascaris (@dimitrilascaris) November 3, 2019

The consulate’s website said, “Young people who wish to enlist in the IDF or anyone who has not fulfilled their obligations according to the Israeli Defense Service Law are invited to meet with him.”

Organizations like Nefesh B’Nefesh, which encourages Jewish immigration to Israel from North America, have hosted events on joining the Israeli military. Sar-El (National Project for Volunteers for Israel) recruits Jewish and non-Jewish internationals to assist Israeli military efforts on army bases, such as packaging food and medical supplies.

THE NATIONALITIES SERVING

In November, the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, revealed that Spanish mercenary Pedro Diaz Flores is now fighting for Israel, having previously fought in Ukraine with the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade.

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

While pictured next to a border checkpoint with the Gaza Strip, he told the newspaper he’s working in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, saying, “We only provide security support to arms convoys or the troops of the Israeli armed forces that are in the Gaza Strip, we do not fight Hamas directly, nor are we involved in assault operations.”

“We are in charge of the security of the checkpoints and access control on the borders of Gaza and Jordan. There are many PMCs [private military companies] here, and they share the work. Traditionally, they have guarded border terminals between Eilat and Aqaba,” he added.

He told the newspaper he was recruited by Raven and Global CST. Information on Raven isn’t available online. MintPress News reached out to Global CST to verify Flores’ contract. Global CST said it doesn’t know Flores and that “Global CST holds no security or military activities of any type or form, not in Israel, not in Gaza, and not in any other territory worldwide.”

Global CST told MintPress News it’s a renewable energy company and denied reports it’s providing defense and security services to governments and other organizations. On LinkedIn, Global CST is described as offering “strategic consulting and project integration management.” The website listed on Global-CST’s LinkedIn is currently down. When asked for a website, Global CST directed MintPress to Global Group’s website, which promotes agricultural projects worldwide.

The LinkedIn profile of the firm’s founder, Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli general, details Global CST as an “Israeli-based security consultancy group…which has built a vast and unique track record in various continents around the globe, such as South America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.” Global CST confirmed to MintPress News Ziv is its founder. The company, which also operates under the name Global N.T.M., was established in 2006 and remains active.

In 2018, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Global CST and Ziv for allegedly supplying weapons to South Sudan. The U.S. Treasury Department said Ziv used an agricultural company “as a cover for the sale of approximately $150 million worth of weapons to the government, including rifles, grenade launchers and shoulder-fired rockets.”

The U.S. also said Ziv “planned to organize attacks by mercenaries on South Sudanese oil fields and infrastructure in an effort to create a problem that only his company and affiliates could solve.” The U.S. lifted its sanctions on Ziv and his company in 2020 without an explanation.

Since El Mundo’s publication, reports have also emerged of other nationalities involved in a more direct capacity with Israel’s assault on Gaza. Footage has surfaced of Israeli soldiers speaking with American accents or with American flag patches on their uniforms.

A soldier with a Southern US accent has reportedly called for Gaza to burn to the ground. In the video, he compares the people of Gaza to rats and tells Israeli soldiers "It's hunting season".

US officials said that 6 American citizens serving in Israel have died since October 7 pic.twitter.com/7KsV5aTYIK

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) November 22, 2023

Bisan herself said she saw American troops months back.
There were also reports of mercenaries from the Azov battalion in Gaza https://t.co/sEqJvmvfRF

— Najat Abdi (@theafroaussie) March 1, 2024

According to the U.S. State Department, 21 American citizens who were members of the Israeli military have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Canadian media has reported its own nationals are volunteering with the Israeli army and are motivated to serve in Gaza. And British newspaper, The Guardian, reported British nationals have been killed in Gaza while fighting for Israel. Britons are also arriving in droves to volunteer with the military like doctors and university chaplains. Around 100 British citizens are currently part of Israel’s military.

In December, Al Jazeera reported seven Ukrainian mercenaries were reportedly killed near Gaza City while fighting alongside Israeli forces. This news came as images of Israeli soldiers speaking Ukrainian circulated on social media. The Ukrainian government denies its citizens are fighting in Gaza, however.

Bisan herself said she saw American troops months back.
There were also reports of mercenaries from the Azov battalion in Gaza https://t.co/sEqJvmvfRF

— Najat Abdi (@theafroaussie) March 1, 2024

“We did not send any soldiers to the Gaza Strip or any other region of the world,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

“The footage that shows people speaking Ukrainian in the Gaza Strip may be Israelis of Ukrainian or Slavic origins who have no connection to the state,” the spokesperson added.

According to Australian journalist CJ Werleman, Israeli soldiers of Indian origin are also fighting in Gaza. The Indian Foreign Ministry did not respond to inquiries on whether its citizens are fighting in Gaza.

The involvement of Hindu mercenaries in Gaza's genocide echoes Israel's racist policies in Kashmir. The world must stand against this injustice.@BBC @CNN @SkyNews @MSNBC @nyTimes @washingtonpost @latimes @guardian @IntlCrimCourt @CIJ_ICJ @UNHumanRights @hrw https://t.co/jlAxikrOfN

— Abdulrhman A.Fathy 🇵🇸| 🔻عبدالرحمن أ.فتحي (@Abdulrhman_25J) February 28, 2024

In December, Eekad, an Arabic open-source platform, revealed Forward Observations Group as an American mercenary company fighting alongside Israeli forces in Gaza.

📍Delving into Vadim's background revealed his leadership role in the Azov Battalion, which was established in Ukraine in 2014 to combat pro-Russian forces in the Donbas region.

📍Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the battalion actively engaged in warfare against the… pic.twitter.com/wYfWZR6qbr

— EekadFacts | إيكاد (@EekadFacts) February 1, 2024

Close examination of Forward Observation Group’s Instagram account suggests the group has been cooperating with the Israeli army since October — first stationed around the Gaza border and then located within the enclave by the end of November. The last image on its account from Gaza is dated January 16. Another post dated January 11 depicts camera footage of Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza. It is captioned, “Helmet cam footage from a LOTAR Special Forces team leader we embedded with shortly after the OCT 7th attack.” A recent Instagram Story from Forward Observations shows a soldier in a hospital bed draped with Forward Observation’s flag. An Israeli flag hangs on the wall next to him.

📍Fast forward to November 26, 2023, when the FOG account shared yet another image of a fully geared-up fighter accompanied by a caption disclosing that the photo was captured within the confines of the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/0HDLaSKLmW

— EekadFacts | إيكاد (@EekadFacts) February 1, 2024

Eekad discovered the company was founded in October 2018, and while billing itself as a military gear shop, it currently only has one item in stock — a first aid bag. Forward Observations was registered as a foreign limited liability company in Nevada on October 15, 2020, and remains active. Derrick Bales, a former U.S. infantry soldier who fought in Afghanistan, founded the company. A Forward Observations’ Instagram post on November 9, 2023, confirmed Bales as the company’s former director and revealed his official Instagram is under the name “Raoul Duke.” In February, Bales responded to Eekad’s investigation with a photo from Gaza on his Instagram account, writing, “@eekadfacts here’s some more pictures for your article.”

📍Considering that FOG is an American entity, serious legal concerns emerged regarding its operations, particularly due to its employment of individuals who openly endorse extremist ideologies, ideologies that are expressly prohibited in the United States. pic.twitter.com/tJjQ7pLIGx

— EekadFacts | إيكاد (@EekadFacts) February 1, 2024

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

Yet Eekad found otherwise. For instance, Eakad’s thorough scrutiny of Lapaev’s social media accounts found photos of Lapaev giving a Nazi salute, holding a sign featuring a swastika, and wearing a necklace with the infamous Nazi symbol as well.

📍Eekad's team scrutinized Vadim's Facebook and Instagram accounts, revealing elements and symbols associated with extremist Nazi ideologies.

— EekadFacts | إيكاد (@EekadFacts) February 1, 2024

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

COMPLICIT IN WAR CRIMES

Amid the revelations that citizens of other countries may be participating in Israel’s genocide on Gaza, some governments and activists are taking a stand.

In December, South Africa announced it might prosecute or even strip the citizenship of South African nationals who have joined the Israeli army and are fighting in Gaza.

“The South African government is gravely concerned by reports that some South African citizens and permanent residents have joined or are considering joining the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the war in Gaza and the other occupied Palestinian territories,” the state’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said.

Also, in December, French parliamentary member Thomas Portes sent a letter to France’s Justice Minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, requesting he investigate around 4,000 French citizens fighting with Israeli forces on the frontlines in Gaza.

The March 30 Movement, a European pro-Palestine group founded in November, has already filed seven complaints against Dutch Israelis currently serving in the Israeli army in Gaza. They have also filed complaints against Israeli soldiers who traveled to the Netherlands to protest the International Court of Justice proceedings and a French-Israeli soldier, who was also in the Netherlands. While these soldiers don’t have Dutch nationality, they can be investigated because they were on Dutch soil, the March 30 Movement told MintPress News. The group is also submitting a case in Belgium and other cases against French nationals.

“They’ve posted themselves on Instagram or on TikTok, standing on the rubbles of a house in Gaza saying, ‘We want to wipe out Amalek from under the sky, and we will kill them all,’” Dyab Abou Jahjah, president of the March 30 Movement told MintPress News. Amalek refers to Israelites’ rival in the Hebrew bible and was invoked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when calling to attack Gaza.

Abou Jahjah added, “They think they are beyond the reach of justice. Maybe if they are only Israeli, but if they are Belgian, we are going to make sure that we take them to court.”

THE THREAT OF ALL OUT WAR: YEMEN NEARS THE TIPPING POINT AS US AIRSTRIKES INTENSIFY

FEBRUARY 16TH, 2024

Source

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

Ahmed AbdulKareem

In the courtyard of Yemen’s famous Al Shaeb Mosque, guards of honor stood at attention accompanied by the melody of military music as the funeral ceremony of Yemeni marines killed in the latest round of U.S. and UK strikes commenced. The mourners, many of whom traveled from the countryside to attend, walked alongside a long convoy carrying the bodies of 17 victims as it made its way through the streets of Sana’a. Mourners held aloft photos of the deceased or thrust their rifles into the air while chanting slogans condemning the United States. Several banners peppered the crowd, emblazoned with the label given to those who gave their lives in what many view as a struggle in defense of Palestine: “Martyrs on the road to al-Quds (Jerusalem).”

Seventeen pickup trucks ensconced in green drapes bore the bodies. They were escorted by family members alongside thousands of mourners leaving Sana’a for the hometowns of the victims who hailed from various regions of Yemen. The scene unfolded last Sunday when thousands of angry Yemenis took to the streets of Sana’a and other cities to hold a funeral for those killed by the attacks. “Retribution against American soldiers… We will not abandon our revenge,” some mourners proclaimed.

In Bani Matar, 70 kilometers west of Sanaa towards the Hodeida Road, the mothers of Ziad Ajlan and Hashem Al-Sawari watched the convoy from a rooftop as it carried along the bodies of their sons. Ziad and Hashem were not involved in the fighting; they were among a number of civilians killed in attacks launched by the U.S. Navy on the Yemeni mainland one week ago. My son was martyred on the road to al-Quds,” Ziad’s mother said proudly. “We will not be broken, and we will not abandon Gaza.”

U.S. and British officials maintain that their attacks target “Houthi” military positions – ammunition stores and missile launch sites, but the reality of the ground tells a different story. Yemeni civilians say they are blind and indiscriminate and often leave civilians maimed or killed. Assuming the U.S. and UK are acting in good faith, it is clear that their intelligence information is lacking. A truck belonging to a farmer carrying plastic pipes was targeted in an airstrike outside the city of Saada last week. It is believed that the pipes were mistaken for missiles.

This story has repeated itself ad nauseam throughout Yemen since the end of December when the multinational “Operation Prosperity Guardian” (OIR) was launched in a thus-far failed attempt to protect ships linked with Israel from Ansar Allah. This week alone, as many as 40 strikes were launched by the U.S. and the UK, most targeting the coastal city of Hodeida.

Coffins of Asnar Allah fighters killed in the U.S.-led strikes on Yemen are transported during a mass funeral in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 10, 2024. Osamah Abdulrahman | AP

THE FOG OF WAR

The danger of Washington’s attacks on Yemen’s mainland lies not only in exposing civilians to danger but has the potential to spark retaliatory measures taken by Ansar Allah should pressure from the public and family members of victims continue to mount.

On December 29, when U.S. forces killed 10 Yemeni sailors aboard three ships in the Red Sea, Ansar Allah refrained from retaliating. But when American and British bombs peppered mainland Yemen the next month, striking major cities with over 100 precision-guided missiles, leaving civilians dead and maimed, Ansar Allah reacted, carrying out a barrage of retaliatory attacks.

Some Yemeni officials have even hinted that two U.S. Navy Seals that the U.S. government claims drowned while boarding a boat smuggling weapons into Yemen were actually killed in combat. It is not known whether the soldiers were killed in attacks by Ansar Allah ballistic missiles or drones or during a failed commando operation as the U.S. claims, but what is clear is that the U.S. is covering its losses and information about the deaths of the Seals has been highly politicized.

In fact, many of the details surrounding hostilities between the U.S. and Ansar Allah have been cast in a heavy fog of war, and it will likely be years before the truth is revealed. What is certain is that Ansar Allah has caused direct material damage to U.S. military vessels, targeting numerous times with advanced missiles and drones launched. In the wake of every such attack, a statement was issued, reaffirming Ansar Allah’s right to take revenge for those killed in American and British bombing raids.

On January 31, the Ansar Allah announced that the American destroyer, the USS Gravely, was hit by several anti-ship missiles. In the wake of the attack, US Central Command (CENTCOM)  announced that the Gravely had shot down an advanced anti-ship cruise missile. Later, reports emerged that the destroyer in question and other Western military assets in the area had failed to intercept the missile until it got within “4 seconds from hitting the U.S. warship.”

On January 25, Ansar Allah said that it had clashed with American destroyers in the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab for two hours. One U.S. Navy vessel was directly hit after a failed interception attempt, according to Ansar Allah, who have been improving their capabilities since 2014, after a failed Saudi-led and U.S.-backed bombing campaign left the country in tatters.

This undated photograph released by CENTCOM shows the vessel that was being boarded by US Navy Seals near Yemen in a raid that saw two commandos go missing

MANUFACTURING CONSENT

Although President Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed that the United States does not seek to expand the war in the Middle East, the actions of the US military are undoubtedly making the situation in the Red Sea more tense. In the wake of American airstrikes targeting Hodeida on Thursday – for the ninth time that day alone, Ansar Allah Armed Forces spokesperson Brigadier Yahya Saree revealed that the group would take “further measures” within its legitimate right to self-defense in response to the repeated U.S.-UK aggression. In the same statement, Saree announced that the Barbados-flagged British Bulk Carrier ship, the LYCAVITOS, was targeted by naval missiles while sailing in the Gulf of Aden, raising questions about the actual deterrence factor of America’s escalatory approach.

Prior to that, the leader of Ansar Allah, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the revolution that the U.S.-backed Yemeni government in 2014, confirmed that any escalation on Ansar Allah’s part would be against Israel and to confront American and British aggression and would not target the interests of ordinary Westerners. The comment came in response to claims circulated in the media that Ansar Allah could sabotage a network of underwater internet cables that run through the Red Sea. “We do not plan to target submarine cables, and we have no intention of doing so, and what is reported in the media is a lie aimed at distorting our humanitarian position on the war on Gaza,” he said. Many Western media outlets promoted the claim, raising fears over the safety of infrastructure critical to the functioning of the Western Internet and the transmission of financial data. Yemen is strategically located, as internet lines connecting entire continents pass near it.

Airstrikes and claims that internet access may be cut off may be the tip of the escalatory iceberg, according to the government of Sana’a. The Minister of Information, Daifallah al-Shami, held a press conference on Thursday announcing that they have information that the UAE is seeking to recruit agents from multiple foreign nationalities in cooperation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS to target ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea in order to confuse and distort operations carried out by Ansar Allah in support of Gaza. According to al-Shami, the move is supported by the U.S.

“WE WILL NOT ABANDON GAZA”

Contrary to what is being promoted in much of the Western media, which has taken the line that Ansar Allah’s Red Sea blockade has nothing to do with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a review of the targets of Ansar Allah’s attacks makes their motivations clear. On October 19, Ansar Allah fired drones and missiles at Israel’s southern Eliat Port. In mid-November, the naval forces seized an Israeli ship headed towards occupied Palestine. Shortly after, Ansar Allah publically announced that the Israeli-linked ship would not be allowed to pass through the Baba al-Mandab Strait. Later, they announced that the ban on shipping would extend to all vessels attempting to reach Eliat Port. All of these measures were in support of a single, repeatedly declared goal, which was to pressure Israel to stop its war on Gaza and allow food and water to enter the besieged strip.

With visible sadness and anger, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi enumerated in a televised speech on Tuesday the reasons that motivate Yemen to continue operations to prevent international navigation supporting Israel in the Red Sea – the continued mass killing of the Gazans, renewed American support for Israel, including with lethal weapons and the use of internationally banned weapons against civilians in Gaza, including white phosphorus.

Al-Houthi said that “the Yemeni military’s retaliatory strikes in the Red Sea had proven to be effective as it led to the almost complete closure of the port of Umm al-Rashrash (the name of Eliat before Israel annexed it), and all food supply chains to Israel that were passing through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab stopped by 70%, and prices in the Israeli market rose by 30-50% after ships were forced to divert course through the Cape of Good Hope.” Israel, he noted, was one of the largest beneficiaries of maritime trade, with imports in 2022 reaching to $133 billion “thanks to the Red Sea.”

Responding to those who question the feasibility of Ansar Allah’s position, Al-Houthi said that “Yemeni operations have caused repercussions for ship insurance,” noting that insurers are now refusing to insure ships heading towards the ports of occupied Palestine. “Not only that,” he added, “but insurance companies require Israeli and American ships to pay additional amounts of up to 50%.”

“Our operations at sea led to a decline in Israel’s total imports of products by 25% during the past months,” Al-Houthi said, “The Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry admitted that the Red Sea operations harmed its trade relations with 14 countries.”

Amid threats of escalation and even whispers of a Western-led ground invasion of Yemen, Ansar Allah has reiterated its commitment to its mission. Mobilization, military training, demonstrations, and other activities will be continued as long as the aggression against Gaza continues, it has reaffirmed, saying that operations at sea will continue until Israel “allows food and medical supplies and the delivery of basic needs into Gaza.” “The U.S. and UK will not achieve their goals through aggression against our country, and the only solution is to stop the aggression and deliver food and medicine to the people of Gaza,” Al-Houthi vowed.

HOW ARAB STATES ARE HELPING ISRAEL COMMIT GENOCIDE

FEBRUARY 16TH, 2024

Source

Mnar Adley

Palestine’s Arab neighbors seem to have taken a bold stance on Israel’s genocide of Gaza in a public show of solidarity with Palestinians. But behind those strong words, states like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are quietly assisting Israel.

These four nations are working together to circumvent the actions of one of the few regional actors who are challenging Israel concretely: Yemen’s Ansar Allah. In a bid to alleviate pressure on Israel from the Ansar Allah (a.k.a the Houthi) blockade of the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan have established land corridors, ensuring cargo destined for the apartheid state arrives safely in Israeli hands.

According to Hebrew Channel 13, Israeli-linked cargo ships arrive in the UAE to unload goods. Trucks then transport these goods through UAE and Saudi highways to Jordan. They eventually reach Israel via the Jordan River Crossing.

German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd announced that it was working with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to create a land route “bypassing the Houthis,” which connects ports in the UAE and the Saudi port of Jeddah facilitating cargo movement to Israel through the Suez Canal.

Egypt has also joined the effort, operating container ships from its ports to the Israeli port of Ashdod, further supporting the land bridge initiative and assuring Israeli commerce is not interrupted amid its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

But that is just the start of their complicity.

Take Turkey, for example. Around 40% of Israel’s energy needs are met by an oil pipeline running through Turkey. President Erdoğan could simply shut the flow of oil off to Israel, which would shut down the economy and the military assault in days. But he continues not to do so, despite offering strong condemnation of Israel in words. 

Morocco, meanwhile, is building a military intelligence base for Israel near its border with Algeria. The site will be utilized for collaboration for military training, intelligence and security.

Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems also recently announced the establishment of two weapons factories in Morocco, helping to diversify Israel’s weapons production capabilities, as activists in other countries shut the factories down.

In 2021, Morocco also signed the Abraham Accords – a normalization treaty with Israel that Bahrain and the UAE had already agreed to. The Emirates has long been a hub for Israeli intelligence, and it is now well established that the two nations aid each other on intelligence matters.

Moreover, last year, Edge Group, a UAE state-owned corporation, invested $14 million in Israeli drone manufacturer Highlander Aviation. So the Israeli police employ their airspace management system, which was tested by the Israeli Air Force.

The relationship between the UAE and Israel has grown now that Elbit Systems established an entire subsidiary organization – Elbit Systems Emirates – in order to establish what it called “long term cooperation” with the UAE military.

Meanwhile, despite its rhetoric, Saudi Arabia has been quietly collaborating with Israel for some time. The Saudi-backed group Affinity Partners owns a stake in the Israeli company Shlomo Group.

During the conflict in Gaza, the Shlomo Group contributed trucks and military equipment to the Israeli military’s Shaldag and Maglan units, as well as food packages to the IDF.

Saudi Arabia is well-known to be one of the Israeli intelligence industry’s best customers. Saudi security forces have used Israeli tech provided by NSO Group and Cellebrite to spy on people and hack their phones, including for the infamous murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

These states could do so much besides empty rhetoric to help the people of Palestine and blunt the Israeli attack on Gaza, including arms embargoes, sanctions on trade and travel, and halting the military and intelligence collaborations.

The people of the Arab world are dead against the genocide in Gaza and collaborating in it. They have come out in mass across their countries protesting Israel’s war and have even vowed to march through their borders to Gaza to defend their Palestinian brethren.

But it is clear, for these leaders – their actions speak louder than their words.

Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at mnar@mintpressnews.com or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh

SACHA BARON COHEN’S BORAT PAVED THE WAY FOR ISRAEL’S SLAUGHTER IN GAZA

JANUARY 30TH, 2024

Source

Kit Klarenburg

In the wake of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) landmark ruling in a case brought by South Africa against Israel, which found the Jewish state could be committing genocide in Gaza and must immediately cease its indiscriminate, industrial-scale slaughter of unarmed, innocent Palestinians of all ages, many Western journalists, politicians, pundits and influencers have changed their tune on the savagery. Or at least gone eerily silent, having previously whitewashed, legitimized, or even outright endorsed a twenty-first-century Holocaust.

This abrupt volte-face cannot be attributed to any moral qualms about Zionist actions since October 7. A far more likely explanation is that, given numerous statements of Israeli officials that the ICJ has found to indicate genocidal intent, they are worried their past advocacy and amplification of as yet unindicted war criminals could, in the future, be in itself legally actionable. Yet, some Zionist propagandists and apologists have not been deterred by the ruling’s ramifications.

Among the most vocal figures continuing to celebrate and encourage the Gaza genocide is Lee Kern, a self-described comedian who served as the lead writer for numerous high-profile cinema and TV projects led by Sacha Baron Cohen, including the sequel to “Borat,” and “Who Is America?” On a daily basis, since the Israeli Occupation Force carnage erupted, he has posted disgustingly Islamophobic statements while cheering and justifying Zionist bloodshed.

An Instagram post by Lee Kern, lead writer for multiple Sacha Baron Cohen films during his “Israel we F*cking Love You,” tour

At the end of 2023, Kern also visited Tel Aviv to co-host an event, “Israel we F*cking Love You,” alongside Michael Rapaport, a failed actor and convicted harasser turned wannabe culture warrior. The Zionist entity has attracted numerous Z-list celebrities to its stolen land in recent months, including unrepentant pedophile Jerry Seinfeld, in a lame attempt to boost its PR. Given Cohen’s ardent Zionism, it is rather conspicuous he has not made the journey.

Nonetheless, Cohen has been playing an active role behind the scenes in the genocide. In November 2023, he was among several high-profile figures who lobbied TikTok in private to block content and comments critical of Israel. He had good reason to believe this intervention would be decisive. In September 2020, he suspended his Instagram account to protest purported “hate speech” on the platform and Facebook. The Anti-Defamation League-sponsored action prompted over 1,000 businesses to suspend their Facebook ads for a month.

Cohen has, in recent years, significantly upped the ante of his public Zionist activism under the aegis of fighting anti-Semitism. He has claimed his “comedy” output, often coordinated with the CIA and Pentagon, is concerned with the same objective. This work almost universally features racist, crude stereotypes of Muslims, whom he portrays wearing makeup and wigs reminiscent of blackface. One might reasonably ask whether his true purpose all along has been to dehumanize Muslims everywhere in order to justify Israel’s genocide.

‘KAZAKH CENSORS’

Perhaps the most well-known – or infamous – segment of Cohen’s 2006 smash hit movie Borat is a scene very early on, in which he and a vast crowd spectate “the running of the Jew,” a purported annual Kazakhstan tradition. Easily the movie’s most impactful and memorable visual setpiece, standalone clips have garnered millions of views online since 2006. A virtually unique example of the film not featuring an “undercover” stunt, who were Cohen’s ultimate intended victims and audience here?

Giant, grotesque constructions of a Jewish man and woman replete with green skin, claws, devil horns, and pronounced hooked noses race down a dirt track after Kazakhs waving wads of money. When the female “Jew” stops mid-chase to spawn a gigantic “Jew egg,” Borat cheers on a gaggle of children who abruptly arrive to “crush that Jew chick before it hatches!” This scene is central to the film’s plot – if one can even refer to it as such.

A scene from “Borat” portrays a Muslim caricature cheering on a crowd at a fictional “A Running of the Jew” festival

Innate Kazakh anti-Semitism is the very inspiration for Borat’s “cultural learnings” tour around the U.S. As he explains immediately after the scene, his country faces three major problems – “social, economic, and Jew.” Throughout the movie, Borat invokes numerous hideous anti-Semitic tropes – Jews are greedy, secretly control international finance, governments and the media, and were responsible for 9/11. At one point, he even sings a supposedly popular Kazakh folk song titled “Throw the Jew down the Well.”

In all of Cohen’s in-character public appearances at the time, Borat made his visceral loathing of Jews abundantly clear. In November 2006, he was a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” an interview subsequently included on the film’s DVD edition. When asked by the host whether he thought his film was homophobic and anti-Semitic, Borat gleefully replied, “Thank you very much!” Meanwhile, at an advance screening of the movie in Manhattan, he declared to the assembled press and paparazzi:

At first, Kazakh censors wouldn’t let me release this movie because of anti-Semitism. But then they decided that there was just enough.”

The Amazon-produced “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” in 2020 dialed up the main character’s rabid anti-Semitism even further. In one scene, he attends a synagogue dressed in anti-Semitic clothing, including a giant fake nose, and announces he saw a Facebook post claiming the Holocaust never happened. Judith Dim Evans, a Holocaust survivor present, greets him warmly, invites him to touch her own “Jewish nose,” and then proceeds to politely educate him about the realities of Nazi genocide while highlighting her personal history.

Understandably, many viewers effusively praised Evans’ dignity and grace. Cohen has claimed that before filming the scene, he broke character in private with her to explain he was himself Jewish, and his objective was to highlight anti-Semitic attitudes and the correct way of challenging them – supposedly the very first time one of his “victims” had been in on the gag all along. Evans herself was unable to confirm this version of events, as she sadly passed away before the film’s release.

Her daughter begged to differ, however, and filed a lawsuit against Amazon, seeking an injunction to remove the scene from the film. She contended her mother was duped into appearing in the movie and pointed to a release form allegedly signed by Evans featuring a “scribbled line” that did not match her actual signature. Amazon’s lawyers successfully argued this was a simple accident and that her signing of the document had been independently witnessed.

‘VIBRANT JEWISH COMMUNITY’

Whatever the truth of the matter, clearly, Cohen is extremely keen for his creation to be perceived by the everyday people he meets and global film audiences alike as a raging anti-Semite. This has prompted some observers to question whether, in attempting to highlight and challenge anti-Semitism, Borat might, in fact, inadvertently reinforce anti-Semitic public attitudes. A far more prescient question is whether Borat consciously legitimizes Islamophobic perspectives globally in service of the Zionist cause.

The release of the first “Borat” movie sparked public and state-level outrage in Kazakhstan for its portrayal of the country and its people. Ironically enough, a common grievance was the character’s anti-Semitism – for Kazakh Jews have a long and rich history, and Almaty has no record of religious strife or discrimination towards Jews whatsoever. During World War II, Joseph Stalin created a haven for Jews there, evacuating thousands from other parts of the Soviet Union to prevent their slaughter by the Nazis.

While Kazakhstan’s Jewish population was much reduced by emigration following the Soviet Union’s collapse, thousands still live in peace and harmony there today. A Hasidic synagogue in Almaty, named after widely respected Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, buried at a nearby cemetery, attracts Jewish visitors from all over the world, who come to pray at his grave. Anti-Semitic incidents of any kind are vanishingly rare; the country is home to over a dozen Jewish schools, and the government electively provides land and buildings for creating new synagogues.

As a National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry factsheet notes, “Kazakhstan has long embraced its Jewish community.” During “Borat’s” year of release alone, a new synagogue big enough to accommodate the capital’s entire Jewish population – and also Central Asia’s largest – was opened, Almaty’s first-ever Association for Hebrew Speakers formed, and the Kazakh government issued a postage stamp featuring a historic local synagogue. The factsheet went on to record:

In the wake of the widely released and successful 2006 comedy film Borat, which portrays Kazakhstan as a hot-bed of anti-Semitism, Kazakh officials are expanding outreach efforts to explain to the world that Kazakhs are in fact very tolerant of Jews.

As part of these “outreach efforts,” prior to the release of “Borat,” the government of Kazakhstan took out full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers such as The New York Times, and placed commercials on CNN and other mainstream news channels, at some expense. They sought to challenge and debunk the movie’s misrepresentations of Kazakhs, and Borat’s anti-Semitism loomed large. As a spokesperson for Almaty’s Washington D.C. embassy said at the time:

[Borat] claims the Kazakhs are very anti-Semitic people and running of the Jews is the famous pastime. That is, of course, ridiculous. Kazakhstan has a very vibrant Jewish community.”

AN ‘ALREADY ISLAMOPHOBIC CLIMATE’

The lack of wider pushback against Borat from the world’s Islamic community almost two decades ago surely reflects how the film was released at a time when Islamophobia was rife in the West due to the then-ongoing War on Terror. Systematic, institutionalized discrimination against and demonization of Muslims was unashamedly and openly normalized, advocated, and practiced by European and North American governments under the aegis of battling “extremism.” Muslim civil society voices were thus very effectively silenced in the mainstream.

Fast forward to the sequel’s release, and Cohen’s victims were finally positioned to fight back. In November 2020, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Kazakh American Association fired off strongly worded letters to the Directors Guild of America, Oscars, Golden Globes, and British Academy of Film and Television Arts, demanding they bar Cohen, his movie and its cast and crew, from consideration for awards that year.

Sacha Baron Cohen dressed as a Gaddafi-esque caricature in the film, “The Dictator”

Commenting, Kazakh-American film professional and Hollywood Film Academy CEO Gia Noortas said:

“The Kazakh community worldwide is underrepresented and inherently vulnerable. Sacha Baron Cohen understands this fact and exploits the Kazakh people by hijacking our ethnic identity, whitewashing us, and inciting harassment toward us. Considering today’s socially aware political climate and the new diversity policies adopted by film associations worldwide, it is unbelievable that a film which openly berates, bullies, and traumatizes a nation of people of color is still an acceptable form of entertainment.“

As a fiery contemporary op-ed in The New Arab noted via “Borat,” “Cohen racially abuses, culturally appropriates, and mocks the Kazakh culture, traditions, and people for the purpose of crude laughter and monetary gain” – actions “not only offensive,” but directly harmful, as “Kazakhs know from personal experience.” It went on to record how since the release of the first movie:

“Many Kazakhs have experienced psychological turmoil and ethnic-based humiliation. Many Kazakhs have had to explain to others that Cohen’s portrayal of Kazakhstan and its people as bigoted and backwards is a vile misrepresentation. Many Kazakh children have been bullied at school, and Kazakh women have been exposed to distasteful sexual jokes or harassment.“

Again, we are left to ponder if Cohen explicitly intended these dire consequences. A 2016 academic paper published by Brunel University explored how audiences perceived the portrayal of Muslims across his oeuvre based on an extensive focus group study. Overwhelmingly, respondents expressed dismay at the content and volunteered their view that the assorted movies and TV shows Cohen produced throughout his three-decade-long career are, universally, intensely Islamophobic.

For example, one respondent asked to comment on the “Running of the Jew” clip, said it “enforces this opinion that Muslims are anti-Semites.” The study noted that “The Dictator” was “replete with signifiers that are stereotypic of Islam and Muslims – from the name ‘Aladeen,’ his long beard, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism,” and “the film also displays minarets and thus typical Islamic architecture.” Another respondent observed:

“If you look at all his movies, he does portray himself as a Muslim. So, I think there is an element of Islamophobia. The Dictator, Ali G, these are all Muslims and so he’s portraying them in a bad light, in an already Islamophobic climate.”

AN UNSAFE SPACE

Such adverse reactions are striking, for they would be music to the proverbial ears of Israel and the international Zionist lobby’s countless assorted components. Perpetuating the narrative that all Muslims worldwide are possessed of virulent anti-Jewish hatred has been a core Zionist propaganda objective since before Israel’s 1948 founding.

The purpose is to frame Palestinian opposition to Zionist oppression, and anyone Muslim or otherwise united in solidarity with them, as motivated by surging anti-Semitism rather than reasonable and legitimate condemnation of oppression, brutality, and mass slaughter in service of a fundamentally colonialist, genocidal, and deeply anti-Semitic endeavor. Accordingly, Israel has, ever since its founding, actively sought to create a hostile environment for Jews elsewhere in order to cynically cement itself as the world’s exclusive safe space for Jews.

Following Israel’s creation, a Mephistophelian feat achieved by murderous conquest, land theft, and the clandestine use of chemical and biological weapons, Zionists engaged in wide-ranging efforts to compel Jews elsewhere to migrate to Tel Aviv. This effort included covertly bombing synagogues throughout West Asia, encouraging anti-Semitism the world over through a variety of means, and infiltrating and funding Amnesty International to amplify and exaggerate anti-Semitism in Muslim lands from the 1970s onwards while concealing its criminal erasure of Palestine and its indigenous people.

The necessity of such actions from Israel’s perspective couldn’t be clearer. It is barely known today that a majority of world Jewish opinion actively opposed Israel’s creation. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, which pledged London’s commitment to creating a “national home for the Jewish people” and is widely considered the Zionist state’s foundational document, was vigorously condemned by Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in a senior British government position at the time:

“The policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic in result and will prove a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country of the world.”

Montagu’s concerns were well-founded. Zionists, professing to be inspired by ubiquitous Western anti-Semitism, were and remain committed to building an ethnonationalist homeland for Jews in the Arab and Muslim world – the one place on Earth where Jews have always been safest. It is widely unknown that the only European country, bar Britain, to boast a bigger Jewish population following World War II than before was Muslim-majority Albania. It provided a sanctuary for Jews fleeing the Holocaust elsewhere in Europe.

Many Albanians are considered “Righteous Among Nations” for risking their lives to protect Jews during the genocidal Axis occupation of the Balkans, 1941 – 1944. A great many Jews had for centuries resided in the region by that point, having been invited to relocate there under Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II’s personal protection following the fall of Al Andalus to Christian crusaders in 1492. They flourished, free from the routine pogroms, discrimination, and punitive taxes inflicted upon them everywhere else in Europe.

Since the Gaza genocide began, shocking scenes reminiscent of 1930s Germany, in which Israeli security forces storm areas of Jerusalem, physically attacking Hasidic Jews and tearing down Palestine flags, have spread like wildfire on social media. Meanwhile, Jews can consistently be found in profusion at every major anti-Israel protest in Europe and North America, very vocally denouncing not only Tel Aviv’s relentless atrocities but the entire “Godless and merciless” ideology of Zionism.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s canon should be viewed as a modern-day manifestation of the perpetual Zionist drive to distort and conceal reality and turn Jews and Muslims, natural and historic comrades, against one another. Now that he and close collaborator Lee Kern have so amply exposed their guiding mission quite so publicly, a liberal media apparatus that enthusiastically promoted them and their repulsively racist, genocidal output must not be forgiven or trusted ever again.

Biden’s America Surrenders to War Criminal Netanyahu

DECEMBER 28, 2023

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Vital US interests are sacrificed to avoid offending Israel and its Lobby

Philip Giraldi

I don’t have anyone whom I would consider a friend who supports the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza. But my occasional interaction with the psychopaths who infest the US government and media and who are intimately connected by virtue of their political instincts as well as their personal interests in campaign donations and/or elevated salaries derived from Israel and its powerful lobby have plenty of sound bites to throw out to demonstrate their love of the Jewish state in all its manifestations. They mouth the Pelosi-Schumer-Biden assertion that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and that Israel is “America’s closest ally” and “best friend,” all of which can readily be exposed as a series of self-serving lies and deliberate misinterpretations of international law. Beyond that, they inevitably cite their view that critics of Israel are fully responsible for what they choose to refer to as the ultimate evil of “surging anti-semitism.” In so doing they conveniently ignore the obvious fact that anger towards Jews collectively speaking is nearly always derived from the crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist political entity that now legally defines itself as Jewish.

I sometimes ask the friends of Israel what interest the United States has that would warrant our country becoming complicit in committing war crimes that, collectively speaking, amount to precursors for the complete expulsion or killing of millions of Palestinians from what remains of their homes. They try to weasel word their way avoiding the implications of that question by observing that the United States is not directly engaged in the conflict, an evasion that I belittle by pointing out that Washington is providing funding, arming and political cover for the more powerful and lethal party engaged in the conflict while also blocking attempts to bring about a ceasefire to comply with orders from that same party, which sure looks like direct involvement to me. I also point out that Israel is working hard to get the US military engaged against Hezbollah in Lebanon and also against Iran and is likely to be able to maneuver the stoneheads in and around the White House to do its bidding vis-à-vis both objectives.

So the big question has to be “Why does the United States engage in a conflict that inter alia has utterly ruined our country’s reputation worldwide and for which there is no real compelling national interest?” The answer is, of course unpalatable to many, but has to be that the US government is in many respects and vis-à-vis some of its designated national policies completely under the control of Israel and its powerful domestic as well as international lobby. This habitual bowing to force majeure has warped the thinking of the ambitious scallywags who seem to be present wherever one turns in places like Washington. How else does one explain the infamous and quite frankly ridiculous comment delivered at the 2018 Israeli American Council meeting by leading politician Nancy Pelosi, who said that “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid…and I don’t even call it aid…our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”

The delusional Pelosi, who appears to have no “fundamental” attachment to the interests of the American people whom she represents, is unfortunately not unique in the halls of Congress, even less so in the Joe Biden White House, which might be regarded as the illustration of what happens when you appoint Zionists to nearly all key positions running your foreign, economic and national security policies. The degree of direct Zionist/Israeli control over the hapless Biden can best be illustrated by reviewing the course of the recent redrafting of a UN Security Council resolution authored by the United Arab Emirates that sought to bring about a suspension of the fighting and the urgent resumption of humanitarian supplies for Gaza. The US forced the revisions after coordination with Israel to permit the Israelis to continue to attack civilian targets and avoid entering into anything like a ceasefire, changing the word “suspension” in the original draft to the less demanding creation of “conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” Language authorizing the lead UN role in monitoring and delivering the assistance to the Gazans was also expunged leaving to belligerent Israel the task of completely controlling the distribution of any supplies allowed entry into the areas inside Gaza, which it is also simultaneously continuing to bomb, thereby slowing the stream of urgently needed supplies to a trickle while also killing hundreds more civilians.

To be sure, it was the United States blindly supporting Israel that rendered what was a promising proposal to put an end to the multiplying civilian deaths toothless. Israel demonstrated just how high it regarded Joe Biden when it contradicted what the president said about the US being able to moderate some Israeli offensive action in Gaza. Netanyahu denied that, saying that he and his war cabinet were continuing to make all relevant decisions based on Israel’s own interests. Israel Defense Force (IDF) Chief of the General Staff General Herzi Halevi followed on with his own assessment that finishing the job in Gaza, i.e. totally destroying Hamas by whatever means it requires, will take “many more months.” The Israeli military has indeed visibly increased its efforts by opening up new “battle zones” inside Gaza, to include directly targeting the crowded and starving refugee camps outside the cities. The civilians are paying the price while a grinning Joe Biden is spending his New Year’s holiday in the American Virgin Islands.

Allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a known liar and habitual war criminal to tell the US government what to do is about as low as it gets, Mr. Biden! You should not only be ashamed, but more than that, humiliated, compelled to do ghastly things in support of your own fear of possible Jewish/Israeli reaction if you do not bow down before King Netanyahu. He and the band of inhuman monsters he has assembled in his cabinet have made no secret of their intention to remove the Palestinians from Palestine, either by forced emigration or by killing them if necessary. On Christmas Day, Prime Minister Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud bloc “that he was still working on the ‘voluntary’ immigration of Gaza’s inhabitants to other countries.” His associates Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have made it clear that the ethnic cleansing process will proceed even if it is not in any way voluntary. As Israel is the occupying power in the former Palestine, what is taking place is, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention and the UN Charter, a crime against humanity and the United States is completely complicit in it not to mention actually enabling the slaughter through its supplying of arms and money to the Israelis. It has recently been reported in the Israeli media that the United States has delivered an astonishing “10,000 tons of armaments and military equipment on 244 cargo planes and 20 ships” to sustain the Israeli homicidal assault against the people of Gaza. And to demonstrate its gratitude for the flood of weapons, America’s “best friend” and “closest ally” Israel has nevertheless complained “about a delay in the delivery of munitions.”

The total support of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians by Washington and the media is not only shameful, it is lacking any context for a crime against humanity that has been going on with US connivance for the past 76 years. Under international law, an occupied people has a right to use force to resist occupation, but even given that, the majority of Israeli deaths on October 7^th should probably be attributed to so-called “friendly fire” from the Israeli army not from Hamas. The occupied and woefully abused Palestinians rising-up and seeking both freedom and sovereignty in the land that was once completely theirs is fully justified and should be respected. Israel’s killing women and children through deliberate starvation or even by execution style is indisputably a war crime. Bombing hospitals or leaving newborn incubator babies abandoned to die is a crime against humanity. Arresting innocent Palestinians before parading them naked and even desecrating their dead bodies by harvesting organs that you then sell is unspeakable and almost unimaginable evil as is deliberately targeting and bombing schools and churches where people are trying to find shelter.

The genocide and destruction in Gaza is the worst crime committed in modern history and the man who could have stopped it, Joe Biden, sits on his hands and grins. No one should remain silent when confronted by this horror but the silence and the deliberate distortion of what is taking place is a tribute to Jewish power in America and elsewhere. I am including some recent commentary from the illustrious Australian Journalist Caitlin Johnstone which demonstrates perfectly the hypocrisy and inhumanity of both Biden and the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, and Germany: “Sometimes Israel’s crimes are so horrific that at first you don’t even understand what you’re looking at. You just stare at it trying to make sense of what you’re seeing for a bit, like you would if you suddenly saw a space alien or a leprechaun or something… It’s so incredibly obvious what we’re looking at here. The only thing putting a wobble on people’s perception is the immense amount of propaganda distortion the media is churning out on this issue, plus the fact that the demographics look a bit different from what history has conditioned people to watch out for. If there were two million Jewish people trapped by Christians in a giant concentration camp and placed under total siege, being told that half of them had 24 hours to relocate into the other half or be killed, nobody would have any confusion about what they were witnessing.”

And a leading American journalist Daniel Larison must have the last word of advice from his site on Eunomia: “We are witnessing one of the gravest crimes of our time. Our government is aiding and abetting the perpetrators. It is up to people in this country to make our government cut off all support for this war and to press for an end to the war itself.” Amen, Daniel!

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• The Gaza Genocide Continues
• Gaza Strikes Back
• Does Israel Seek a “Final Solution for Palestinians?”
• Towards a Palestine Without Palestinians
• Biden’s America Surrenders to War Criminal Netanyahu

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PHILIP GIRALDI

Why Does the West Support the Genocide of Gaza?

DECEMBER 1, 2023

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…And when will its political and media leaders be tried, condemned, and executed?

Kevin Barrett

Even Israeli experts call it “a textbook case of genocide.” Those are the exact words of Raz Siegal, an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University. On October 16, Siegal told Democracy Now:

We have to understand that the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide from 1948 requires that we see special intent for genocide to happen. And to quote the convention, intent to destroy a group is defined as racial, ethnic, religious or national as such that is collectively, not just individuals. And this intent, as we just heard, is on full display by Israeli politicians and army officers since October 7th. We heard Israel’s president. It’s well-known what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9th declaring a complete siege on Gaza, cutting off water, food, fuel, stating that “We’re fighting human animals,” and we will react “accordingly.” He also said that “We will eliminate everything.” We know that Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari, for example, acknowledged wanton destruction and said explicitly, “The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” So we’re seeing the special intent on full display.

And it isn’t just Israelis who are guilty. Leaders of Western countries have given the Gaza Holocaust their full backing. On Saturday, October 7, even as Israeli tanks, rockets, and helicopter gunships were mass-murdering hundreds of Israeli civilian prisoners alongside dozens of their Hamas captors, US President Joe Biden condemned as “unconscionable” the “appalling terrorist attacks” and encouraged what would become genocidal Israeli “retaliation.”

In reality, the Israelis, not Hamas, were the terrorists of October 7. The only mass slaughters of civilians that day were carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces. Hamas’s brave soldiers were under strict orders to attack Israeli military targets and try to capture military hostages, with the taking of civilian hostages being a secondary option or last resort. There were no Hamas orders to kill unarmed civilians, and surviving Israeli hostages speak of the kindness and generosity of their Hamas captors.

Zionist-owned Western media immediately began broadcasting outrageous lies deliberately designed to incite genocide. (Every media person responsible for those lies must some day be tried, convicted and executed.)

Zionist genocide propagandists raved deliriously about Hamas supposedly beheading 40 babies, baking babies in ovens, gouging eyes, mutilating breasts, cutting open naked women, raping women, mutilating dead bodies, spreading cyanide, and on and on. All lies. When Joe Biden endorsed the beheaded babies canard, claiming that he had seen the bodies, he sealed his fate as a self-incriminated genocide inciter who will be executed in the unlikely event that he lives long enough to face trial.

What really happened on October 7 was reasonably clear even then, and has since become undeniable. Hamas scored what Scott Ritter has called “the most successful military raid of this century:”

Hamas effectively neutralized Israel’s vaunted intelligence services, blinding them to the possibility of an attack of this scope and scale…(then) Hamas defeated those Israeli soldiers stationed along the barrier wall in a stand-up fight. Two battalions of the Golani Brigade were routed, as were elements of other vaunted IDF units.

Hamas struck the Headquarters of the Gaza Division, the local intelligence hub, and other major command and control facilities with brutal precision, turning what should have been a five-minute response time into many hours—more than enough time for Hamas to carry out one of its primary objectives—the taking of hostages. This they did with extreme proficiency, returning to Gaza with more than 230 Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Hamas fighters killed about 600 Israeli soldiers during the first 24 hours, a total that “included many of Israel’s most elite officers, including dozens of colonels and majors.” After Hamas repeatedly defeated the Israeli military in stand-up fights, and captured hundreds of Israeli prisoners, the Zionists panicked and invoked the Hannibal Directive, according to which heavy weaponry is used to eliminate both hostage takers and hostages. According to an Israeli Air Force officer who participated in the mass murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians along with their Hamas captors, top-level Zionist commanders ordered “mass Hannibal.” In other words, they deliberately ordered the mass slaughter of their own civilians by the hundreds in order to prevent them from becoming hostages and adding to Israel’s political problems. Had they not done so, Hamas would have returned to Gaza with as many as 700 prisoners, rather than the 250 that they actually got.

Israel then used photos of the carnage that they themselves had inflicted—using helicopter gunships, tanks, and rockets—and blamed it on Hamas. Even a cursory look at the photos of the devastated kibbutz buildings, the blown-up buildings at the music festival, and the vast array of shredded automobiles makes it clear that most of the damage was done not by Hamas’s small arms fire, but by Israel’s heavy weaponry. Yet the shameless Zionists, mass-murderers of their own people, had the chutzpah to blame the courageous and ethical soldiers of Hamas for their own crimes!

The West Sparks the Genocide

By October 8 I could see, as could anyone else with eyes, that the images out of Israel showed that the Israelis, not Hamas, were responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths. The Biden Administration, and its CIA daily briefer, must have known the same thing, with even greater certainty and in greater detail. Yet instead of using its knowledge of the truth to restrain Israel’s murderous impulse towards Biblical-scale vengeance, Joe Biden went on television and bloviated about supposedly seeing 40 Israeli babies beheaded by Hamas.

Everything the almost-entirely-Jewish Biden Administration did was calculated to encourage Israel to launch a genocide. And every other Western leader went along, actively or passively, with the genocide plan.

Once the exterminationist carpet-bombing of Gaza was underway, and thousands of women and children murdered, did those Western leaders reverse course and demand that Israel stop? Of course not.

Anthony Blinken, who flew to Tel Aviv first, in the midst of the carpet-bombing, let slip that his pre-eminent loyalty was to the genocidal entity, announcing that he flew to Tel Aviv “not only as the United States Secretary of State but also as a Jew.” (Remove the words only and also from that sentence to understand its real meaning.)

Joe Biden flew to Tel Aviv to put his stamp of approval on the genocide. So did UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who described Hamas as “the new Nazis” according to Netanyahu. Second-tier Western powers like Austria and Czechoslovakia also sent their leaders to kiss Netanyahu’s reeking rump and endorse the Gaza Holocaust.

Why has the West’s entire leadership class been falling all over itself competing to see who can move to the head of the line of genocidal war criminals? Can’t they see that the global majority is appalled by the wholesale Zionist atrocities and sides with Palestine? Don’t they realize that the West is hastening its own demise, and ensuring the rise of a non-Western-led world order, by undermining its pretense of concern for international law and human rights?

Several possible reasons for the West’s unanimously-pro-genocide position have been proposed. Some say the West is incorrigibly racist and just doesn’t care about the deaths of brown people, especially Muslims. They add that the West’s undisputed hegemon, the USA, was founded on Old Testament style genocide, and that the formerly Protestant and now Jewish Bible-thumpers of Washington DC share Netanyahu’s vengeful lust for Biblical extermination of “Amalek” (meaning the designated racial enemies of the Jews and/or Americans).

Another potential explanation invokes realpolitik. The US imperial center increasingly dominates the West (the Ukraine war destruction of Nordstream emasculated Europe) but is losing ground elsewhere. Hamas’s crushing defeat of Israel on October 7 struck a powerful blow not only against Zionism, but against the whole Anglo-Zionist Empire. The Biden “minyan” (Jewish-Zionist cabinet) panicked and scrambled to endorse Israeli genocide, not out of sober calculation, but for the same reason that a rabid rat, when cornered, mindlessly lashes out. These people know that the days of the US empire, and the Zionist entity, are numbered, and it drives them crazy. They see that every day the rising countries, led by China, Russia, and Iran, become stronger, and the US and its European vassals grow weaker. Terrified, they realize that if war is to come, the sooner the better, because every day the West’s chances of winning recede. And then, even more terrified, they grasp that it is already too late. So they take out their frustration on the women and children of Gaza.

Another realpolitik-based explanation involves the possibility that US leaders, or at least the most extreme neocon faction, would welcome an all-out war with Iran and the Axis of Resistance—a war which every additional day of genocide brings closer. Even though such a war risks a civilization-imploding World War III, and would at minimum result in tens or hundreds of thousands of Israeli and American casualties, it might at least offer a distraction from looming US defeat in Ukraine. Additionally, a massive war in West Asia would reduce the region to chaos and set back China’s Belt-and-Road plan by a decade or two, thereby prolonging the US imperial illusion by maintaining it on life support for another few years. (China builds, the US destroys, so maximizing destruction prolongs the US imperial agony.)

But in the end, the best explanation for Western leaders’ pro-genocide position involves the role of the media. Allan Thompson’s (ed.) The Media and the Rwanda Genocide shows that more than half a million Rwandans were butchered in 1994, most hacked to death with machetes, primarily due to media incitement. By dominating the formation of public opinion, the Rwandan media, especially radio, created a pro-genocide bubble that took on a life of its own. Specifically, by spreading outrageous lies that dehumanized the target group, both broadcast and print media deliberately orchestrated the mass murder of as many as 700,000 people.

This is exactly what mainstream Western media have done in their incitement of the Gaza genocide. The aforementioned lies about beheaded and roasted babies, gouged eyeballs and broken pelvises, and other gory inventions from the fecund sado-masochistic Zionist imagination were deliberately deployed to provoke real mass murders and maimings of Palestinians.

By enthusiastically participating in the Gaza genocide, the West, starting with its media and political elites, has completely discredited itself in the eyes of the world. The era of Western hegemony is coming to an end. The majority of the Earth’s population can now see that anything, absolutely anything, would be better than allowing these genocidal monsters to continue to dominate this planet.

The war criminals have sealed their own so-called civilization’s fate, and condemned their own souls to eternal hellfire. I hope to live long enough, insha’allah, to see them all, every last one of them, dragged to Beijing or Moscow or Tehran and tried for their crimes against humanity and led to the gallows.

THESE ARE WESTERN COUNTRIES AIDING ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE IN GAZA

NOVEMBER 22ND, 2023

Source

Jessica Buxbaum

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

WHO IS SENDING ISRAEL WEAPONS?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— משרד הביטחון (@MoDIsrael) October 20, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A press release from Oct. 27 stated:

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

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

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

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

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

— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) November 14, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

— CAAT (@CAATuk) November 8, 2023

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

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

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

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

WHO IS SENDING TROOPS?

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

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

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

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 5, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View this post on Instagram

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NOVEMBER 3RD, 2023

Source

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.”

‘TURNING GAZA INTO ASHES’: ISRAELI HASBARA VS THE WORLD

NOVEMBER 3RD, 2023

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

Gaza has changed the political equation in Palestine.

Moreover, the repercussions of this devastating war are likely to alter the political equation in the entire Middle East and to re-center Palestine as the world’s most urgent political crisis for years to come.

Since the establishment of Israel, facilitated by Britain and protected by the United States and other Western countries, the priorities have been entirely Israeli.

‘Israeli security,’ Israel’s ‘military edge,’ ‘Israel’s right to defend itself,’ and much more have defined the West’s political discourse on the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.

This bizarre US-western understanding of the so-called conflict that an oppressor has ‘rights’ over the oppressed has enabled Israel to maintain a military occupation over the Palestinian Territories that has lasted for over 56 years.

It has also empowered Israel to neglect the roots of this ‘conflict,’ namely the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and the long-denied Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

Within this context, every Palestinian-Arab overture for peace was rejected; even the supposed ‘peace process,’ namely the Oslo Accords, turned into an opportunity for Tel Aviv to entrench its military occupation, expand its settlements and corral Palestinians in Bantustan-like spaces, humiliated and racially segregated.

Some Palestinians, whether enticed by American handouts or shattered by a lingering sense of defeat, lined up to receive the dividends of the US-Israeli peace – pitiful crumbs of false prestige, empty titles and limited power granted and denied by Israel itself.

However, the Israeli war on Gaza is already changing much of this painful status quo.

Israel’s constant emphasis that its deadly war is against Hamas, against ‘terror,’ against Islamic fundamentalism, and all the rest may have convinced those who are ready to accept the Israeli version of events at face value.

But as the bodies of thousands of Palestinian civilians, thousands of whom are children, began piling up at Gaza hospitals’ morgues and, tragically, in the streets, the narrative began changing.

The pulverized bodies of Palestinian children, of whole families perished together, stand witness to the brutality of Israel, to the immoral support of its allies, to the inhumanity of an international order that rewards the murderer and reprimands the victim.

Of all the biased statements made by US President Joe Biden, the one where he suggested that Palestinians are lying about counting their own dead was perhaps the most inhumane.

Washington may not realize this yet, but the repercussions of its unconditional support for Israel will prove to be disastrous in the future, especially in a region that is fed up with war, hegemony, double standards, sectarian divisions and endless conflict.

But the greatest impact will be felt in Israel itself.

When Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, gave a powerfully emotional speech on October 26, he could not hold back tears. International delegations at the UN General Assembly clapped non-stop, reflecting the growing support for Palestine, not only at the UN but in hundreds of cities and towns and in countless street corners around the world.

When the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who had spearheaded much of the lies communicated by Tel Aviv, especially in the early days of the war, delivered his talk, not a single person clapped.

The Israeli narrative had clearly crumbled, crashing to a thousand pieces. Indeed, Israel has never been so isolated. This is definitely not the ‘New Middle East’ that Netanyahu had prophesied in his UNGA talk on September 22.

Unable to fathom how the initial sympathy with Israel quickly turned into outright disdain, Israel resorted to old tactics.

On October 25, Erdan demanded the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres resign for being “unfit to lead the UN.” Guterres’ supposedly unforgivable crime suggests that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”

As far as Israel and its American benefactors are concerned, no context is allowed to taint the perfect image that Israel has created for its genocide in Gaza. In this perfect Israeli world, no one is allowed to speak of military occupation, siege, the lack of political prospects, or the absence of a just peace for Palestinians.

Even though Amnesty International has said in its statement that both sides had committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes,” Israel still attacked it, accusing the group of being ‘anti-Semitic.’

Because, in Israel’s thinking, even the world’s leading international human rights group is not permitted to contextualize the atrocities in Gaza or dare suggest that one of the “root causes” of the conflict was “Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on all Palestinians.”

Israel is no longer all-powerful, as it wants us to believe.  Recent events have proven that Israel’s ‘invincible army’ – a brand that allowed Israel to become, as of 2022, the world’s tenth-largest international military exporter – turned out to be a paper tiger.

This is what is infuriating Israel the most. “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore,” said former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin in an interview with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News. To restore this fear, the Israeli extremist politician has called for burning “Gaza to ashes immediately.”

But nothing will turn Gaza into ashes, even if the over 12,000 tons of explosives dropped on the Strip in the first two weeks of war have already incinerated at least 45 percent of the housing units in the Strip, according to the UN’s humanitarian office.

Gaza will not die because it is a powerful idea that is deeply entrenched within the hearts and minds of every Arab, every Muslim and millions of people around the world.

This new idea is challenging the long-held belief that the world needs to cater to Israel’s priorities, security, selfish definitions of peace and all other illusions.

The discussion should now return to where it should have always been – the priorities of the oppressed, not the oppressor.

It is time that we speak about Palestinian rights, Palestinian security and the Palestinian people’s right, in fact, obligation, to defend themselves.

It is time for us to speak about justice – real justice – the outcome of which is non-negotiable: equality, full political rights, freedom and the right of return.

Gaza has told us all of this and much more. And it is time for us to listen.

THE MASK HAS FALLEN: KING CHARLES SUPPORTS ISRAEL

NOVEMBER 2ND, 2023

Source

Kit Klarenberg

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

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

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

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

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

A PROBLEM FOR PALESTINIANS’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘OBEDIENT SERVANT’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALL THE KING’S GROOMERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

— GCHQ (@GCHQ) January 20, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Biden Move to Send Warships to Gaza Coast More Dangerous Than We Thought

October 21, 2023

Source

Martin Jay

The temptation by Netanyahu to arrange a false flag attack on the Americans is too great if and when he sees the conflict not going his way.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is banking all he has on a single bet: that the U.S. will go the full nine yards in his madcap idea of a regional war between Israel and Iran’s proxies in the region.

For Netanyahu, this was always the plan from the very beginning. But it will take a series of stepping stones to get to this objective. First off is that he has to convince the Biden administration to join the IOF in its war within the Gaza Strip. And even that’s not going to be easy.

He would ideally like Washington directly involved in the conflict with Hamas because he hopes to expand the war to Lebanon and Iran, a former senior security policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense, Michael Maloof, told Russia Today recently. Maloof is certainly right but the move by Biden to send an armada of battle ships to the eastern Mediterranean coast is a dangerous move on so many levels. It’s easy to see that Biden wants to show support to Israel and to also show a physical presence in the region for Hezbollah, to make Nasrallah thinks twice about taking advantage of the IOF’s work being cut out in Gaza to launch a surprise attack. The problem with this mindset is that Hezbollah is not easily threatened by such moves and more than likely will be forced to think in a bigger and bolder way about carrying out such an attack with the U.S. ships ready to pound southern Lebanon, than if they were not there. This is definitely an own goal.

But secondly, the temptation by Netanyahu to arrange a false flag attack on the Americans is too great if and when he sees the conflict not going his way.

The other concern to consider is the Americans themselves making a tactical error. Miscalculation in this situation is fever-pitched and the Americans have a history of doing this in the region. One such error would plunge the entire region into the war with Iran which Netanyahu has dreamed of all his life. And there would be no easy “off ramp” for the Americans.

On Monday October 9th, the U.S. ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and five guided missile destroyers to the Eastern Mediterranean. According to Maloof, this “meets Netanyahu’s wildest dreams.”

“He wanted the U.S. involved in this conflict,” the former Pentagon official told RT.

Netanyahu “wants to open up the war with Lebanon, by attacking Hezbollah” in pursuit of his ultimate objective, “to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Maloof added. For that to happen, “he has to have a Gulf of Tonkin moment, if you will.”

Some will remember U.S. President Lyndon Johnson kickstarting the Vietnam war with a neat little piece of fake news by sending ships to the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. An alleged North Vietnamese attack on two U.S. destroyers was then used as a pretext for direct involvement. In those days all the LBJ government had to do was to simply announce that these ships had been attacked by North Vietnam forces. That’s all it took to justify the Vietnam war starting, a war, like so many U.S. interventions that not only Americans lost but one which redefined U.S. foreign policy for decades to come.

The U.S. has also pledged to help Israel with deliveries of weapons and ammunition, with the Pentagon insisting it has enough to do so and continue supplying Ukraine. Maloof is skeptical of that assertion, however.

And so, all the ingredients are there for the caldron to boil over. If Netanyahu is satisfied that the assault on Gaza is going to plan – a military strategy based on starving the enemy first before sending in second-rate IDF infantry (the worst secret in the Middle East is how poor Israeli infantry is on the battlefield) – then he may decide not to turn to the Americans for the big plan. But if the going gets tougher, he may well open up direct talks with Biden and his advisers about the level of support he could hope to get in a bigger, wider war. It is unlikely Biden will support him though, as the last thing he needs leading up to a re-election bid is a world war in the Middle East and American body bags. And so the natural progression is that Netanyahu’s people will conclude that the only way to draw America in is if it was no choice. The only real way to guarantee this is if those U.S. battleships are supposedly attacked by Hezbollah’s missiles in southern Lebanon.

Getting the Lebanese Shia group to do this might be harder that Netanyahu might reckon. Hezbollah understands only too well the ruse and is careful not to be pulled into a provocation. And there is always the possibility that Hamas itself fires a missile at one of them and this is conveniently seen as an attack from Lebanon. It actually won’t matter where it comes from. The Americans will fake all the forensic audio visuals later on and hand it out to journalists happy to file a good story just as they are lying to U.S. journalists about having enough ammunition to supply any such war, when the whole world and his dog knows that stocks are running very low.

Israel’s Military-Settler State: There are no Jewish ‘civilians’ in the West Bank

JUL 14, 2023

Israeli settler terrorism is a strategy employed by Israel to advance its territorial gains and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Robert Inlakesh

US President Joe Biden recently called out Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as being the “most extreme” he’s seen, and pointed to members of the Israeli Prime Minister’s coalition as being “part of the problem.”

His comments immediately drew attention to Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, along with Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, and illegal West Bank settlers in general.

But Israeli settler extremism is not isolated to the West Bank, nor to Israel’s current far-right government’s ministers like Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Israeli settlers occupy the highest positions in the military and government, while extremists are operating special militias inside the Israeli army – with its approval – and additionally receiving funds from US charitable organizations.

Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have been steadily on the rise over the past years, with an average of three violent incidents occurring per day in 2023, compared to two in 2022 and one in 2021, according to the United Nations.

One of the worst recorded attacks this year came on February 26, when a settler militia force, at least 400 strong, descended upon several villages surrounding the Palestinian city of Nablus, including the town of Huwara. 

The settler attack, even described as a pogrom by top Israeli general Yehuda Fuchs, resulted in the murder of a Palestinian man, in addition to the burning down of at least 30 homes and 100 cars. 

In support of the settler assault, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly proclaimed that he thought “the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.”

In mid-June, another 400 armed Israeli settlers attacked Turmusaya and surrounding villages, torching 30 homes and around 60 cars, additionally resulting in over 100 injuries and the murder of another Palestinian man; while he was attempting to save children. 

The two most notorious far-right members of Israel’s current coalition government are ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, both of whom live in illegal settlements and were longtime activists as part of the settler movement. 

Ben Gvir, who has faced a laundry list of criminal charges ranging from terror group affiliations to incitement of racism, resides in the extremist settlement of al-Khalil (Hebron). Smotrich currently resides in Kedumim, a settlement located just a short drive from Yitzhar – the other infamous settler community. 

Their unified list, running under the name Religious Zionism, secured the third-highest number of votes from the Israeli public and now holds the position of the second-largest party in the current coalition government.

Not ‘a few bad apples’

Dror Sadot, spokesperson for B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, emphasizes that we cannot downplay the broader support and backing that enables such actions. She tells The Cradle that: “Even if it wasn’t this current Ben Gvir-Smotrich government, it would still be Apartheid.”

“When the Huwara pogrom happened, we should’ve paid attention to what sort of backup the settlers got from those politicians. What they are saying reveals the truth, it reveals the mechanisms in place that were always there under previous governments.”

Sadot continues: “We shouldn’t talk about settler violence as if it is a few bad apples, or extremists, or anything like this, because, at the end of the day, Israel is backing everything.” 

While attention has been drawn to figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the truth is that radical right-wing settlers occupy significant positions within the Israeli government and military.

The recent decision to launch an invasion of Jenin, for example, was heavily influenced by pressure from settler communities. Yossi Dagan, head of the regional settlement council in the Northern West Bank, played a prominent role in encouraging the violent attack on Jenin, which experts at the UN have labeled a war crime.

Yet, Dagan’s ambitions did not stop there. He called on the government to “order the IDF to immediately launch a larger, broader, more thorough and in-depth operation.”

Radicals in the corridors of power 

Israeli Member of Knesset for the ruling Likud Party, Avichai Boaron, has also made alarming statements. Following the military operation in Jenin, Boaron suggested that “we must expand the military operation to include Nablus and Ramallah as well.”

Notably, Boaron himself is a settler activist who has come under fire for using euphemisms to refer to Palestinians while proposing extermination camps as a solution. 

In 2018, Netanyahu posted on social media to celebrate Avichai Boaron’s success with the Amihai settlement, which was built in 2017 as an alternative to the evacuated settler outpost of Amona – illegally developed on Palestinian land – that had turned into a “crisis” for the Israeli public. 

The Amihai settlement was added to the illegal settlement of Shiloh, accompanied by the settler outposts of Adei Ad, Geulat Zion, and others, which happen to surround Turmusaya, along with other Palestinian villages which have recently been targets of large-scale settler-militia attacks.

Boaron’s recently secured a position in the Likud Party to replace David Amsalem, who Netanyahu promoted to be the Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister. Amsalem is also a West Bank settler, from the illegal colony of Ma’alei Adumim, and is currently in charge of  “advancing partnerships with states in the region (the Mediterranean basin) and the Palestinian Authority.”

Moreover, the leadership of the Israeli military itself is not immune to this influence. Herzi Halevi, the current Chief of Staff, is a resident of the illegal colony of Kfar Ha-Oranim in the West Bank. His appointment to this key role was approved last year under the government of Yair Lapid, with no major objections.

Avi Moaz, the deputy minister and head of the national Jewish identity department in the Prime Minister’s Office, resides in an illegal settlement stronghold located in the Silwan area of occupied East Jerusalem. His position holds significant weight, and he is a leading figure in the Noam Party.

Speaking to The Cradle, the Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research and Development, Ubai al-Aboudi, says that “the settlers are a militia, these are not civilian groups, most of them are ideologues, they see themselves as tasked with replacing Palestinian villagers, their houses, and they call for this openly.”

The two strongholds of the settler terror groups are situated around the Palestinian cities of Al-Khalil and Nablus. Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva, in Yitzhar settlement, is the indoctrination center for many of the most extreme settler terrorists, where they are taught ideas, such as, that Arabs are a “cancer” and that killing non-Jewish babies is permissible. 

The army colludes with settlers

According to the conclusions of a 2022 report published by B’Tselem on settler violence, the attacks “are not perpetrated by “bands of outlaws” or “bad seeds,” nor are they simply “violent outbursts” or “unusual incidents,” but rather they are a “strategy employed by the Israeli apartheid regime.”

A 2021 investigation conducted jointly between The Intercept and Local Call found that at least four of the 11 Palestinians who were killed in the West Bank on 14 May of that year, were due to deliberate joint attacks carried out by Israeli settlers and soldiers. 

In the May 2021 joint settler-soldier attack on Palestinians in the village of Urif, the Israeli military confirmed in a statement that one of the masked settlers caught on film firing at Palestinians, alongside soldiers, was, in fact, from the settlement of Yitzhar and himself an active Israeli soldier. 

Zvi Sukot, who was a spokesperson for the settlement of Yitzhar and part of the ‘Hilltop Youth,’ applauded the Israeli army for the joint attacks on Palestinians at the time. Sukot, who is now a member of the Israeli Knesset as part of the current government, made his name campaigning for the release of a group of settlers who burned a Palestinian baby to death in 2015.

Israeli settlers were caught on a leaked video dancing at a wedding, celebrating the murder of the 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, and stabbing at pictures of the Palestinian family they had killed alongside him. Present also at the wedding was the legal representative for the terrorist settlers, Itamar Ben Gvir.

As recently as June 24, Israeli settlers were documented to have used Israeli army-issued assault rifles – Colt M4’s manufactured in the US – to shoot at Palestinians in the village of Umm Safa. 

The settler extremists, despite not having known structured armed organizations, were revealed in May to have been integrated into a special Israeli military unit. The extremist settlers belonging to the Hilltop Youth have allegedly been inducted into the newly created ‘Desert Frontier’ army unit, where they represent a majority of the Unit and are carrying out severe abuses across the West Bank. 

B’Tselem spokeswoman, Dror Sadot, says that her organization has “documented hundreds of cases of settler violence, during many of which the soldiers were there, and in the “best cases” you will see they won’t do anything, but in the worst cases they will join the settlers against the Palestinians.”

In a frightening development, Israeli Security Minister Ben Gvir has been granted permission to build Israel’s new “national guard,” which is shaping up to be a publicly funded ultra-nationalist militia force to serve the extremist goals of the Israeli settler movement. One of the Israeli colonel’s that is helping Ben Gvir form the national guard is Efraim Laor, who made the following comment during a lecture in 2019:

“An enemy needs to be killed, you don’t shoot at [terror] cells, you shoot between the eyes – whoever can’t do that, 15 cm lower. Including those who are there and are not attacking. But you see an enemy – you do not find out whether he is involved or not — he’s involved — he needs to be eliminated.”

US charities fueling illegal settlements

The Hilltop Youth settler group, often portrayed as “bands of outlaws,” have direct links to the Israeli government and even charitable donations from the US. In 2008, the Hilltop Youth ushered in a new era of what was called “Price-Tag” violence, where settlers would attack Palestinian civilians, along with their mosques, schools, crops, and homes. 

One such figure within this context is Itay Zar, known as the first Hilltop Youth, who established the settler outpost of Havat Gilad in 2002. It is important to note that settlement outposts, including settler “farms,” are considered illegal under Israeli law.

However, many are eventually recognized by Israeli authorities, as was the case with Havat Gilad in 2018. The proximity of Havat Gilad to the Yitzhar settlement, which houses a notoriously radical Yeshiva (Jewish religious school), illustrates how extremist belief systems are transmitted within these religious educational institutions.

One US-based charity named the Central Fund of Israel (CFI) was found to have funded an extremist Yeshiva, along with the Honenu group that provides legal funds and financial support for settler terrorists. CFI still operates as a charity in the US, despite having funneled tens of millions of dollars to far-right extremist groups in occupied territory.

Worryingly, the settler extremists, despite not having known structured armed organizations, were revealed in May to have been integrated into a special Israeli military unit. The extremist settlers belonging to the Hilltop Youth have allegedly been inducted into the newly created Desert Frontier army unit, where they represent a majority of the unit and are carrying out severe crimes across the West Bank. 

A concerning web of US-based and registered charities exists, providing direct financial support to organizations guiding the settlement movement, according to Ubai al-Aboudi. This ongoing financial backing allows these organizations to receive funds, perpetuating the expansion of Israeli settlements.

The Israel Land Fund (ILF), for instance, supports the acquisition of real estate for Israeli settlers, providing legal assistance for them, and advertises properties in the occupied territories. The ILF’s fiscal sponsor is the aforementioned CFI, which is a registered charity in New York, it is also the fiscal sponsor for Regavim, which works to expand Israeli control over Palestinian land through applying pressure on the relevant Israeli authorities.

The Hebron Fund, directly registered in New York, plays a role in funding the illegal settlement project in al-Khalil (Hebron). The fiscal sponsor for the Ir David Foundation, which utilizes archaeological claims to displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem, is called the Friends of Ir David and is also registered in New York.

Similarly, Ateret Cohanim, working to establish a Jewish demographic majority in occupied East Jerusalem by replacing Palestinian families with Israeli settlers, has its fiscal sponsor named the Friends of Ateret Cohanim, registered in New York as well.

Two sides of the same coin 

Israeli settlers have recently attacked the properties of Palestinians who are US citizens, which according to the US’s stringent property laws, should force them to intervene and protect their own nationals. According to US law, since 1854 it has been seen as an obligation for sitting President’s to intervene in order to protect the lives and properties of citizens threatened by foreign powers.

Even in the cases of murdered US citizens, there is no protection or significant pressure applied on the Israeli government. In the cases of Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Asad, Ourwa Hamad, and Mahmoud Shalan, all US citizens, no one was charged for their murders by the Israeli authorities. 

The Biden administration’s allowance of such financing, coupled with its failure to safeguard its own citizens, creates a contradiction as it condemns the settlement movement while inadvertently encouraging it. 

Meanwhile, his government continues to allow US dollars to finance Israeli settler extremism, and the settlement movement, does nothing to protect its own citizens from Israeli criminality. 

Never mind the White House’s public criticism of Israeli extremism. In reality, there are few punitive measures Washington is prepared to take against Israel’s ferocious aggressions. This, despite the mounting evidence that there is no separation between the Israeli government and the settler movement today.

Robert Inkalesh

Source

Friends of ‘Israel’ Admit Its Defeat in Maritime Border Issue, Say War Still Possible

October 5, 2022

By Staff

As the dispute on the maritime border between Lebanon and the occupied Palestine edges its final phase, the American friends of ‘Israel’ started lamenting that the final proposal is in favor of Lebanon in general, Hezbollah resistance movement in particular, and claiming that it is depriving the occupying entity from all of the naval resources.

Those comments also echo former ‘Israeli’ premier and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who started attacking his rival, Zionist PM Yair Lapid, whom he accused of giving away the ‘Israeli’-occupied Palestinian maritime territory to Hezbollah.

In the same respect, former US ambassador to the ‘Israeli’-occupied territories, David Friedman, commented on the final process in a tweet, in which he mourned that:

“We spent years trying to broker a deal between ‘Israel’ and Lebanon on the disputed maritime gas fields. Got very close with proposed splits of 55-60% for Lebanon and 45-40% for ‘Israel.’ No one then imagined 100% to Lebanon and 0% to ‘Israel.’ Would love to understand how we got here.”

For his part, Former US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker told i24NEWS that the chances of an ‘Israeli’-Hezbollah confrontation “still remain very high” despite the advancement of the US-brokered maritime border delimitation issue.

Schenker belittled the proposal, saying it “does nothing to lower or alleviate tensions along the blue line where Hezbollah is digging in.”

The New Jersey native served in the position during the administration of former US president Donald Trump from 2019 to 2021, during which he was assigned as the point man on the ‘Israeli’ occupied Palestine-Lebanon maritime border negotiations.

Seemingly admitting his failure to finish the issue, whose draft proposal was formed under the mediation of the State Department’s senior advisor for energy security, Amos Hochstein, Schenker also said that it appeared that ‘Israel’ agreed to give the Lebanese “100 percent” of what they wanted, while claiming that the Qana gas field that would be under control of Lebanon contains “very little reserves.”

He said that the administration of US President Joe Biden can claim a foreign policy win with the deal and a success in promoting regional stability, while cautioning that questions still remain about long-term calm.

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