Here's the matter-of-course, satanic, Israeli policy, methodology, mass-murder, criminality, ho-hum

Apollonian

Guest Columnist
Israel’s Ruthless Agenda

2014/09/17 0 1,049 Views

Link: http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/israels-ruthless-agenda/

Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

State terrorism is official policy. So is institutionalized racism, persecution, apartheid worse than South Africa’s, and colonization.

Israel’s occupation is lawless. It’s the longest by far in modern times. Military orders control virtually all aspects of Palestinians’ lives.

They have no rights whatever. They’re not wanted. They’re considered subhuman.

Efforts are made to eliminate them. Israel seeks total Judaization.

Its wars are cold, calculated premeditated aggression. They’re high crimes against peace. They’re slow-motion genocide. Palestinian self-defense is called “terrorism.”

Operation Protective Edge was the latest example. It had nothing to do with Hamas rockets. It wasn’t about protecting Israeli security.

It had everything to do with preventing Palestinian self-determination, maintaining occupation harshness, continuing Gaza’s blockade, sabotaging Fatah/Hamas unity, stealing Palestinian resources, preventing diaspora Palestinians from returning, and maintaining Jerusalem as Israel’s exclusive capital.

Torture is official Israeli policy. It persists despite international law prohibiting it all times under all circumstances with no allowed exceptions.

On September 14, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights headlined “PCHR Follows up Detention Conditions of Palestinians Arrested by Israeli Forces in Latest Offensive on the Gaza Strip,” saying:

“The lawyers of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) have visited 4 Palestinian detainees in Ashkelon Prison who were arrested in the latest 51-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip.”

They “confirmed that the prisoners were subjected to various forms of torture during their detention period, including beating and shackling between two chairs for long hours (Shabeh).”

“According to PCHR’s documentation, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinian civilians during the offensive on the Gaza Strip; 31 of whom were transferred to Israeli prisons.”

All those arrested committed no crimes. It didn’t matter. Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners languish in Israel’s gulag. It’s one of the world’s worst.

“Later, 4 of the aforementioned detainees were released while 27 remained in custody and were charged of being members of armed groups, except for one, Samir al-Najjar, who was charged of being an ‘illegitimate combatant.’ ”

“…(M)embers of armed resistance groups are considered prisoners of war against whom no bills of indictment can be presented according to the international law.”

“PCHR continues its efforts to pursue Israeli war criminals through international courts based on the principle of universal jurisdiction (UJ) to bring them before justice since torture is an international crime.”

Under UJ, nations may investigate and prosecute foreign nationals when their country of residence or origin won’t, can’t, or hasn’t for any reason.”

Israel used it to convict and execute Adolph Eichmann.

Britain used a Spanish court provisional warrant to apprehend Augusto Pinochet. It held him under house arrest for 18 months.

It set a precedent. It potentially makes other heads of state vulnerable. So are top officials.

Pinochet’s alleged ill health claim got him released. He returned home. He remained damaged and disgraced.

From September 11, 1973 to March 11, 1981, tyranny was ruthless on his watch. He died in December 2006. He’s not missed.

Article 7 of Nuremberg’s Charter of the International Military Tribunal states:

“The official position of defendants, whether as Head of State or responsible officials in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.”

No one deserves immunity for high crimes against peace. They demand accountability.

No nation or individual is above the law. They’re made to be enforced. They’re inviolable.

Holding Israel and America accountable for high crimes too grave to ignore is long overdue.

In its 2013 State of Israel report, Amnesty International (AI) said:

“Israeli forces responsible for the killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians (as well as) torture and other ill-treatment of detainees continued to evade accountability.”

Periodic air strikes target Gaza. They’re conducted for any reason or none at all. For ones Israel invents.

IDF commanders order “live ammunition to enforce the land and sea ‘exclusion zones’ inside Gaza’s perimeter and territorial waters, killing at least six civilians and injuring others,” said AI.

“The myriad restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on the movement of Palestinians amounted to collective punishment of the population of Gaza and the West Bank, in violation of international law.”

Gaza’s blockade remains ongoing. It’s lawless. It’s suffocating. It has nothing to do with Israeli security.

Palestinians are arrested for bogus reasons. Many are held without charges or trial.

Freedom of expression, movement and assembly are denied. So are peace, equity and justice.

Israel gets away with mass murder with impunity and then some. Rogue states operate this way.

Israel and America elevated lawlessness to a new level. Don’t expect Western media to explain. Or what the Electronic Intifada (EI) reported on September 15.

It headlined “Leaked email reveals ADL advice to universities urging anti-Palestine crackdown.”

It was sent to UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi’s office. It was meant for her and other senior university officials.

The Anti-Defamation League is notoriously bigoted. Hate-mongering is longstanding practice. So is disseminating pro-Israeli propaganda.

Smear campaigns target its critics. They’re conducted under the fraudulent pretext of fighting anti-Semitism.

ADL claims to support human rights. Its hate-filled agenda violates them egregiously.

Its leaked email warned about an “upcoming day of action for Palestinian rights,” said EI.

It called for “extra security and ‘discipline.’ ”

It targeted the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). It’s an advocacy group. ADL lied making “thinly-veiled allegations of anti-Semitism,” said EI.

ADL’s email said in part:

“We write to you today to provide information and recommendations about how to respond to conflicts that may arise on your campus due to the recent conflict in Gaza.”

“In the wake of the recent crisis, anti-Israel organizations are placing increasing pressure on academic institutions to engage in ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ (BDS) activities.”

“Be aware of the discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that takes place on your campus and the potential for escalation.”

“Review student codes of conduct to ensure that activity which is detrimental to the free exchange of ideas is not allowed on campus.”

AMP is called “the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training and education to students and Muslim community organizations around the country.”

It “advocates for a variety of BDS-related initiatives – all in an effort to isolate and demonize Israel and Jewish communal organizations.”

Fact: AMP and Palestinian-led BDS supporters don’t advocate targeting Jewish communal organizations, EI explained.

Fact: They want action against “institutions complicit with Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights…”

Fact: They include academia, corporations, think tanks, numerous organizations and other biased institutions.

According to AMP chairman Hatem Bazian:

“The ADL has always been in the business of censoring Palestine’s narrative and promoting Israel and Zionism…”

It overstepped trying to “employ prior restraint on Palestinians’ free speech.”

Hate-mongering operates under its own rules. According to EI, expect “no let up (by Israeli lobbyists) to use all repressive means available to stigmatize…punish (and stifle) campus criticism of Israel’s crimes.”

On September 16, Mondoweiss headlined “US and Canada strengthen economic relationship with Israel following attack on Gaza,” saying:

They consummated “a mutual customs agreement.” It removes “screening barriers and tariffs.”

Washington and Canada support Israeli genocidal high crimes against peace. It’s longstanding policy in both countries.

Canada is more pro-Israeli than America. During right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s January visit to Israel, he praised its “great moral leadership.”

Canada’s special relationship is deep-rooted, he said. It’s “nourished by shared values.”

“(It’s) reinforced at the highest levels of commerce and government as an outward expression of strongly held inner convictions.”

It’s the right thing to do, said Harper. He called enemies Israel invents “dark forces of the world.”

He ignored Palestinian rights. He was silent about generations of occupation harshness, ruthless persecution and numerous other high crimes.

Post-Operation Protective Edge, Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid and his Canadian counterpart Steven Blaney discussed their 2010 Authorized Economic Operator Program.

“We share the same moral values (and) threat(s), Lapid claimed. He lied naming “Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north and now ISIS advancing from the east.”

It bears repeating. Israel’s only enemies are ones it invents. It does so to enforce occupation harshness. To steal all valued Judea and Samaria areas.

To deny Palestinians fundamental human and civil rights. To treat them like enemies of the state. To violate core international human rights laws in the process.

Lapid’s comments focused more on Gaza than economics, said Mondoweiss. It quoted him saying:

“We must move to find a solution for Gaza based on a regional framework, through a regional summit which includes all the key partners including Canada.”

“For progress to be made we must ensure that rehabilitation occurs alongside demilitarization.”

“We are strengthened and encouraged by the support of our allies, and in particular with Canada which stands steadfast by our side.”

Their “special relationship” ignores each other’s high crimes. America and Israel operate the same way.

Rogue states replicate each other’s worst practices. It’s longstanding official Western policy.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.
 
Here it is folks, yet another Jew psychopath bares her soul, gives the "reasoning" for Jew depradation--it's all in their Talmud, though this one cites the "Torah" (remember Jews say Talmud is Torah--only "interpreted" by the MIDRASH).

 
But Mr. Trump, Is Israel Lovable?

by Sheldon Richman/ Posted on December 13, 2019

Link: https://original.antiwar.com/srichman/2019/12/12/but-mr-trump-is-israel-lovable/

Speaking before Sheldon Adelson’s Israeli-American Council the other day, Trump took a shot at Jewish Americans who he says don’t "love Israel enough."

"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more," Trump said. "We have to get them to love Israel more because you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people – they don’t love Israel enough. You know that."

Typical of Trump, this is scatter-brained. He begins by talking about "the people of our country," which sounds like everyone, but ends up focusing on Jews who "don’t love Israel enough." In either case, Trump talks rubbish.

First off, observe that although Trump stands accused of fomenting anti-Semitism by such remarks, he actually turns the loyalty issue upside-down. He doesn’t say that some Jewish Americans are too loyal to Israel (presumably at the expense of America), which is what a classic anti-Semite would say, but that they are not loyal enough. Recall that he previously labeled Jews who vote for Democrats "disloyal." Disloyal to whom? Disloyal to Israel! We know this because he’s criticized the Democratic Party for "defending [Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who sympathize with the Palestinians] over the State of Israel." Trump’s critics seem to overlook this twist because it doesn’t fit their stock narrative.

But turning to the matter at hand, Trump now entitles us to ask: what’s so lovable about Israel anyway? The modern state was founded through a campaign of ethnic cleansing – violent expulsion of Arabs, that is, non-Jews, from their long-held properties – and outright massacres and terrorism. For the next couple of decades it subjected those who avoided expulsion to martial law. Then in 1967 it conquered the remainder of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating new refugees. Since then Israel has denied the inhabitants of those territories all rights while the Israeli occupiers built privileged Jewish-only settlements and otherwise usurped the land it acquired through aggressive force – contrary to morality and international law. The West Bank today resembles apartheid South Africa. But things are even worse in Gaza, a small, crowded piece of land under blockade that dissenting Israelis call a concentration camp and others euphemistically refer to as merely the world’s largest open-air prison. Gaza consists largely of refugees from the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing and their families.

So, I ask again, what’s lovable about Israel? Is it because Israel calls itself the nation-state of the Jewish people (whether or not they live or want to live there) and Jews were treated horribly by Christian Europe, culminating in the monstrous Nazi Judeocide? That doesn’t make Israel lovable. It is accountable for its crimes against humanity in Palestine regardless of the atrocities Jews suffered elsewhere. Israel is not exempt from moral judgment.

As for Jewish Americans in particular not loving Israel enough, Trump has again stuffed his foot in his mouth, something so commonplace that most people don’t notice it. Like other Americans, Jewish Americans are not obligated to love Israel. How could they be? They are not part of a supposed Jewish national people – they are Americans with a particular private religious faith (unless they are secular). If they wanted to become Israelis, they would have done so.

Israel, despite what it claims, cannot be the nation-state of all Jews everywhere (even atheists with Jewish mothers); it is the state only of its own Jewish citizens/nationals. The 25 percent of non-Jewish Israeli citizens unfortunately are out of luck, but then it shouldn’t call itself a democracy. Jewish Americans have roots in many countries, yet no one would say they are obliged to love those places.

We may ask: what does today’s state of Israel have to do with the Jewish creed, especially the universalism of the prophets? Little, really: Zionism was a secular movement that disparaged traditional and secularized Jews in Europe and America. Theodor Herzl et al. promised a new Jew in his own state, strong and hardy farmers and soldiers, unlike the frail bookish scholars and rootless "parasitic" financiers of the so-called "diaspora." (It wasn’t a diaspora since the Judeans were not exiled by the Romans in 70 CE.) That’s one reason Zionism was a minority movement for a long time.

No one is clear about what it means to be a Jewish state. True, you have to be a properly credentialed Jew to get the benefits the Israeli state offers, but that only means having a Jewish mother or being converted by an approved Orthdox rabbi. (Conservative and Reform converts need not apply.) Jews and non-Jews may not marry each other, but that is not a religious injunction for Israelis; rather it’s a matter of secular (pseudo-)ethnic purity. It’s feared that Israeli children of interfaith marriages are less likely than other children to identify as Jewish – but then what would happen to the "Jewish people’s" state?

In fact, no Jewish national ethnicity exists to be kept pure, but many Israelis (who do constitute an Israeli ethnicity) don’t accept that. Nevertheless, Jews worldwide are of virtually every ethnicity, culture, language group, and color, and despite what Israel’s apologists say today, Hitler was wrong: there is no Jewish race (or gene or blood). Most Jews descend from the converts of many ethnicities — Judaism was a wide-ranging proselytizing religion roughly from 200 BCE to 200 CE (and later) — and most ancient Israelites, Judahites, Yehudis, and Judeans never left their homes, although many of their offspring converted to Christianity or Islam.

For the record, ancient kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Yehud, and Judea, according to the Old Testament, were no more lovable bastions of enlightenment than any other kingdom in the vicinity, what with their authoritarian monarchies, military conquests, genocides, Hebrew and gentile slave labor, animal and occasional human sacrifice, forced conversion of gentiles, suppression of religious pluralism among the Hebrews, and persecution and even capital punishment of sundry peaceful nonconformists, such as homosexuals and dissenters.

Moreover – and I wouldn’t expect Trump to know this – there is a long and honorable tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism. It goes back to the days of Herzl, though his idea of a "return" to Canaan originated earlier with non-Jews for perhaps less-than-honorable reasons. On different grounds, Orthodox and Reform Jews vehemently opposed Herzl’s movement. (See details on this and other matters discussed here in my book Coming to Palestine.) The Orthodox regarded the Zionists as charlatans because a "return" was not to occur until the Messiah appeared in order to redeem the sinful Jews; the Orthodox anti-Zionists did not regard any of the atheists running the Zionist movement as Messiahs – even if they had Jewish mothers.

The Reform shared that disdain for the Zionists and Zionism but on different grounds. First, they rejected the premise that the people around the world who profess Judaism constitute an exiled national people, race, or ethnicity. Judaism is just a religion, they said. Second, they objected to a country that would proclaim itself the nation-state of all the "Jewish people," including Jews who don’t and won’t live there. This, they said, would harm the Jewish citizens of other countries and the non-Jewish residents of Israel. Third, they knew that Palestine was not a "land without a people," and so they rejected the land theft and expulsion they knew would be required to make a Jewish state there. I would say the Reform were right. (The remnant of this movement resides at the American Council for Judaism.)

So, Mr. Trump, I can’t see how Jewish Americans, who when surveyed rank justice high on their list social concerns, have an obligation to love Israel – or how this admonition from you, an enthusiast for Palestinian oppression, could possibly be taken seriously.

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute, senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society, and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies, former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest book is Coming to Palestine.
 
The Israel Lobby’s Hidden Hand in the Theft of Iraqi and Syrian Oil

By Whitney Webb on 12/20/2019

Link: https://governmentslaves.news/2019/...en-hand-in-the-theft-of-iraqi-and-syrian-oil/

“We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re keeping the oil,” President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, “I like oil. We’re keeping the oil.”

Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Though Trump himself received all of the credit — and the scorn — for this controversial new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.’ pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often played by the U.S.’ pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major regional implications.

Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.

After the occupation of Iraq’s Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military’s retreat and, amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq’s export pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq’s largest oil fields.

Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG’s own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.

In retrospect, and following revelations from Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been revealed that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United States’ powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.’ Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel’s benefit can instead be seen as a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.

“Keep the oil” for Israel

After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been kept in Syria to “keep the oil,” with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was “a subset of the counter-ISIS mission.” However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later claimed that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.

One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to “keep the oil” was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led “anti-ISIS” coalition.

Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.

n 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the Israeli government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing. Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and other outlets revealed that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.

Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had “acted within his authority” in leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a foreign government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere, has since claimed that he was one of Satterfield’s main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.

The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP’s website has long listed Satterfield as one of its experts and Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several after his involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However, despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield’s current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.

While Satterfield’s role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby and Syrian “rebel” groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel’s benefit.

US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds

Earlier this year, well before Trump’s new Syria policy of “keeping the oil” had officially taken shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based company, founded and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai “Motti” Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the SDC.

Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana’s company — Global Development Corporation (GDC) — to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC “the right to explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern.”

Global Development Corporation Kurdish Oil

The SDC’s formal acceptance of Global Development Corporation’s offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source | Al-Akhbar

The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000 barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000 barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar, the SDC claimed that it was a forgery, even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents and shared the letter itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago. Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means to prevent the “Assad regime” of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of Syrian oil.

The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don’t want this oil reaching Iran, or the Assad regime.”

At the time, Kahana also stated that “the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices.”

Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC’s oil business shortly after Trump’s adoption of the controversial “keep the oil policy,” it seems plausible that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports have speculated that, if Kahana’s efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.

However, considering Turkey’s aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are considerable obstacles to Kahana’s plans. While the SDF — along with assistance from U.S. troops — still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad’s firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG’s weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.

Regardless, Kahana’s involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has even been caught hiring so-called “rebels” to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met with Syrian “rebels” including Khalid al-Hamad – a “moderate” rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart of a Syrian Army soldier went viral online. McCain had also admitted meeting with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to Syria.

In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the “Caesar” controversy, whereby a Syrian using the pseudonym “Caesar” was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led government Syria, claims which were later discredited by independent analysts. He was also very involved in Israel’s failed efforts to establish a “safe zone” in Southern Syria as a means of covertly expanding Israel’s territory from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.

Notably, Kahana has deep ties — not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government — but also to U.S. Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a 2013 symposium organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called “rebels.” One of the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of the “Syrian Emergency Task Force” who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013. Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert on the organization’s website but was later mysteriously deleted.

Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby organization, as a team member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by Adam Milstein, a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC’s top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican Party.

Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the flow of Syria’s hydrocarbons for Israel’s benefit may seem shocking to some, this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a country’s oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not an isolated event, but a pattern.

War against ISIS is a war for oil

In an email dated June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S. Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush administration advisor then working at the government-funded United States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk’s oil production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country’s Kurdish region along with its regional government’s bid for autonomy.

Jeffrey, whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria are well-known, mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.’ main negotiator between Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led “anti-ISIS” coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David Satterfield.

Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey’s behind-the-scenes activities with regards to the KRG’s oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.’ pro-Israel lobby.

At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow (2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were related to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP’s creation, has had members indicted for espionage against the U.S. on Israel’s behalf.

WINEP’s launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed ‘Barbi’, she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book Jewish Power, referred to as one of a select few individuals who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside Weinberg was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.

WINEP has historically received funding from donors who donate to causes of special interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks. Its membership remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the U.S.

WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in 2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby to bring about such a war.

A worthy partner in crime

Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.

During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.

Hadley also worked with then-Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Lewis Libby — a neoconservative and former lawyer for the Mossad-agent and billionaire Marc Rich — to discredit a CIA investigation into claims of Iraq purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger. That claim famously appeared in Bush’s State of the Union address in 2002.

What this particular claim had in common with the ‘Iraq meets Atta in Prague’ disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.

The distribution network of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been promoted by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle — an advisor to WINEP — who had been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel’s explicit benefit for decades.

In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to the government for implementation as policy, Hadley’s resume was impressive.

Israeli interests pursued through covert channels

Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey’s intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk’s oil production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.

Jeffrey’s email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later sale to Israel.

Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries, ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.

In July 2014, the KRG began confidently supplying Kurdish areas with Kirkuk’s oil per the plan laid out by Jeffrey in the aforementioned email. Baghdad soon became aware of the arrangement and lashed out at Israel and Turkey, whose banks were used by the KRG to receive the oil revenue from Israel.

One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power with strategic ties to ISIS used its close ties to the KRG and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that ISIS would ‘cooperate’ and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.

This foreign power — acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq’s government — was quite clearly Israel.

Israel established considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals with direct ties to Israeli intelligence. These same groups, sometimes promoted as ‘moderates’ by some media, were actively fighting Syria’s government – an enemy of Israel and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and eagerly partnered with ISIS when it expanded its campaign into Syria.

Furthermore, Israeli officials have publicly admitted maintaining regular communication with ISIS cells in Southern Syria and have publicly expressed their desire that ISIS not be defeated in the country. In Libya, Israeli Mossad operatives have been found embedded within ISIS, suggesting that Israel has covert but definite ties with the group outside of Syria as well.

Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq’s Kurds with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as far back as the 1960s. More recently, Israel was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq’s government subsequently militarily defeated the KRG’s push for statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk’s oil fields with assistance from the Shia paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.

Iraq ISIS control map

A 2014 map shows the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | Telegraph

This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq’s Baghdad-based government.

WINEP’s close association with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey’s long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey’s plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel’s total oil imports during the KRG’s occupation of Kirkuk.

The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel’s adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.

Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel’s benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.

SOURCE: MINT PRESS NEWS
 
Gruesome Details Emerge of Israel’s Torture of Palestinian Prisoners

One prisoner was hospitalized for kidney failure and 11 broken ribs. Another had his genitals bitten by a security dog while a third man was left wheelchair-bound and unrecognizable.

by Whitney Webb
February 12th, 2020

Link: https://www.mintpressnews.com/gruesome-details-israel-torture-palestinian-detainees/264857/

New allegations have surfaced claiming that Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet or Shabak, is engaged in the brutal torture of Palestinian detainees, despite the practice being against both Israeli and international law. The new accusations, deemed “very credible” by both Israeli and Palestinian rights groups, come amid a recorded spike in the use of torture on Palestinian detainees by Israeli authorities.

The latest cases involve three Palestinian men who were detained as part of the extensive manhunt that followed an August 23 bombing that killed an Israeli settler and teenager Rina Shnerb. The three men, living in the occupied West Bank, were detained per Israel’s controversial practice of “administrative detention,” whereby Israel may detain an individual for months or even years without charging them with a crime.

The lawyers and family members of the three main suspects have asserted that all three men suspected of links to the bombing had been tortured to the point of needing hospitalization, with one of them being admitted for kidney failure and 11 broken ribs before subsequently being returned to the custody of Israeli interrogators. Another of the men had his genitals bitten by a security dog while the third man was wheelchair-bound and unrecognizable to his wife when he appeared in a courtroom.

While these three Palestinian men’s experiences are extreme cases, the same Shin Bet investigation also tortured several other detainees in less severe ways but nonetheless left them traumatized. Those detainees were released after weeks in detention and were never charged. Shin Bet also arrested family members of detainees and, in some cases, paraded them in front of detainees in order to create the impression that their wives and children would also undergo the same harsh treatment.

Though the manhunt and resulting torture of Palestinian suspects took place months ago, reporting on the incidents was delayed due to an Israeli court-mandated gag order that was renewed multiple times since it was first issued last September. That gag order, in effect for well over three months, also made court proceedings of the three main suspects in the case closed to the public and prevented family members from attending court, with few exceptions.

A spike in torture

The alleged torturing of prisoners in connection to the August 23 bombing occurred during a period when the use of torture of West Bank Palestinians by Shin Bet spiked dramatically, according to the Palestinian prisoner rights organization Adameer, which issued a report last month that contained hard evidence of “the systematic use of torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian detainees at the Al-Mascobiyya interrogation center.

The torture of detainees, though often denied by Israeli officials, is technically illegal. Yet, a loophole provided in the same 1999 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that made the practice illegal has allowed it to continue, as the ruling only prohibited torture of detainees unless there was suspicion of an imminent attack. This loophole has routinely been used by Shin Bet, especially given that Shin Bet officials who engage in the practice have done so for decades with impunity. Indeed, while over one thousand official complaints against the Shin Bet related to its use of torture have been filed since 2001, only one has ever gone to court — a 2017 case which is still open.

In addition, the use of torture has been supported by a cadre of doctors who work with Shin Bet by approving brutal interrogation tactics, falsifying medical reports and engaging in other activities that provide justifications for the use of extreme and internationally-condemned interrogation methods. Their support would also likely help protect Shin Bet officials in the event that more of these torture cases ever went to court.

One likely reason for the culture of the impunity is the tacit approval of a large portion of the Israeli populace regarding the use of torture on those deemed “enemy combatants.” For instance, one poll of youth between the ages of 20 and 35 conducted in 16 countries last month found that Israeli youths were by far the most supportive of the use of torture, with only 23 percent of Israeli respondents opposing the practice, compared to the international average of 55 percent.

As to why the last few months have seen a spike in reports of the torture of Palestinian prisoners, the answer is not entirely clear. One possible explanation could be related to the U.S.-Israeli push to enact the so-called “Deal of the Century” as well as the current political upheaval in Israeli that has seen the country awaiting its third election in less than a year, as embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to promote his tough-on-crime and security-focused stances during the prolonged election season.
 
Israel prevents Palestinians from combating COVID-19

Friday, 03 April 2020 8:14 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 03 April 2020 8:14 PM ]

Link: https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020...prevents-Palestinians-from-combating-COVID-19

By Robert Inlakesh

As the COVID-19 pandemic death toll grows and the number of those infected creeps past one million confirmed cases, worldwide, the Palestinian health workers of Gaza and the West Bank try desperately to prevent the spread of the virus in the occupied territories. Unfortunately, however, this effort has been severely compromised by the Israeli occupation forces.

An issue almost completely overlooked by Western corporate media, is the issue of Israeli persecution of Palestinians during the ongoing pandemic. This major cover-up comes despite the fact that there is currently round the clock coverage of the impacts of the novel coronavirus.

Israel has continued its brutal policies of mistreatment of Palestinian political prisoners, massive arrest campaigns, break-ins, killings, bombings and even crimes specific to the pandemic, which we are currently living through, such as the destroying emergency clinics which have been set up to deal with the virus outbreak and also the dumping sick Palestinians outside of checkpoints.

If ever there was a time that the world would see unity between the oppressed and the oppressors, it would surely be at a time when the whole world is collectively under attack by an enemy of the collective which is not only infecting and killing people, but destroying the world economy. However, unfortunately, this has not been the case between Palestinians and the Israeli occupation.

Just in the past few weeks alone, Israeli occupation forces have continued arresting and detaining Palestinian minors in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds. Also continuing to raid and attack Palestinians who are attempting to self isolate and practice social distancing in order to combat the spread of COVID-19.

On Sunday the 22nd of March, Israeli occupation forces killed a 32 year old Palestinian man, from the village of Nilin (near central Ramallah), in the West Bank. The 32 year old was shot in the head whilst driving his car and according to his family was simply running errands. Since then, dozens more have been shot and severely injured.

Palestinian political prisoners who are currently being held in Israeli prisoners are also fearful for their lives, some announcing hunger strikes over the lack of precautionary measures taken by the Israeli prisons. All Palestinian prisoners will now be essentially in the dark, as social distancing measures are in place, preventing any physical communication with loved ones. On top of this, a recently released Palestinian prisoner has, according to reports, tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Israeli artillery strikes have also been reported as having hit three different areas inside of the illegally besieged Gaza Strip, just last week. Israel claimed this came after an unspecified number of rockets were fired, no damage was reported inside of Israel however. This bombardment of Gaza ignores the UN global call for ceasefire, which Israel has joined the likes of Saudi Arabia and the United States in already abandoning. Israel has continued running mock raids on Gaza since last week's airstrikes.

Israel has also been documented as having dumped Palestinians who work in illegal settlements, randomly, outside checkpoints after the workers have displayed signs of sickness. One specific case gathering a lot of attention on social media, the Palestinian Health Ministry later confirmed that the man who had been featured in the video, did not test positive for the virus.

What Israel shows with its dealings with sick Palestinian workers, demonstrates its clearly racist views towards Palestinians, treating Palestinians as if they were animals that can be simply discarded of if they seem to pose a health risk.

According to Israeli Human Rights Organization BTselem, on the 26th of March, the Israeli military stormed the Palestinian village of Khirbet Ibziq, accompanied by a military escort with a bulldozer and two cranes, which they used to demolish an emergency clinic and community housing. The facilities were created to deal with the outbreak of the virus, which the Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, are ill-equipped to deal with in the event that the disease becomes more wide spread. The Israeli forces also confiscated equipment being used to combat the spread of COVID-19 on that day.

These are but only a sample of the problems faced by Palestinians under occupation, when it comes to dealing with the outbreak of COVID-19. But without using more examples of racist persecution, it is essential that we ask the question; that if Israel cannot put aside its dehumanizing tactics used against the Palestinian people now and cannot put aside its racism during a global pandemic, what will defeat this divisive mentality of the occupier?
 
Torture of Palestinian prisoners: Time to end Israel’s impunity

contact@ifamericansknew.org  February 12, 2021

Link: https://israelpalestinenews.org/torture-of-palestinian-prisoners-time-to-end-israels-impunity/

(Palestinians demonstrate in support of Samer Arbeed in Jerusalem in October 2019 (AFP))

Samer Arbeed’s case is just the latest example of Israeli forces going unpunished for vicious human rights abuses. It is time for both Israeli society and the international community to speak up against Israel’s continued use of torture against Palestinians and others, along with the impunity given to perpetrators of this heinous crime.

•Reporter Grace Halsell first exposed this in the 1970s
•Foreign Service Journal reported on Israeli torture of Americans in 2002

By Tal Steiner, reposted from the Middle East Eye

On 25 September 2019, a Palestinian man was arrested by Israeli soldiers and transferred to the Russian Compound detention facility in Jerusalem for interrogation by Israel’s internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet.

Samer Arbeed’s arrest marked the beginning of a wave of arrests in the ensuing months throughout the occupied West Bank. Later, media publications would describe this operation as a crackdown on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was allegedly linked to the murder of Rina Schnerb, a young Israeli woman killed in a bombing attack earlier that year.

The Shin Bet was eager to expose the alleged PFLP network – perhaps too eager. For two days after his arrest, Arbeed, who had been otherwise healthy at the time of his arrest, was brought to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital in critical condition, suffering from kidney failure and broken ribs. He was placed on a respirator until his condition stabilised, and then, to the shame of the military court that approved it, sent back to the custody of the Shin Bet.

Severe pain and suffering

What happened to Arbeed between his arrest and his arrival at the hospital is an open secret: all signs indicate that he was tortured by Shin Bet agents. He and other suspects were reportedly forced into “stress positions” used routinely by Shin Bet agents, as documented in hundreds of testimonies gathered by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.

One such position is the “banana”, in which the subject of interrogation is bent over a chair, hands, and legs chained together underneath; even a few minutes in this position can cause severe pain and suffering, without leaving visible marks. But forensic medicine shows that kidney failure can be associated with the use of stress positions, where the strained muscles release acid into the bloodstream that the body cannot handle.

Our expectation was that when a person was brought to near-death while in the hands of the Shin Bet, the Israeli legal system would jolt into action, investigate and press charges. Otherwise, how could Israel maintain that torture was prohibited in its territory and that perpetrators would be held accountable?

Indeed, Israel’s attorney general ordered an investigation into the matter, but it concluded on 24 January with a decision to close the case “in the absence of sufficient evidence to prove an offence”.

A dangerous message

On the one hand, why should we be surprised by this, when according to data collected by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, of more than 1,300 complaints by interrogation subjects against Shin Bet agents, no charges were laid for torture or abuse? Only one even resulted in a criminal investigation, while the rest were dismissed after a “preliminary examination”.

On the other hand, one cannot underestimate the gravity of this decision, where a person almost lost his life while in the custody of the Israeli authorities – but the people who brought him there receive full impunity.

Internally, the attorney general’s decision sends a message to all Israeli security agents that the system will back them, no matter how outrageous, brutal and dangerous their actions. Indeed, Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman later gave his full support to the interrogators, saying they “carried out their mission professionally, in a statesmanlike manner and according to law, and in their action saved the lives of many Israelis”.

Internationally, the decision proves beyond a doubt that Israel lacks the ability – or rather, the motivation – to meet its obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which aims to abolish torture and condemn those who commit it.

Illegal under any circumstances

It is time for both Israeli society and the international community to speak up against Israel’s continued use of torture against Palestinians and others, along with the impunity given to perpetrators of this heinous crime.

It is time to acknowledge that while Israel – and many other countries – has a right to protect its citizens, not all measures are fair. Torture is wrong and illegal under any circumstances.

Tal Steiner, an Israeli citizen, is the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel

RELATED READING:
•Israeli soldiers take ‘selfie’ with Injured Palestinian prisoners
•New Israel Supreme Court ruling gives further backing to use of torture
•Israel vows to ‘worsen’ conditions for Palestinian prisoners
•What Christians Don’t Know About Israel
•The Prevalence of Torture in Israel
•Special Report: Israel’s Treatment of Americans
•WATCH: Daily Life in Occupied Palestine


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Leaked audio: Iran's foreign minister reveals John Kerry disclosed secrets about Israel attacking Iranian interests

News Kickby News Kick-9 hours ago in News 0 comments

Link: http://www.tathasta.com/2021/04/leaked-audio-irans-foreign-minister.html
  
Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly disclosed to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that Israel, one of America's closest allies, was behind more than 200 attacks on Iranian interests in the Middle East.

The stunning detail was buried deep within a New York Times story reporting on leaked audio that surfaced Sunday, revealing the "behind-the scenes power struggles of Iranian leaders," according to the Times.

More from the Times:

The recording, of a conversation in March between Mr. Zarif and an economist named Saeed Leylaz, an ally, was not meant for publication, as the foreign minister can repeatedly be heard saying on the audio. A copy was leaked to the London-based Persian news channel Iran International, which first reported on the recording and shared it with The New York Times.

What are the details?

Buried at the bottom of the Times' story, the newspaper reported the audio revealed that Kerry had disclosed sensitive intelligence about Israel to Zarif. The report did not provide additional context.

However, the story indicated that Zarif was astonished that Kerry would provide him with such information.

"Former Secretary of State John Kerry informed him that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, to his astonishment, Mr. Zarif said," the Times reported.

Israel's attacks on Iran are no surprise. After all, routinely sabotaging Iran's military and government projects is a matter of survival for Israel, a country that Iranian leaders routinely vow to demolish.

In fact, it is no secret that Israel is behind many strategic attacks on Iran, such as the recent targeting of Iran's Natanz nuclear facility or the surprise assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, one of Iran's top nuclear scientists who played a critical role in Iran's nuclear weapons program.

What is surprising, though, is that Kerry would disclose details about Israel's secret military missions to Iran, an enemy of both Israel and the U.S. The behavior raises eyebrows especially considering Kerry has rejoined the government, this time as Biden's special envoy on climate.

Anything else?

Among other spicy details disclosed by the audio is that Zarif is a relatively weak figure.

In fact, Zarif himself admitted that Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is the real force of power in Iran, whose leaders "call the shots, overruling many government decisions and ignoring advice," according to the Times.

This revelation underscores the significance of the U.S. killing Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, last January.

But the leaked audio was also published at a critical time for Iran, whose diplomats are currently engaged in negotiations to re-enter a nuclear deal with the U.S. and American allies. The audio could undermine the negotiations.

"This ties the hands of the negotiators," Sina Azodi, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the Times. "It represents Zarif as someone who is not trustworthy domestically, and overall paints a picture that Iran's foreign policy is dictated by theater policies of the military and Zarif is a nobody."
 
‘Israel is not a country, but a terrorist camp,’ Iran’s leader Khamenei says

7 May, 2021 14:14

Link: https://www.rt.com/news/523188-iran-khamenei-israel-quds/

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has blasted Israel as nothing more than a “terrorist camp” and urged the Palestinians to unite their efforts in fighting Tel Aviv.

Israel has “turned occupied Palestine into a base for terrorism,” Khamenei tweeted.

“Israel isn’t a county; it’s a #TerroristCamp against Palestinians & other Muslim nations,” he wrote, adding that it was “everyone’s responsibility” to fight against it.

Since day 1, Zionists turned occupied Palestine into a base for terrorism. Israel isn’t a country; it’s a #TerroristCamp against Palestinians & other Muslim nations. Fighting this despotic regime is fighting against oppression & terrorism. And this is everyone’s responsibility.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) May 7, 2021Q

Khamenei made his comments on the so-called Quds Day, an annual day designated by Iran to mark support for the Palestinian independence movement.

In follow-up tweets, the Iranian leader urged Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and in Gaza to “form a single unit” and “use the tools at their disposal” against Israel despite Tel Aviv signing normalization agreements with several Arab countries last year.

Khamenei said that Palestinians must demand a referendum, during which “original residents” of all ethnicities and religions will vote on a new “political system.”

Also on rt.com Iran decries ‘cherry-picked’ & ‘illegal’ reports of classified chat that claim foreign minister revealed power struggles with army
Iran previously blamed Israel for a major blackout on its chief nuclear site in Natanz in April. Officials in Tehran often accuse Tel Aviv of carrying out acts of sabotage and assassinations on Iranian soil.

Israel says that Iran uses Palestinians and its proxies in Syria to attack Israeli citizens. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Iran was behind the February explosion on board Israeli-owned cargo vessel MV Helios Ray, which occurred as the ship was sailing in the Gulf of Oman.
 
Israel’s New Mossad Chief Threatens More Assassinations and Attacks Inside Iran

David Barnea said Iran's civilian nuclear program will 'continue feeling Mossad's might'

by Dave DeCamp/ Posted on June 1, 2021/Categories News/Tags Iran

Link: https://news.antiwar.com/2021/06/01...-more-assassinations-and-attacks-inside-iran/

On Tuesday, the new head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency suggested more Israeli covert attacks and assassinations inside Iran should be expected even as the US and other world powers are negotiating a revival of the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

“The Iranian program will continue feeling Mossad’s might. We are well acquainted with the nuclear program and its various components, we know personally the factors that operate in it and also the forces that drive them,” David Barnea said at his swearing-in ceremony, as quoted by Israel’s Ynet.

Barnea said the JCPOA negotiations show that Israel might have to act alone against Iran. “The agreement with world powers that is taking shape only reinforces the sense of isolation in which we find ourselves on this issue,” he said. “I say it clearly — no, we do not intend to act according to the majority opinion since this majority will not bear the consequences for the erroneous assessment of this threat.”

Israel has a long history of covert attacks inside Iran. Most recently, Israel sabotaged Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, causing an explosion. The attack took place in April when the US and Iran began indirect negotiations in Vienna to restore the JCPOA. Last November, Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was gunned down in an apparent Israeli plot as tensions between the US and Iran were simmering in the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Yossi Cohen, Israel’s outgoing Mossad chief, also spoke on Tuesday and boasted about Israeli actions against Iran that took place under his watch. “We penetrated into the heart of hearts of the enemy Iran,” he said. “We acted to constantly gather intelligence and uncover its secrets, and undermined its self-confidence and haughtiness.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chimed in at the ceremony and said he was willing to attack Iran’s nuclear program even if it risked “friction” with the US. “If we have to choose, I hope it doesn’t happen, between friction with our great friend the United States and eliminating the existential threat — eliminating the existential threat,” he said.

The Israeli officials all claim Iran is moving quickly to develop a nuclear bomb. But if that were truly their concern, Israel would favor a revival of the JCPOA since it strictly limits Tehran’s nuclear program.
 
The Media Yawns at the Israeli Army's Death Squads

By Gideon Levy

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56686.htm

August 02, 2021"Information Clearing House" - "Haaretz" Israeli terror is at it again. The Israel Defense Forces’ death squads chalked up another successful week: four bodies of innocent Palestinians piled up between the two Fridays. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the four incidents in which four sons were killed, but the link cannot be broken.

In all these cases, soldiers chose shooting to kill as the preferred option. In all four cases another way could have been chosen: Arrest them, aim for the legs, don’t do anything or simply don’t be there at all. But the soldiers chose to kill. It’s probably easier for them that way.

They come from different branches of the army with different backgrounds, but they share the incredible ease with which they kill, whether they have to or not.

They kill because they can. They kill because they’re convinced that this is how they’re expected to act. They kill because they know that nothing is cheaper than the life of a Palestinian. They kill because they know that the Israeli media will yawn and not report a thing. They kill because they know that no harm will come to them, so why not? Why not kill a Palestinian when possible?

They killed a 12-year-old boy and a 41-year-old plumber. They killed a 17-year-old youth and a 20-year-old young man attending a funeral, all in one week. An Israeli slogan during the 1948 war went “To arms, every good man,” leading later to the concept of the IDF’s “purity of arms.” Four in one week, for no reason, with no hesitation, with no terrorist facing them. Four executions of young men with dreams, families, plans and loves.

None of the four endangered the soldiers, certainly not in a way that justified lethal fire. Thirteen bullets at a car driving by innocently, carrying a father and his three small children. Shooting a plumber holding a wrench and claiming that he was “moving rapidly toward the soldiers.” Three bullets at the stomach of a 17-year-old who was on his way to take his brother home.

All this can be called terror; there is no other definition. All this can be called the actions of death squads; there is no other description. It sounds horrible, but it really is horrific.

It could be less horrific if the Israeli media bothered to report on it, possibly shocking Israelis. It could be much less horrific if IDF commanders took the necessary steps given their army’s murderous recklessness. But most of the media believed that the killing of a child interests no one or is unimportant, or both, so this shocking incident wasn’t reported on.

If the soldiers had shot a dog – also a shocking act, of course – it would have attracted more attention. But a dead Palestinian child? What happened? Why should it interest anyone, why is it important?

“Are you working for the Arabs?” journalist Yinon Magal maliciously tweeted, addressing Haaretz’s Hagar Shezaf, virtually the only journalist who covered the boy’s funeral. This is the new journalistic ethos: Reporting the truth is tantamount to working for the Arabs.
 
Israel’s ongoing “Water War” against Palestinians

contact@ifamericansknew.org  August 19, 2021  Beita, ein al-hilweh, ethnic cleansing, mekorot, Shadi Omar Salim, water shortage

Link: https://israelpalestinenews.org/israels-ongoing-water-war-against-palestinians-ethnic-cleansing/

Israel has conducted a war for control over Palestinian water resources ever since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967.

Israel controls water resources from the river to the sea, illegally pilfering water from Palestinian aquifers and selling it back at exorbitant prices to Palestinians. Israel’s “water war” is just a facet of its ongoing settler-colonial project to make life unbearable for Palestinians, and ultimately replace them with Israeli Jews.

by Ramzy Baroud, reposted from Palestine Chronicle, August 11, 2021

There is an ongoing, but hidden, Israeli war on the Palestinians which is rarely highlighted or even known. It is a water war, which has been in the making for decades.

On July 26 and 27, two separate but intrinsically linked events took place in the Ein al-Hilweh area in the occupied Jordan Valley, and near the town of Beita, south of Nablus.

In the first incident, Jewish settlers from the illegal settlement of Maskiyot began construction in the Ein al-Hilweh Spring, which has been a source of freshwater for villages and hundreds of Palestinian families in that area. The seizure of the spring has been developing for months, all under the watchful eye of the Israeli occupation army.

Now, the Ein al-Hilweh Spring, like most of the Jordan Valley’s land and water resources, is annexed by Israel.

Less than 24 hours later, Shadi Omar Salim, a Palestinian municipal employee, was killed by Israeli soldiers in the town of Beita. The Israeli army quickly issued a statement which, expectedly, blamed the Palestinian for his own death.

The Palestinian victim approached the soldiers in a “menacing manner”, while holding “what appeared to be an iron bar,” before he was gunned down, the Israeli army claimed.

If the “iron bar” claim was true, it might be related to the fact that Salim was a water technician. Indeed, the Palestinian worker was on his way to open the pipes that supply water to Beita and other adjacent areas.

Beita, which has witnessed much violence in recent weeks, is facing an existential threat. An illegal Jewish settlement, called Givat Eviatar, is being built atop the Palestinian Sabih Mountain, in Arabic, Jabal Sabih. As usual, whenever a Jewish settlement is constructed, Palestinian life and livelihood are threatened. Thus, the ongoing Palestinian protests in the area.

The struggle of Beita is a representation of the wider Palestinian struggle: unarmed civilians fighting against a settler-colonial state that ultimately wishes to replace a Palestinian village or town with a Jewish settlement.

There is another facet to what may seem a typical story, where the Israeli army and Jewish settlers work together to ethnically cleanse Palestinians: Mekorot. The latter is a state-owned Israeli water company that literally steals Palestinian water and sells it back to the Palestinians at an exorbitant price.

Unsurprisingly, Mekorot operates near Beita as well. The Palestinian worker, Salim, was killed because his job of supplying water to the people of Beita was a direct threat to Israeli colonial designs in this region.

Let us put this in a larger context. Israel does not just occupy Palestinian land, it also systematically usurps all of its resources, including water, in flagrant violation of international law which guarantees the fundamental rights of an occupied nation.

The occupied West Bank obtains most of its water from the Mountain Aquifer, which is divided into three smaller aquifers: the Western Aquifer, the Eastern Aquifer and the North-Eastern Aquifer. In theory, Palestinians have plenty of water, at least enough to meet the minimally-required water allotment of 102-120 liters per day, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). In practice, however, this is hardly the case. Sadly, most of the water in these aquifers is appropriated directly by Israel. Some call it “water capture”; Palestinians call it, more accurately, “theft”.

Israel is winning, Palestinians are losing the water war

While in Israel the daily per capita water consumption is estimated at 300 liters, illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank consume over 800 liters per day. The latter number becomes even more outrageous if compared to the meager amount enjoyed by a Palestinian, that of 70 liters per day.

israel water warThis problem is accentuated in the so-called ‘Area C’ in the West Bank, for a reason. ‘Area C’ consists of nearly 60 percent of the total size of the West Bank and, unlike ‘Areas A’ and ‘B’, it is the least populated. It is mostly fertile land and it includes the Jordan Valley, known as the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’.

Despite the fact that the Israeli government had, in 2019, decided to postpone its formal annexation of that area, a de facto annexation has been in effect for years. The illegal appropriation of the Ein al-Hilweh Spring by illegal Jewish settlers is part of a larger stratagem that aims at appropriating the Jordan Valley, one dunum, one spring, and one mountain at a time.

Of the more than 150,000 Palestinians living in ‘Area C’, nearly 40 percent – over 200 communities – suffer from “severe shortage of clean water”. That shortage can be remedied if Palestinians are allowed to drill new wells, expand current ones or to use modern technologies to allocate other sources of freshwater. Not only does the Israeli army prohibit them from doing so, even rainwater is off-limits to Palestinians.

“Israel even controls the collection of rainwater throughout most of the West Bank and rainwater harvesting cisterns owned by Palestinian communities are often destroyed by the Israeli army,” an Amnesty International report, published in 2017, concluded.

Israel’s water war is ethnic cleansing

Since then, the situation became even worse, especially since the idea of officially annexing a third of the West Bank obtained widespread support in the Israeli Knesset and society. Now, every move made by the Israeli army and Jewish settlers in the West Bank is directed towards that end, controlling the land and its resources, denying Palestinians access to their means of survival and, ultimately, ethnically cleansing them altogether.

The Beita protests continue, despite the heavy price being paid. Last June, a 15-year-old boy, Ahmad Bani-Shamsa, was killed when an Israeli army bullet struck him in the head. At the time, Defense for Children International-Palestine issued a statement asserting that Bani-Shamsa did not pose any threat to the Israeli army.

The truth is, it is Beita that is under constant Israeli threat, as well as the Jordan Valley, ‘Area C’, the West Bank and the whole of Palestine. The protest in Beita is a protest for land rights, water rights and basic human rights. Bani-Shamsa and, later, Salim, were killed in cold blood simply because their protests were mere irritants to the grand design of colonial Israel.

The irony of it all is that Israel seems to love everything about Palestine: the land, the resources, the food and even the fascinating history, but not the indigenous Palestinians themselves.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net


ESSENTIAL READING:
•Heart-wrenching firsthand account of Israeli water criminality
•Israel says “No” to clean running water for Palestinian villages
•Israel kills Palestinian kids, then kills funeral attendee, then ransacks Defense of Children office
•This is apartheid: Jewish supremacy from the River to the Sea
•RELATED READING:
•Israel destroys water pipes in Jordan Valley
•Water headlines everywhere, and Palestinians come up dry: Israel’s latest actions against Gazans
•Collective punishment: Israel closes off Gaza’s waters to Palestinian fishing
•Israel makes childhood in Gaza a living hell

VIDEOS:
•Israeli Settlers Destroy Palestinians Ability to Live
•A Week in the Life of a Palestinian Child — October 3-9, 2019
 
Jewish Settlers Torch Dozens of Olive Trees near Nablus

August 23, 2021 Blog, News
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Link: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/jewish-settlers-torch-dozens-of-olive-trees-near-nablus-2/

Illegal settlers regularly set fire to Palestinian lands, destroying crops and olive trees. (Photo: MEMO)

Jewish settlers today torched dozens of olive trees in the town of Burin, near the West Bank city of Nablus, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Eyewitnesses told WAFA that a group of settlers set fire to dozens of olive trees belonging to Akram Omran in the southern part of the town.

The settlers came from Yitzhar, an illegal settlement notorious for its ******** religious community.

Israeli settlers torch dozens of olive trees in Nablus https://t.co/hOGXs3kcZG

— Joe Catron (@jncatron) August 23, 2021

Burin town has been the scene of frequent settler attacks, including cutting down fully grown olive trees, setting fire to fields and crops, stealing the olive harvest, attacking olive harvesters and foreign volunteers, and hurling Molotov Cocktails toward houses in the town.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is commonplace in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

The number of settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion has tripled since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
 

Details of massacres against Palestinians revealed in classified Israeli documents​

An investigative report produced by Israeli-daily Haaretz and the Akevot Institute examined 2 large-scale operations launched by Israeli forces in October 1948

December 10, 2021 at 4:27 pm | Published in: Israel, Middle East, News, Palestine, Videos & Photo Stories

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/2...ans-revealed-in-classified-israeli-documents/

Israeli government discussions on the massacres perpetrated by Israeli soldiers in 1948 were declassified for the first time this week in an investigative report published by Haaretz and the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research.

Entitled, Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in '48 – and What Israeli Leaders Knew, the report exposes two large-scale operations launched by the army in October 1948, one based in the south, known as Operation Yoav, which opened a road to the Negev; and another in the north, Operation Hiram.

As part of the latter, within 30 hours Israeli soldiers attacked dozens of Palestinian villages, forcefully expelling tens of thousands of Palestinian residents, while thousands of others fled.

Nearly 120,000 Palestinians, including the elderly, women and children resided in the area, however, following Israel's massacre only 30,000 Palestinians were left.

READ: Report indicts Israeli health staff in disappearance of Yemenite babies

"Within less than three days, the IDF [army] had conquered the Galilee and also extended its reach into villages in southern Lebanon. The overwhelming majority of them took no part in the fighting," reported Haaretz.

The investigation also revealed accounts regarding previously unknown massacres that took place in the villages of Al-Reineh, just north of Nazareth, Meron and in Al-Burj.

Before the brutal attacks against Palestinians during Operation Hiram, the village of Al-Burj, presently known as Modi'in Illit, a large ultra-Orthodox settlement in the occupied West Bank, was raided in July 1948.

According to a document found in the Yad Yaari Archive, four elderly men remained in the village after its capture. "Hajj Ibrahim, who helped out in the military kitchen, a sick elderly woman and another elderly man and elderly woman."

Eight days after the village was raided by Israeli occupation forces, Ibrahim was sent on an errand to pick vegetables by an Israeli soldier, in order to keep him away from the atrocity the soldiers were ready to commit.

"The three others were taken to an isolated house. Afterward an anti-tank shell was fired. When the shell missed the target, six hand grenades were thrown into the house. They killed an elderly man and woman, and the elderly woman was put to death with a firearm," according to the document.

READ: Israel faces no delegitimisation threats

"Afterward they torched the house and burned the three bodies. When Hajj Ibrahim returned with his guard, he was told that the three others had been sent to the hospital in Ramallah. Apparently he didn't believe the story, and a few hours later he too was put to death, with four bullets," added the document.

The declassified State Archives also consist of several pages of minutes from those years, including the testimony of Shmuel Mikunis, a member of the Provisional State Council (predecessor to the Knesset) from the Communist Party, who reported on the atrocities perpetrated in the Meron region.

Mikunis requested clarification from former Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion about acts that had been carried out by members of the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun.

According to the declassified documents, "A. They annihilated with a machine gun 35 Arabs who had surrendered to that company with a white flag in their hands. B. They took as captives peaceful residents, among them women and children, ordered them to dig a pit, pushed them into it with long French bayonets and shot the unfortunates until they were all murdered. There was even a woman with an infant in her arms. C. Arab children of about 13-14 who were playing with grenades were all shot. D. A girl of about 19-20 was raped by men from Altalena [an Irgun unit]; afterward she was stabbed with a bayonet and a wooden stick was thrust into her body."

The declassified documents, investigated in Haartez's report also includes details on the Hula massacre in Lebanon and the depopulated Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. Though the report is lengthy, the paper highlights that many more details remain unknown; "This is not surprising, considering how much material remains locked away in the archives," it explained.
 

In Gaza, an application languishes, and a toddler dies​

By JOSEPH KRAUSS and FARES AKRAMApril 15, 2022 GMT

Link: https://apnews.com/article/health-m...s-gaza-strip-3ae5abe4acd6467ed2e27733d056ddc6


Jalal al-Masri holds a picture of his daughter, Fatma, a 19-month-old who was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in December 2021, and died as the family waited another three months for an Israeli permit to take her for treatment outside the Gaza Strip, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. The death of Fatma has shone a light on the struggles faced by Palestinians from the isolated territory who require urgent medical care. Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power there nearly 15 years ago. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Jalal al-Masri and his wife spent eight years and their life savings on fertility treatments in order to have their daughter, Fatma. When she was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in December, they waited another three months for an Israeli permit to take her for treatment outside the Gaza Strip.

The permit never came. The 19-month-old died on March 25.

“When I lost my daughter, I felt there is no more life in Gaza,” al-Masri said, his voice trembling. “The story of my daughter will happen again and again.”

Israel grants permits for what it defines as life-saving treatment to Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007.
But families must negotiate an opaque and uncertain bureaucratic process. Applications are submitted through the Palestinian Authority, reports must be stamped, paperwork processed. In the end, all the al-Masris got was a text message from the Israeli military saying the application is “being examined.”
 

‘A Dangerous Message’: How the West Is Enabling Israel’s Orgy of Violence Against Palestinians​

There can be no clearer demonstration of the hollowness of western values than in the persistent, cynical and criminal failure to bring Israel to book for its actions​

By David Hearst
Global Research, August 15, 2022
Middle East Eye 10 August 2022

Link: https://www.globalresearch.ca/dange...el-orgy-violence-against-palestinians/5790185

gaza-child-400x268.jpg

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***
It is increasingly clear that Gaza paid the price for an Israeli military campaign in the West Bank that has little to do with it.
In an orgy of violence, Israel reversed a strategy – which it has been pursuing for decades – of dividing the Palestinians into different camps. It is now forcing them to reunite.

Israel clearly intended to provoke a wave of missile strikes with the arrest of Bassam al-Saadi, a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group (PIJ). For three days, the PIJ did not react. Saadi had been arrested seven times before and even leaked footage of him being dragged by soldiers did not ignite passions. There were no protests in the West Bank.
Israel then launched its attack on Friday afternoon, killing Taiseer al-Jabari, the commander of the northern division of al-Quds Brigades (Saraya al-Quds), the military wing of the PIJ, along with five-year-old Alaa Qaddoum, a 23-year-old woman, and seven other Palestinian men.
By the standards of this long and bitter conflict, Israel’s attack on Gaza was unprovoked. There is no evidence to support the contention that Jabari was preparing an attack on Israeli tanks.
Only three hours after the strikes on Gaza did the PIJ unleash a rocket barrage, but Hamas’s much larger rocket force remained in its silos.
All of the targets of this campaign are local commanders and relative unknowns, even to Ran Kochav, the spokesperson for the Israeli army who forgot Jabari’s name on live television on Saturday.
But if the campaign to defang the West Bank is clear, it is equally the case that such an operation would provoke the very uprising it is designed to stem. An armed uprising in the West Bank is no longer a matter of if, only when. This is not just a consequence of the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, whose writ no longer runs in Jenin, or indeed Nablus. Both cities have formed their own brigades.

A leadership deficit

The formation of new armed cells in territory which has largely eschewed armed resistance since 2007 reflects not only the collapse of the PA, but a leadership deficit within all Palestinian factions, PIJ and Hamas included.
The cells themselves may be “inspired” by the Islamic Jihad movement but their members come from all groups, including Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Put simply, the West Bank is bristling with guns, most of which can be acquired easily on the Israeli market. A new generation of Palestinians is trading in their cars, careers and, ultimately, their own lives for them.
This decision has little to do with the weight of history. It has more to do with the burden of the present.

If recognising Israel does not work; if Israel is disinterested in talks that lead to a Palestinian state; if every time Israeli forces attack, the outside world commends it for doing so; if vigilante gangs of settlers destroy your olive trees and your houses under the armed protection of Israeli soldiers; if the law that applies to those gangs is civilian, but the law applying to you, who are unarmed, is military; if your own leaders are corrupt, and refuse to hold elections for decades for fear of the popular vote: what else is there left for you to do? Surrender? Leave for London?
Israel is under a profound delusion if it thinks that Palestinians will just melt away. This is the last thing on this generation’s mind. They will stand and fight. It’s not flight they are thinking of, but liberation.

Global abandonment

Palestinians are as globally connected as any other generation of youths around the world. What exactly is the message world leaders are giving them in their fact-free reactions to the latest bombardments?
US President Joe Biden reacted as follows:
“My support for Israel’s security is long-standing and unwavering – including its right to defend itself against attacks.
“Over these recent days, Israel has defended its people from indiscriminate rocket attacks launched by the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the United States is proud of our support for Israel’s Iron-Dome, which intercepted hundreds of rockets and saved countless lives. I commend Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his government’s steady leadership throughout the crisis.”
The statement, which is worth reading in full, had no expression of concern about Israel shooting first. Lapid’s actions were commendable.
Or what about Britain’s prime minister to be, Liz Truss? As these events were unfolding, Truss addressed Conservative Friends of Israel with these words:
“The UK stands by Israel and its right to defend itself.” In her letter to the group, she added: “We condemn terrorist groups firing at civilians and violence which has resulted in casualties on both sides.”
To rub salt into the wound, Truss promised to review the location of Britain’s embassy, which is currently in Tel Aviv – an act which would consign what small role the UK had as a peacemaker or mediator in this conflict to the ashes. There is no domestic pressure for her to do this.
The EU acknowledged that the escalation had already led to “a number of casualties” but did not say who they were and which side caused them. France “deplored” the Palestinian civilian casualties, but condemned “the firing of rockets into Israeli territory and reiterates its unconditional commitment to the security of Israel”.
Only the UN and the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney broke ranks – by inches, not feet. Ireland said it was “deeply concerned” by the impact of Israeli strikes on civilians.
What message do these statements send to the families of the 45 Palestinians who have been killed in these attacks, 16 of them children? What message goes through to the hundreds injured?
In this case, Israel clearly fired first not because a Palestinian militant group had reacted. But because it did not react. That is something of a first in this conflict.
And it is applauded for doing so by the very same leaders who are arming Ukrainian resistance fighters against Russian occupiers.

A dangerous message

There can be no clearer demonstration of the hollowness of western values than in their persistent, cynical and criminally responsible failure to bring Israel to book for its actions.
This is a dangerous message to be sending both sides in the conflict, not least Israel itself.
Lapid is unlikely to lead public opinion in Israel. Israel’s next generation of soldiers are not following him, rather the likes of the Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who took part in the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque along with his supporters.
If Benjamin Netanyahu succeeds in forming the next government later this year, the extreme right – and from a group once classed by the US and Israel as terrorists – could well be in his cabinet.
By giving Lapid the greenest of green lights to kill Palestinians at will, western leaders are sending an even more dangerous message to the next generation of Israeli leaders who are openly talking of killing Arabs come what may. They openly threaten Palestinians with another Nakba.
The latest target of Israel’s operation in the West Bank is described as Israel’s most wanted man in Nablus. But Ibrahim al-Nabulsi was only 19 years old. Before the final firefight of his life, Nabulsi made an audio recording that went viral: “Preserve the homeland after me, and my commandment is for no one to leave gunpowder. I am besieged, and I am going to be martyred,” he said.
Huge crowds attended his funeral, and those of Islam Sabbouh and 16-year-old Hussein Taha, who died in the same Israeli raid.
The relief for Israel in his death will be strictly temporary. The obvious fact is that the more Palestinians Israel kills the more they provide a recruiting platform for fighters to replace them.
Elaine Abu-Shaweesh is all of five or six years old. She was injured in bombings in Rafah on Saturday. Hani Alshaer, a journalist from Gaza, caught her on video with a bloody bandage on her head, and saying: “Israel is not a state, and they are under, under, under my feet. And they are on the ground and are trash and they are not. They are bombing kids and maybe right now they have destroyed our house, because last time they did, last war.”
No one taught this little girl what to say. But come what may she will grow up to resist what is happening all around her. This is Israel’s work. It is also the world’s responsibility.
 

SHOCKING DETAILS OF ZIONIST BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGAINST PALESTINIANS EXPOSED

Link: https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking-details-israel-zionist-biological-warfare-exposed/282406/


Academics Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University and Benjamin Z. Kedar of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have produced an extraordinary paper based on a welter of archival material, exposing in disturbing detail the hitherto obfuscated dimensions of an operation by Zionist forces to use chemical and biological weapons against both invading Arab armies and local civilians during the 1948 war.
That brutal conflict created the state of Israel, and led to permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, known as the “Nakba” – Arabic for disaster, catastrophe, or cataclysm.
Morris and Kedar offer a highly granular timeline of events, starting in the initial months of that year, as Britain prepared to evacuate Mandatory Palestine on May 15. In the lead up to that date, Zionist settlers were very much on the defensive, with militias “continuously” attacking their enclaves and convoys, with the support of neighboring armies, due to their joint rejection of UN Resolution 181, passed in November 1947, which proposed partitioning Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
With Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan all having expressed an intention to invade Palestine when Britain left – and having been actively encouraged in this regard by British intelligence – Zionist guerrillas began mounting an offensive, not merely to neutralize Arab fighters, but capture territory, destroying houses and civilian infrastructure along the way, to prevent displaced residents from returning.
In order to augment the latter component of this effort, ensure Zionist seizure of Arab villages and towns was permanent, facilitate easier conquest of further areas, and hinder the progress of advancing Arab armies, these militias began poisoning wells with bacteria to create local epidemics of typhoid, dysentery, malaria and other diseases, in direct violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which strictly prohibits “the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.”
As we shall see, the Zionists were suitably emboldened by the clandestine operation’s success that they eventually attempted to expand their poisoning campaign to invading Arab armies’ home soil.

“STATE OF EXTREME DISTRESS”​

The code name of the biological warfare operation, “Cast Thy Bread” was a reference to Ecclesiastes 11:1, which directs Jews to “cast thy bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.”
The prospect of using biological weapons against the “enemy” had been percolating among the Zionist movement for some time, come the 1948 war. Three years earlier, immediately after the end of the war in Europe, Crimea-born Jewish partisan leader and poet Abba Kovner had, after reaching Palestine, hatched a plot to mass-poison Nazis, to avenge the Holocaust.
Kovner intended to either infect waterworks in German cities, or poison thousands of SS officers detained in Allied prisoner of war camps with a fatal disease. Having procured poison from two academics at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, he travelled to Europe to enact the plans, but was arrested by British security officials en-route, right after dumping his deadly cargo in the sea, and aborting his mission.
Abba Kovner
Abba Kovner, center, poses in Lithuania in July 1944, before he made is way to the Ein Ha-Horesh settlement in Palestine. Source | Yad Vashem
The former strategy resurfaced in Zionist consciousness as the prospect of a war of independence loomed, and became formalized with the creation of HEMED by Haganah, the primary Jewish paramilitary organization in Mandatory Palestine 1920 – 1948. HEMED’s three components – titled A to C – dealt with chemical and biological defense and warfare, and nuclear research.
On April 1, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, a leading figure in the Zionist movement who is regarded as the primary founder of the state of Israel, and served as its first Prime Minister, met with a senior representative of Haganah to “discuss the development of science and speeding up its application in warfare.”
Two weeks later, bacteria that would induce typhoid and dysentery among those who consumed it was distributed to Haganah operatives across Palestine. Before war even broke out on May 15, it had been used to poison water sources in Arab-held areas, the West Bank city of Jericho being the first documented instance. This was done in order to “undermine Palestinian staying power in still inhabited sites and to sow hindrances along the prospective routes of advance of invading Arab armies.”
That Zionist militants did not expect areas earmarked for Palestinians under the UN’s partition plan to remain Arab-inhabited in the event of victory in the looming war is strongly underlined by their targeting of many of these villages and towns in advance.
A vital aqueduct in Kabri that was the primary if not sole source of water for many nearby Palestinian settlements was poisoned on May 15. The paper’s authors call it “the most serious and potent use” of biological weapons during the entire 1948 War.
The historic northern city of Acre, designated part of a future Arab state by the UN, was one of the areas dependent on the aqueduct for water. The morale of its inhabitants is said by Morris and Kedar to have been “already shaky” at this juncture, due to Haganah’s recent conquest of the Arab parts of nearby Haifa, the region’s capital, and resultant flight of most of its population, many of whom took up residence in Acre.
Haifa’s capture by Zionists – achieved despite protection from British forces – cut off Acre not only from Haifa but neighboring Lebanon, and the prospect of Britain’s departure contributed to “plummeting” spirits among the population. The outbreak of a typhus epidemic, courtesy of Operation Cast Thy Bread, left Acre “in a state of extreme distress,” the city’s mayor reported on May 3. No one had the slightest clue that it had been deliberately created, for precisely this reason.

‘WHAT WAS THE POINT?’​

Morris and Kedar assert that despite the widespread campaign of biological warfare engaged in by Zionist militias across Palestine, there were comparatively few reported casualties as a result – although dozens of Palestinians, and some British soldiers, are confirmed to have been killed – and the progress of invading Arab armies was barely halted due to disease outbreaks among soldiers.
“The apparent ineffectiveness…and problems in producing and transporting the weaponised bacteria may well have curbed enthusiasm for the campaign among Israeli defence executives. What was the point?” the pair speculates.
Such conjecture is somewhat bizarre, given so many of their findings, and private communications between Haganah operatives cited elsewhere in the paper, make abundantly clear the strategy was highly valued, and proved pivotal in the permanent capture of many Arab villages, towns, and cities.
Take for instance the aforementioned Acre. One day into the war, Zionist forces attacked the city, and delivered an ultimatum: unless inhabitants capitulated, “we will destroy you to the last man and utterly.” The next night, local notables duly signed an instrument of surrender, and three-quarters of the Arab population – 13,510 out of 17,395 – were displaced in a proverbial pen stroke.
Acre Palestine
The Arab village of As Sumeiriya, on the outskirts of Acre, lay in ruins after being leveled by a demolition team in May 1948. Frank Noel | AP
Accordingly, the academics refer to a previously unpublished June 1948 report from Hanagah intelligence unit Shai, which attributed the speed and ease with which Acre fell into Zionist hands in part to the epidemic they had earlier unleashed. The city was far from unique in this regard – outbreaks of typhus, and “panic induced by rumours of the spread of the disease” was determined to be “an exacerbating factor in the evacuation” of several areas.
Hindsight can on occasion mislead, but it was not retrospective pattern recognition that led Zionist militants to eagerly expand the poisoning campaign as the war unfolded. Between June and August 1948, two pseudonymous Hanagah operatives exchanged a series of cables while the bitter battle for Jerusalem raged. One became increasingly angry at the lack of progress, imploring the other, “immediately stop your neglect of Jerusalem and take care to send Bread here [emphasis added].”
Then, on September 26, “an important Zionist executive” proposed to Ben-Gurion a wide-ranging blitz of “harassment by all means,” not only in target areas of Palestine, but also belligerent Arab countries. This counter-offensive was intended to reverse the Egyptian Army’s capture of UN-mandated Jewish territory, seize some or even all the West Bank for settlement, and prevent the return of displaced Palestinian to areas partially or wholly in Zionist control.
The utility of biological warfare in achieving those objectives was obvious, and cables initiating the literally toxic process were fired off from the highest levels of Hanagah to its assorted militias the same day. Cairo’s water supplies were a major stated destination. Plans to that effect were evidently being explored in advance elsewhere as well.
On September 21, a Hanagah operative hiding in Beirut reported to headquarters on possible targets for sabotage operations in Lebanon, including “bridges, railway tracks, water and electricity sources.”
Lebanon remained in the crosshairs for some time, even as the war neared its completion, and Zionist victory was all but assured. In January 1949, two months before the country and Israel signed an armistice agreement ending the war between them, Hanagah again tasked operatives with investigating “water sources [and] central reservoirs,” in Beirut, and “supplying maps of water pipelines” in major Lebanese and Syrian towns.

“IT’S A TRICK…”​

Clearly, then, there was very obviously a “point” to the poisoning program from the perspective of Ben-Gurion et al.
The connivance allowed the Zionists to efficaciously seize Palestinian territory, evicting Arabs from lands they had inhabited for centuries and deterring them from coming back, without firing a shot. Neither their victims – nor the international community – had no idea that the community-threatening epidemics seizing much of the region were man-made, rather than naturally occurring, either.
While it is clear from the paper certain individual militants were horrified by Cast Thy Bread and sought to curtail its operation, the relative lack of casualties cannot be chalked down to humanitarian concerns. Senior Zionists knew well the dire effects those infected by the bacteria suffered, not least because several of their own operatives contracted typhus themselves after accidentally drinking bottles containing it, believing the contents to be “gazoz”, a popular carbonated drink in the Middle East then and now.
Instead, Cast Thy Bread helped conceal the settlers’ long-term objectives of annexing land far in excess of that which had been proposed under the UN partition plan, including Palestinian territory and portions of neighboring Arab countries. Clandestine use of low death rate biological weapons meant a mass purge of civilians from these areas would appear to be voluntary and self-initiated, and could be secured without the need for large-scale massacres, or local residents being evicted at gunpoint en masse.
Ben-Gurion spelled out the Zionists’ true territorial ambitions in October 1937, following publication of Britain’s Peel Commission findings, which first advocated partitioning Palestine between Arabs and Jews. He supported the proposal, “because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole.”
Such honesty is vanishingly rare. Obscuring at all times the genocidal character of Zionism, which underpins and is absolutely fundamental to the colonial ideology, has been of the utmost importance to all its adherents ever since its inception. It is an ever-increasingly difficult facade to maintain, as the days of employing covert techniques to purge Israel and the territories it illegally occupies of Arabs are largely over. Instead, the slow-burn annihilation of Palestinians is conducted overwhelmingly in broad daylight.
As former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters found out to their immense personal, professional and political cost, the primary means by which Israel shields its systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from public scrutiny and condemnation today is via bogus accusations of anti-Semitism against detractors. Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli Education Minister and winner of the Israel Prize, explained to Democracy Now! in 2002:
It’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in [the U.S.] people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic…It’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, and to bring up the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is to justify everything we do to the Palestinians.”
The material collated by Morris and Kedar suggests this is a long-established “trick”. On May 27, 1948, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a cable to the UN Secretary General, revealing that the previous day his country’s soldiers had captured two “Zionist agents” who were attempting to contaminate springs “from which the Egyptian troops at Gaza draw their water supply,” and had “dropped typhoid and dysentery germs into the wells lying to the east of that town.”
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Acre Aqueduct was poisoned by typhoid injected by Zionists in May 1948. Source | Palestine Land Society
The cable, intercepted by Hanagan, was read out at a UN Security Council meeting later that day by Syria’s representative. In response, Major Aubrey Eban, designated representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Israel had not yet been internationally recognized and was not a member state at that time), offered a vicious riposte.
He charged that the Egyptian and Syrian governments had “chosen to associate themselves with the most depraved tradition of medieval anti-Semitic incitement – the charge that Jews had poisoned Christian wells.”
“The Security Council, we are convinced, will not wish to become a tribunal for recitations from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion offered from the words of Dr. Goebbels. We hope that the Security Council will be interested not in this contemptible incitement, but in the reality of [Arab] bombs and shells falling on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at this moment,” he added furiously.
Such an intervention may account for why, after initial press interest in the two diplomats’ caustic war of words, Cast Thy Bread remained successfully buried for almost seven-and-a-half decades subsequently, despite opaque references to the monstrous machination appearing in several autobiographies of Zionist leaders and militants from the time, and a 2003 academic article.
Indeed, the operation was so secret that even Israeli government censors were apparently unaware of its existence, so allowed numerous highly incriminating papers referencing the operation’s codename to pass by them unexpurgated, straight into the publicly accessible archives of the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Reinforcing the significance of Operation Cast Thy Bread, and the eager Zionist embrace of its grisly constituent techniques, HEMED’s biological warfare division became the formally civilian Institute for Biological Research in Nes Ziona, a town in central Israel, after the 1948 War ended. Its first director was former Haganah officer Alexander Keynan, who was intimately involved in the planning and execution of “Bread”.
Little is known about the extent or nature of Israeli biological weapons research or development today. The Institute for Biological Research has remained largely hidden from public view ever since launch, not least due to extensive security measures blocking outsider access. British investigative journalist Gordon Thomas has described a site over which no aircraft are allowed to fly, and scientists toil in laboratories deep underground creating “bottled agents of death.”
Nonetheless, it may be significant that modern Israel is one of very, very few countries in the world that is neither a signatory to the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention nor the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Could another “Cast Thy Bread” be in the literal and proverbial pipeline? At the very least, we have no reason to think it won’t be. If such a campaign was to be waged now, it would likely escape public detection even more effectively than last time.
A striking aspect of Palestinian writing about the 1948 War, identified by Morris and Kedar, is an almost total lack of reference to epidemic outbreaks at the time at all. Surviving victims of the Nakba today who contracted typhoid at the time, or had friends and relatives who did, now face the renewed indignity of learning, 74 years after the fact, they were deliberately poisoned.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

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