Zionism’s Lost Shine

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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 07, 2016 10:23 pm

How Israeli Propaganda Succeeds
April 2, 2016

Pervasive Israeli propaganda has blinded many Americans to the injustice meted out to Palestinians, a “group think” that a new documentary calls “The Occupation of the American Mind,” reviewed by Abba A. Solomon.

By Abba A. Solomon

Harriet Beecher Stowe is reputed — in Stowe family legend at least — to have been greeted by President Abraham Lincoln with, “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe’s novel that dramatized government-sanctioned human bondage, is credited, somewhat fancifully, with moving American public opinion about slavery and helping start the U.S. Civil War.

The documentary film — The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States — aims to explain why U.S. media, in contrast to most of the world’s, omits the Palestinian story, and thus why U.S. public opinion favors Israel so markedly. The film organizes the evidence in plain sight of the unnatural situation that has been maintained in U.S. news reporting — the tropes that reinforce Zionist ideology, and recognize only Jewish Israeli life as imperiled.

Roger Waters narrates that during the July 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza, lasting 51 days — using 20,000 tons of explosives — “The sheer scale of the attack provoked outrage and condemnation around the world. But in the United States the story was different. Polls showed the American people holding firm in their support for Israel.”

Aerial surveys of Gaza now show vast wastelands and ruins of that urban area, holding more than 1.8 million people, the majority exiles from present-day Israel. The film’s title, “The Occupation of the American Mind” communicates the hope that once the mechanisms are seen, they can’t be unseen.

During Israel’s operation Protective Shield (summer 2014), as during Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), the plea that “Israel has the right to defend itself” dominated American reporting. With deft editing, the film shows a risible sequence of Israeli spokesmen, American politicians (up to President Obama) and U.S. newscasters all repeating the same lines of Israeli vulnerability and Arab menace.

We can presume that by understanding the highly calculated effort of American public relations experts and Israeli officials to “explain” the asymmetry of power and suffering between Jewish nationalist forces and Arab civilians, inexorably losing homes and homeland — a passion for justice in Americans will be excited.

The United States is one gentile culture where the Zionist narrative dominates. Key to this is control of language, controlling thought. U.S. pollster Frank Luntz was commissioned to maintain this, producing a “dictionary” of language to use — a playbook for shading domination as defense.

“When a narrative is so dominant, without any visible dissent or complication, it’s extremely difficult to make clear to people that it is basically a propaganda story. How do you make that clear when the spectacle is so unrelenting and total?” asks New York University scholar Mark Crispin Miller, one of the film’s media studies experts.

What would break the spell? The New York Times made a baby step with its concession in an editorial January 2016 that the “Two-state solution” is “fading.” In a masterwork of understatement, an American official is quoted by the Times, saying of the settlements that began in late 1967 and continue in 2016, “It is starting to look like a de facto annexation.”

(Israel has moved 3/4 million Jews into the captured territories, including a surprisingly large proportion who’ve moved from the United States).

The argument that the occupied Palestinian territories are held by Israel for “security reasons” serves to screen territorial expansion, the film argues. “If you buy that (security) argument, then it’s a license to occupy indefinitely,” media and militarism critic Norman Solomon explains in the film. (Disclosure: Norman Solomon is my brother.)

The film reports the overwhelming financial contributions to American politicians advocating the Jewish nationalist narrative in Palestine, and shows clips from the many public devotionals that congressmen, cabinet members and presidents attend, to pledge what can fairly be described as Zionist allegiance.

Historian Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University says that American media provides “no sense of how this started, where the animus comes from. It’s completely inexplicable in the way it’s generally presented — these people (Palestinians) kill because they hate, and they hate because they’re irrational Muslim fanatics, or whatever.”

In American politics on this issue, we can notice things that don’t happen, as Sherlock Holmes noted the dog that didn’t bark. When American Jewish legislators speak of their devotion to Israel, no fuss follows, and brilliant non-Jewish politicians like Joe Biden have made careers steeped in American Zionism and mirroring that loyalty.

A Jan.6 article by Hillary Clinton for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles is an example of the predominant way of relating to Israel/Palestine by centrist U.S. politicians. Her alignment with Israel is slavish, with a promise to raise the U.S.-Israel relationship to “the next level.” Clinton proclaims her “deep emotional connection with Israel.”

The procession of American presidential candidates at last week’s American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington (except for Sen. Bernie Sanders) gave a graphic demonstration of the place of Israel as something like an honorary U.S. state.

I hypothesize one contributing reason for the American atmosphere: for some American Jews, Jewish statehood is integral to their Jewish identity. Most Americans have not known Palestinians or Arabs, so making sense of the situation requires relating to what they do know — fellow Americans who are Jews. From that perspective, Americans can imagine Israel as just like the American Jews who are their neighbors, friends, and associates, with no idea of the complexities.

American demographic changes require that Arab-Americans remain a dangerous Other, for the phenomenon of Israeli-American “twinning” to continue. Otherwise, countervailing sympathy and empathy with Arabs will operate. For Israel’s purposes, Syria’s chaos and evisceration is a godsend, associating Arabs with danger.

With more exposure, the Ku Klux Klan-like behavior of settlers in the occupied Judea and Samaria and the Klan-like blending of religious identity and bigotry in Jewish supremacism may repulse Americans. However, for Americans to understand the Israeli violence systematically unleashed on captive Palestinians would be to sense a hint of the violence that the United States unleashed methodically in achievement of its North American empire.

That, and much of America’s direct and proxy military adventurism abroad since, has been invisible to the public, much as Israel’s infliction of death and suffering is invisible as precursor to “unprovoked” Arab attacks. Will Americans become conversant with Israeli, Zionist and Palestinian history, if their own is hidden from them?

One difference from the North American settler-colonialism is the Jewish claim of indigeneity, with accusations that Arabs are settlers in Palestine who should by rights move or be expelled from “the state of the Jewish people.”

A film of this sort can only review so much Zionist and Palestine history to set the scene. The producers did a nice job fitting in a lot of content, selectively, in the time. (The U.S. organization Jewish Voice for Peace made an animated short, “Israeli/Palestinian Conflict 101,”that shows the challenge of compressing facts and sequences of events of Zionism and Palestine. Their summary is 6.5 minutes.)

Intended as an educational film to join the Media Education Foundation’s strong list, “The Occupation of the American Mind,” the work of writer/producers Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp, is invaluable as a contrast to Israel’s fantasy world in media. (The film is not about an allied subject, the Zionist Occupation of the American Jewish Mind, where another fantasy world operates, where Jews heroically rebuild Jewish sovereignty.)

The film concentrates on American media dating from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the formalization of Israel’s Western-media Hasbara/PR institutions in reaction to horror at consequences of Israel’s Lebanon occupation. (Bombardment and siege of Beirut, and massacre at Sabra and Shatilla)

The film’s coda surveys pro-Palestinian campus activism and alliance-building with African-American and other groups locked out of the American narrative, younger Americans awakening to the Palestinian perception of events. A series of Pew polls show that among American young people, Democrats, and independents, sympathy for Palestinian Arabs is growing, and the Republican Party is becoming the repository of unconditional Israel advocacy.

Among developed nations, the United States has an unusually high proportion of religious believers, and more Christian Zionists than U.S. Jews figure in the Republican Party’s embrace of militant Zionism. In the film, executive producer Sut Jhally makes that point: “In fact, it’s not accurate to call it the Jewish lobby. It is the Israel lobby,” not consistent with the views of most American Jews.

It is difficult to imagine that Americans will become conversant with subtleties of Zionist and Jewish history. One might expect revulsion as the system of political contributions and targeted propaganda to ensure and manipulate American support is illustrated. Film clips of Israeli violence at checkpoints and demonstrations are followed by Media Education Foundation founder Jhally commenting:


“The more Americans are able to see realities of the occupation with their own eyes, to see routine daily violence, to see repression and humiliation that never make it into mainstream news, the more they will question the image of Israel as this tiny little David up against this bullying Arab goliath, and start to wonder if it’s the outgunned Palestinians who are the Davids here.

“When that starts to become the dominant perception here in the U.S., all bets are off. It all comes down to American popular perception.”

Noam Chomsky ends the film saying, “The U.S. government will support it as long as the U.S. population tolerates it.”

If the image of Israel becomes that of a cruel oppressor, may the shift be as consequential as when Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel (and its depiction of slavery) became part of a march to the Civil War? For Jews, what might a shift of U.S. public opinion about Israel mean? To the extent Israel is identified, naturally, as an indivisibly “Jewish” project — dismounting this tiger isn’t going to be graceful. Injury to Arabs in Palestine, and the manipulation of the United States, in the past Zionist century, will be reckoned.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby backtoiam » Sun Apr 24, 2016 7:17 pm

This article lists reported abuses for one year. Year of 2015



Palestine Occupation and Israel Human Rights Violations: Stealing Trees, Smashing Solar Cells, Forcing People to Undress…
By Abdulhadi Hantash
Global Research, April 24, 2016

We are privileged to get regular reports on Israeli human rights violations in the Hebron district of the occupation from Abulhadi Hantash, a cartographer for the Palestinian Authority. The Hebron district is the southernmost and largest region of the West Bank, with over a quarter of its size and population: approximately 375,000 acres (1.5 million dunams) and 706,000 Palestinian people.

Writing to me earlier this week, he said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given a “green light” to Israeli soldiers and settlers to attack Palestinian citizens; and he blamed American support for such conduct:

The US position, which supports the occupation, has always encouraged the occupation to murder and settlement. The US position is biased to protect the occupation and the occupation crimes in all international forums, ignoring international norms, as well as all human and moral laws.

What follows is his report for 2015. –Susie Kneedler.

2015 Hebron District, West Bank, Special Report: Crimes committed against Palestinians by the Israeli occupation forces and Israeli settlers
Abulhadi Hantash

Image: Abulhadi Hantash

The area covers 375,000 acres (1.5 million dunams)
The Palestinian population includes 706,000+.
Many types of military occupation attacks .2014 was the year of settlement expansion.

2015 is the year of the settlement expansion and street executions. These were done by experienced, senior Israeli military officers. Young Palestinian men, women, and children bled to death as military officials prevented ambulances from reaching them. The reprehensible atrocities committed by the ‘finest’ military in the world is described below.Palestinians killed: 54 Martyrs

Land Confiscation and Dredging Operations: 1181 acres (military and settlers)

Uprooting or burning of trees: 7335 trees, close to Yatta, Halhul, Dahria, Bet Ula, Shukh, and Dura

Preventing of field work (agriculture): 22 cases

Damage to agricultural crops: 6 cases,: 225 acres destroyed

Construction of units & caravans: Added 115 new housing units & multiple caravans

The construction of settler roads: 1 case

Military orders 39 in the old city of Hebron, 2 in Yatta, 3 in Dahria, 2 in Tarqumia, 2 near Kiryat Arba = 976 Acres

Stop building and demolition notices: 215 orders , in Idna, Bet Ula, Yatta, Halhul, Hebron, Ramadin, Dahria, Al Kom, Bet Umer, Karma, and Dura

The Demolition of Homes and Bombing Attacks

Demolition of houses / barracks rooms / agricultural structures / factories / caves / tents: 52 cases

Demolition water wells: 11 wells

Stop building orders: 235 orders

Evacuation orders: 34 cases covering 538 acres primarily in Dura, Dhariya and Beit Ummar

Destroying / dynamiting doors of homes or shops: 178 doors

Private homes seized for military barracks: 190 homes

Closure of shops under gun threats: 17 shops

Breaking into shops and smashing contents: 70 shops

Confiscation of farm machinery: 4 cases

Military Operations

Raids of private homes: 2598 raid attacks throughout Hebron district

Shooting at homes and civilians; Theft of property; Stealing of gold coins; Smashing contents of homes; Taking computers, mobile devices, cameras, and DVD players; Raiding institutional supplies; Stealing from gas stations, 1067 cases

Raids of schools: 15 cases

Raids of institutions and factories: 75 cases

Mixing food contents so they are inedible by the family: 12 cases

Storming villages / towns / refugee camps: 1890 storming operations

Shooting at citizens: 472 cases

Gas bombs thrown: 590 cases

Stun grenades used: 382 cases (170 decibels, hearing loss at 120 decibels)

Arrest of citizens: up to 1600, many released in hours, others still in custody

Beating of citizens: 367 citizens

Chasing pedestrians in army jeeps: 3 cases, running over 4 people

Chasing workers on the job: 54 workers

Forcing citizens to undress: 123 cases

Attacking worshipers: On a daily basis

Assault on school students, teachers, university students: 42 cases

Attacks on farmers – 54 cases, journalists – 28 cases, foreigners –4 cases,

Attacks on demonstrators – 23 cases

Using citizens as human shields: 15 cases

Kidnapping of citizens: 6 citizens

Sexual provocations: 22 cases

Joint army attacks with settlers: 20 cases

Blocking ambulance and fire crews: 45 cases

Closure of roads / entrances to villages and towns: 1000 cases, some are still closed

Detention of Palestinian vehicles: 590 vehicles

Preventing access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs: DAILY

Declaration of closed military zones: 39 cases

Storming of mosques: 2 cases

Destruction of water networks and electricity networks : 7 cases

Closure of institutions: 5 cases

Erecting new military towers: 3 cases

Prohibiting access to farmland: 5 cases

Landing military aircraft: 4 cases of operations

Settler Attacks and Outpost Gangs

Attacking homes: 220 cases

Smashing cars: 29 cars

Uprooting and stealing trees: 800 trees

Beating Palestinian citizens: 83 citizens

Attacking farmers, school students, children, shopkeepers, ambulance crews, shepherds: 177 cases

Sexual provocation: 80 cases

Assaults on graves: 1 case

Blocking roads.: 16 cases

Attacks on people : 38 cases

Death threats: 10 cases

Smashing solar cells: 6 cases

Storming villages and towns: 14 cases

Running over citizens: 18 cases of Hebron settlers ramming, hitting,and running over Palestinians with their vehicles. Many of these were children. These unspeakable crimes are on an upsurge from the 10 cases in 2014. Six cases are included in the PLO report, “List Settler Violence/Terror Arracks January 1 – July 27, 2015“and the remaining 12 are pending in the July-December 2015 report.

Registering of Palestinians in Hebron’s Old City with numbers next to their identity (to intimidate, as was done in Nazi Germany).

Prepared by Abdulhadi Hantash

Expert on Land and Settlement
Land Surveyor and Cartographer for the Palestinian Authority

http://www.globalresearch.ca/palestine- ... ss/5521573
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu May 19, 2016 1:19 pm

Israel Headed to ‘Most Right-Wing Government Ever’
Report: Lieberman to Take Over Defense Ministry
by Jason Ditz, May 18, 2016

Israel’s narrow far-right coalition government has been looking to expand for awhile, with talk of including the center-left Zionist Union to take charge of the stalled peace talks. That possibility appears to be remote, at this point, and instead the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party is said to be coming in.

Jewish Home, which hadn’t been keen on the inclusion of Zionist Union, cheered the inclusion of Yisrael Beiteinu, and reports of that party’s leader, ultra-hawk Avigdor Lieberman taking over the defense ministry, as proof Israel will soon have “the most right-wing government ever.”

At present, the government includes Likud, Kulanu, Jewish Home, and the religious parties. Lieberman was excluded back during the coalition talks both because of his poor showing in the election and his hostility toward the religious parties. It’s unclear how he will co-exist with them now.

Jewish Home, however, saw hope in Lieberman’s overt support for Israeli medic Elor Azaria, who shot an unarmed and wounded Palestinian detainee in Hebron, and is facing some limited charges over it. Current Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has advocated some semblance of morality within the Israeli military, a stance which has many calling for his ouster.

Netanyahu is said to be planning to give Ya’alon the Foreign Ministry as a consolation prize, a post that hasn’t been held by anyone during the current government. Lieberman had been foreign minister before the election, but in practice international diplomacy was run out of the prime minister’s office, given Lieberman’s tendency to pick fights internationally.

Despite being a party of only six seats, Yisrael Beiteinu is getting two major ministries out of the deal, both the defense ministry and the immigration absorption ministry. Lieberman had also conditioned his joining on Israel agreeing to empower the military to execute detained Palestinian “terrorists.” It is unclear if that is yet agreed to, however.

Though the inclusion of Yisrael Beiteinu will end the “one seat majority” problem for Netanyahu, it is unclear if it will really strengthen the coalition, as Lieberman’s hostility toward the ultra-Orthodox will almost certainly lead to a new round of fighting with Shas and the UTJ.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby NeonLX » Thu May 19, 2016 1:35 pm

^^^^^How wonderful. Lieberman, eh? That name has negative connotations for me already.

Things be spiraling into ever crazier frames of existence. Or at least it feels that way to me.

On edit: Things are really SNAFU. They've always been fucked up. It's just easier to find out how fucked up things are now, if one wants to know...
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby RocketMan » Sun Jun 05, 2016 1:14 pm

Michael Chabon's prose I've almost admired and enjoyed but his boner for Obama sort of cooled me off. Now I'm back on board!

Once again it's instructive that Haaretz uses "occupation" freely while in the US the word seems to be the height of impoliteness these days... amazingly.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/1.716323

Michael Chabon: Israeli Occupation 'The Most Grievous Injustice I've Ever Seen in My Life'

Chabon was visibly jarred by what he had seen the day before in Hebron, calling the occupation “the most grievous injustice I have ever seen in my life.”

[..]

As a Jew and someone who has felt connected both to Israel and also to the Old Testament narratives, it actually does mean something to me to be in Hebron, to be where supposedly Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca and Leah are all buried. From my point of view, to see that place being dishonored and made less sacred and less holy by the presence of this incredibly cruel and unjust machinery, some literal machinery and figurative machinery of oppression, it offends me.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:30 am

Published on
Sunday, June 05, 2016
byCommon Dreams
Gov. Cuomo Decrees Boycott & Blacklist to Silence Global BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights
'What Israel and its thuggish lobby can't achieve by persuasion they obtain via repression and coercion,' responded one prominent campaigner for Palestinian rights
byCommon Dreams staff

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signs a first-in-the-nation Executive Order directing the divestment of public funds supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel during a breakfast meeting at the Harvard Club. Afterwards, (Photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stirred the immediate ire of human rights campaigners around the world on Sunday by signing an executive order calling for the creation of a "blacklist" that would track groups and individuals who support Palestinian rights through the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement known as BDS.

As the New York Times reports:

Mr. Cuomo made his announcement in a speech at the Harvard Club in Manhattan to an audience including local Jewish leaders and lawmakers, describing the B.D.S. movement as an “economic attack” on Israel.

“We cannot allow that to happen,” the governor said, adding that, “If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.”

Several states have moved to support Israel and prevent their governments and agencies from doing business with companies or individuals that endorse the boycotts. Similar bills have been introduced in both houses of the New York Legislature, and a Republican-sponsored bill passed the state Senate, which that party leads, in January.

But on Sunday, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, flexed his executive power — a more familiar demonstration in the governor’s second term — joking that passing legislation can “often be a tedious affair,” and saying instead he wanted “immediate action” on B.D.S., while challenging other governors in other states to do the same.

A global movement committed to fighting nonviolently to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the subjugation of the Palestinian people in the Occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, BDS has been under increasing attack by those threatened by the support for human rights it has galvanized worldwide and for shining a critical light on the abusive policies of the Israeli government when it comes to the treatment of Palestinians.

In a series of tweets, prominent Palestinian rights activist and journalist Ali Abunimah was among the first to express his contempt for the move by Cuomo:




Israel-First McCarthyism: Cuomo’s vow to spy on, punish BDS Activists in long Tradition
By Juan Cole | Jun. 6, 2016 |

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
After New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order directing the state to monitor and sanction activists in the Boycott, Sanctions and Divest Movement (BDS) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, critics complained that the order is McCarthyism. They objected that social and economic boycotts have been used in instances such as South Africa’s racial segregation or Apartheid. Interference in such a social and political movement in protest of injustice, they aver, is contrary to the first amendment. (Cuomo’s executive order will certainly be struck down by the courts). The order is creepy, since it suggests that Cuomo will have New York state bureaucrats combing through citizens’ Facebook and Twitter accounts to see if they support BDS, and then find ways of punishing them (no contracts from the state, no state jobs, no internships).
The objections of Cuomo’s critics are often naive, given the actual record of the Israel lobbies in the United States, some of which have sometimes played Sen. Joseph McCarthy all on their own.
The Anti-Discrimination League (ADL), for instance, only poses as a human rights organization. It has at least sometimes functioned as an intelligence organization working on behalf of a foreign state.
Back in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, at the height of the anti-Apartheid movement, the Israeli government was a firm supporter of the racist faction of Afrikaaners. The Israeli government even offered nukes to the white supremacist South African government for use on its African neighbors if they became too uppity. It appears to have instructed the ADL in the US to spy on anti-Apartheid activists, who were engaged in a boycott, divest and sanctions campaign against Praetoria. Many of the same groups were also involved in pro-Palestinian activities.
The ADL in the San Francisco Bay area carefully compiled files on 10,000 Americans and 600 organizations. One ADL secret agent leaked the files on the anti-Apartheid activists, and South Africans in political exile, to the Apartheid government, with potentially dire consequences for any of them that the South African secret police could get hold of.
It is worth noting that President Barack Obama gave his first political speech, in 1981 on the Occidental campus, against Apartheid. Maybe the ADL has a file on him somewhere.
Jeffrey Blankfort reports, based on the dossier of ADL activities ordered released when it lost the suit the activists brought against it, that “The ADL supplied confidential information to foreign governments that it obtained from police and federal agencies in the US.”
One of the people on which the ADL was spying, the non-violent activist Alex Odeh of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, was assassinated in 1985; (there is no evidence of a connection).
The same wealthy funders who payed the ADL to undertake this vast domestic spying operation on behalf of two foreign governments underwrite Andrew Cuomo’s political campaign, and have bribed him to turn the state of New York itself into an ADL San Francisco style monitoring and punishing organization.
The point of spying on people is not only to gather information on them but also to intimidate and block them. That is the point of knowing who they are, where they live, and of keeping files on them that can be slipped to a potential employer at the appropriate moment.
Many US ethnic lobbying groups are driven by foreign nationalisms and many of them engage in smear campaigns and dirty tricks. The Israel lobbies aren’t distinctive in this regard, though they are typically better heeled and better organized and better connected politically.
Personally, I don’t support boycotts of Israel proper, though I think the West Bank squatters on Palestinian territory have to be boycotted as a matter of international law. But the Israel lobbies are making a huge error in having Cuomo play Sen Joe McCarthy for them. They will enlist on the side of the BDS activists a whole phalanx of civil and human rights organizations that might otherwise not be sympathetic to them. They have made Israel even more unsympathetic –after years of far right wing Likud government and senseless violence against Palestinians and fruitless assaults like those on Gaza. And they have positioned the pro-Israel cause as a danger to the US constitution.
Attorney Joseph Welch became famous for standing up to Sen. McCarthy. What is often not realized is that Welch was the attorney for the US Army. That’s right, the lunatic McCarthy was investigating the alleged Communist activities of the US Army.
This was the moment when Welch began bringing the country to its senses:
“Mr. Welch: You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
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Don’t forget that.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:19 am

In further Move to Far Right, Israel passes Draconian Terrorism Law
By contributors | Jun. 16, 2016 |

Ma’an News Agency | – –
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A controversial new anti-terrorism law passed the Israeli Knesset on Wednesday, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which will grant the Israeli state far-reaching powers in cases of suspected “terrorism,” in a move a member of the Joint List called “draconian and unacceptable.”
According to Haaretz, the new Israeli law would apply only within Israel and includes a provision expanding the definition of terrorist organization membership to include “passive members” who are not actively involved in any group, but can now be indicted by Israeli authorities.
PikiWiki_Israel_7260_Knesset-Room
The law also includes a provision that gives the defense minister — currently ultraright Avigdor Lieberman — the power to confiscate property of alleged members of terrorist organizations without getting approval by Israeli courts, Haaretz reported.
All of the Knesset parties voted in favor of the law, with the exception of the left-wing Meretz party and the Joint List.
Haaretz quoted Knesset and Joint List member Ahmad Tibi as saying that the bill was “draconian and unacceptable,” adding: “You can demolish houses, arrest people, deport people, kill them and shoot them when they’re on the ground bleeding… But you can’t suppress a nation’s desire to liberate itself from the occupation.”
The law’s passage comes just two days after the Knesset voted to renew an emergency provision to Israel’s Family Reunification Law, which prohibits Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip from automatically obtaining legal status in Israel or East Jerusalem through family unions.
The Knesset cited fears of “terrorists” entering Israeli society from the occupied Palestinian territory through the law as reason for its extension for the 13th year.
Rights groups have often conflated Israel’s anti-terrorism legislation with discriminatory policies enacted toward Palestinians that attempt to disrupt Palestinian political processes and create social and political divides among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and those residing in Israel.
Nearly all Palestinian political movements are considered “terrorist” organizations by the Israeli government.
Via Ma’an News Agency
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:42 pm

Israeli MPs try to assault Haneen Zoabi
by Jonathan Cook / June 29th, 2016

This 9-minute video, showing Israeli Jewish MPs’ reaction to a speech by Haneen Zoabi today, offers a very revealing insight into how Israel’s tribal democracy works. And it isn’t pretty.

Even in the British parliament, which is imploding at the moment, it is impossible to imagine scenes like these.

Zoabi made the speech after Israel agreed this week very belatedly to pay compensation to the families of nine humanitarian activists killed by Israeli commandos in 2010 on the Mavi Marmara, as it plied international waters on its way to deliver aid to Gaza. In fact, it would be more accurate to say Israel assassinated the activists, as a way to deter others from following in their wake.

The Marmara was a Turkish vessel and the compensation was part of Israel’s reconciliation deal with Turkey.

Zoabi was the only Israeli MP on the ship, and was accused of treason by Knesset members for participating in the aid flotilla. She became public enemy number one and received many death threats at the time, including some barely veiled ones from Jewish MPs.

All the exchanges in this video are in Hebrew, but that doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to understand the language to understand what is going on. One Jewish MP, Oren Hazan, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, heckles Zoabi non-stop for more than four minutes, with the Speaker doing nothing more than politely asking him to calm down and refrain from interrupting.

Remember that Palestinians MPs are regularly ejected from the Knesset for far less than this kind of barracking and violation of parliamentary protocol. Notice also that the Knesset TV spends as much time, if not more, focusing on the heckler than Zoabi, implicitly legitimising his anti-democratic behaviour.

But when Zoabi accuses the soldiers of “murder” at about 4.30-min into the video, all hell breaks loose. A dozen or more Jewish MPs rush to the podium and start circling Zoabi like a pack of baying hyenas. By this stage, when Zoabi is being physically threatened by a number of MPs in the parliament chamber, you might think it would be time for some of them to be forcefully ejected, if only to indicate that this subversion of the democratic process will not be tolerated. But not a bit of it. They are treated with kid gloves.

The Knesset guards simply try to block the violent Jewish MPs from reaching the single Palestinian MP in their sights, presumably fearful that were she to be physically assaulted that might make headline news and make Israel look bad.

Paradoxically, the only MP you can see on the film being pushed out of the Knesset chamber is Zoabi’s party leader, Jamal Zahalka, who from the look of things is interceding because he’s worried she is in danger. Hazan was finally removed, though after more than eight minutes of heckling, threats and belligerence.

Another paradox: Zoabi and her fellow party MPs have only recently been allowed to speak in the Knesset again, after the ethics committee (dominated by Jewish MPs) suspended them for several months because of their “unacceptable” political views.

I doubt very much that any of these Jewish MPs, even though they have threatened and tried to physically harm another MP, one from the wrong tribe, will suffer any consequences at all for their behaviour.

Zoabi said in her speech: “I stood here six years ago, some of you remember the hatred and hostility toward me, and look where we got to. Apologies to the families of those who were called terrorists. The nine that were killed, it turns out that their families need to be compensated. I demand an apology to all the political activists who were on the Marmara and an apology to MK Haneen Zoabi, who you’ve incited against for six years. I demand compensation and I will donate it to the next flotilla. As long as there’s a siege, more flotillas need to be organized.”

In addition to the violent reception from MPs visible on film, there was widespread incitement from other MPs. Michael Oren, who a while back was Israel’s ambassador to the US, sounded like Avigdor Lieberman as he said Zoabi’s speech proved she was not loyal and should be permanently stripped of her parliamentary status, under a soon-to-be-passed Suspension Law.

In true colonial style, the government’s chief whip, David Bitan, was reported to have told Palestinian voters in Israel after Zoabi’s speech: “We need to make sure she doesn’t stay in the Knesset. We’ve had enough of this and she doesn’t even represent you properly.”


But when Zoabi accuses the soldiers of “murder” at about 4.30-min into the video, all hell breaks loose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QVW2fOMVjQ
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Jul 03, 2016 8:25 am

How Turkey’s Reconciliation Deal with Israel Harms the Palestinians
by Jeremy R. Hammond June 30, 2016
By signing the reconciliation agreement with Israel, Turkey has betrayed the Palestinians and made itself complicit in Israel’s occupation regime.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan storms off the stage at the 2009 World Economic Forum after confronting Israeli President Shimon Peres (seated to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's right), publicly criticizing Peres to his face for Israel's war crimes during its 2008-09 military assault on Gaza. (World Economic Forum/CC BY-SA 2.0)

With Israel and Turkey having announced a reconciliation agreement this week, Turkey is portraying itself as a protector of the oppressed by arguing that it will allow greater aid to the people of Gaza. The truth, however, is that, far from helping the Palestinians, Turkey’s deal with Israel serves to reinforce the occupation regime in place since the June 1967 Israeli-Arab War.

The mainstream media, as ever, is failing to properly report the significance of the reconciliation agreement. Here’s what you need to know.

The Context
Relations between Turkey and Israel came under strain as a result of Israel’s 2008-09 massacre in Gaza (dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, in which over 1,300 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians). Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously confronted Israeli President Shimon Peres at the 2009 World Economic Forum, publicly criticizing him for Israel’s war crimes before storming off the stage.

Relations were severed in May 2011 when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked a civilian ship on a humanitarian mission in international waters, murdering nine Turkish peace activists on board (one of whom was also an American citizen).

The ship, the Mavi Marmara, was part of a flotilla aiming to break Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, a policy of collectively punishing the entire civilian population for the crime of having Hamas as governing authority.

Hamas had taken over control of Gaza in the summer of 2007 after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conspired with the US and Israel to overthrow the Hamas government that was democratically elected in early 2006.

The coup effort failed, and Hamas’s main opposition, Abbas’s Fatah party, was expelled. Ever since, Hamas has ruled in Gaza while the West Bank remains under the thumb of Abbas, whose term long ago expired, and who remains in office illegitimately.

Israel responded to Hamas’s election victory by drastically escalating its policy of blockading Gaza with the goal of collectively punishing the civilian population—a violation of international law.

After IDF forces murdered the activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, Turkey cut diplomatic ties to Israel in protest, and Israel followed suit.

The new agreement is designed to reestablish cozy relations.

The Terms
Under the agreement, Turkey will give the military arm of Hamas the boot, such as banning its use of Turkish soil to train new recruits. Hamas, which has praised the deal, may still carry out political activities there.

Both countries agree to lift diplomatic sanctions to normalize relations, with a hope of possibly returning to the lucrative cooperation Israel and Turkey have previously enjoyed in the military and “security” sectors, as well as sectors like tourism and energy.

While not explicitly mentioned, the agreement will pave the way for Turkey to become a portal for Israeli gas exports to Europe, with a pipeline deal in the works.

But there are two other terms of the agreement that warrant particular attention…

Turkey has also committed under the deal to help Israel ensure that there will be no justice for the families of the victims of Israel’s attack on the flotilla.

Israel will put a paltry $20 million into a fund to be transferred to victims’ families. Israel’s special envoy during negotiations with Turkey, Joseph Ciechanover, hailed the deal on the grounds that it would “generate achievements for Israel worth far more than $20 million.”

Moreover, the money will not be transferred until Turkey passes a law helping to make sure that the perpetrators of the crime—least of all those at the highest levels of the Israeli government—will not be held accountable. Turkey agrees under the deal to bar its court system from hearing any claims against Israelis for the attack on the Mavi Marmara.

But the travesty of justice doesn’t end there.

The government of Turkey is emphasizing that the deal will allow it to deliver an immediate shipment of 20,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza. It has also highlighted its plans for development projects in Gaza, including a new hospital, a power station, and a desalinization plant—all of which are badly needed.

But the real meaning of the deal is that Turkey is agreeing to help Israel sustain its illegal blockade of Gaza, thus making itself complicit in Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians in order for certain crony sectors of its economy to profit from the prolonged misery of Gazans through partnership with the occupation regime.

Instead of demanding that Israel must cease its illegal policy, Turkey has instead acted to legitimize the collective punishment of 1.8 million Gazans.

The US Role
In the backdrop of all this is the role of the US government. Israel is Washington’s closest partner in the Middle East, and Turkey is, of course, a NATO ally.

From the beginning, the US has sought to get its partner regimes to reconcile with each other, so as to be able to carry on with business as usual.

The US has also played an important role in helping to ensure that Israel is not held accountable for its continuous violations of international law—a task in which the Western mainstream media has also played a key role.

After its murder of nine Turkish civilians, Israel came under intense international pressure to end its illegal blockade. Instead, it merely lifted some of its restrictions on goods permitted into Gaza—such as juice, spices, and shaving cream.

The US naturally praised the Israeli government for continuing its slightly-eased illegal blockade regime, taking credit for persuading Israel to do so—and the media played along in its usual role of manufacturing consent for government policy.

Mark Lynch in Foreign Policy, for instance, at the time hailed the “good deal” that Gazans were getting under the arrangement—in which Israel agreed to allow slightly more goods into Gaza “in exchange for American support for a whitewash of the investigation of the flotilla incident.”

To that end, the US also had a willing partner in crime: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon…

The UN Secretariat’s Role
The United Nations organization, too, has long played the game of paying lip service to the rights of the Palestinians while in truth acting with great duplicity, from the conflict’s origins to today.

In the aftermath of Israel’s attack on the flotilla, there was a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) fact-finding mission to investigate the incident. Its conclusions were uncontroversial. It reiterated the international consensus that Israel’s blockade constituted collective punishment and hence violated international law. Consequently, it found Israel’s attack on the flotilla and murder of nine civilians on board to be an additional violation of international law. Even had Israel’s blockade been legitimate, international law required Israel to allow the safe passage of humanitarian aid to the civilian population and forbade Israel from attacking a civilian vessel on the high seas.

The US naturally opposed that report every step of the way while seeking to undermine its findings and recommendations designed to seek justice for the victims.

Behind the scenes, the US colluded with the UN Secretariat to undermine the cause of justice. At the same time the fact the Fact-Finding Mission was underway, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon authorized his own inquiry into the attack—to be headed up by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and Colombia President Alvaro Uribe, along with one delegate each from Israel and Turkey.

The representative for the Israeli point of view was none other than Mr. Joseph Ciechanover—the same special envoy who helped negotiate the recent reconciliation agreement with Turkey.

Apologists for Israel’s illegal blockade have loudly trumpeted the report of Ban Ki-moon’s Panel of Inquiry—popularly known as the Palmer Report—since its chairs expressed their opinion that Israel’s blockade was legal. (Mr. Ciechanover naturally concurred with that view.)

The Palmer Report also judged Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara to be “excessive and unreasonable” (which Mr. Ciechanover naturally registered his objection to), yet stopped short of drawing the unavoidable corollary that it constituted a violation of international law.

What the apologists fail to mention is that the Palmer Report’s opinion lacked all authority. In fact, the report itself emphasized that it had no mandate to express any legal opinion—something its two chair members lacked any qualifications to give, anyhow.

Moreover, the mandate the Panel did receive was a political one: the explicit goal was to establish a framework for Israel and Turkey to be able to reestablish relations, in accordance with the will of Washington. To that end, the Panel went to great lengths to avoid inquiring into the legality of Israel’s blockade and simply adopted as its premise that it was not illegal—despite self-contradictorily acknowledging that one effect was the deprivation amongst the civilian population of Gaza.

The report was riddled with factual errors and logical fallacies, as well as willful deceptions, such as deliberate mischaracterizations of what international law has to say about it. For example, the Panel claimed that Israel’s sole purpose must be to starve Gazans outright or otherwise deny them goods essential for their survival in order for it to constitute a violation; the truth being that anticipated harm to civilians in excess of the military advantage sought renders a blockade illegal—a criteria incontrovertibly met in the case of Gaza and the perpetual humanitarian crisis that has existed since the siege began.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weissglass explained it at the time, the blockade was intended to be “like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.”

The purpose of the blockade is perfectly understood in Washington. On November 3, 2008, the US embassy in Tel Aviv cabled to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis”—with “humanitarian crisis” defined by Israel as the point at which Gazans start dropping dead from outright starvation.

The goal was “to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.”

For the Palmer Panel, that the blockade was legitimate was a pre-drawn conclusion designed to further a political aim at the expense of ensuring Israeli impunity for its criminal actions. It was contrary to a clear international consensus that Israel’s blockade is illegal—a consensus expressed in the immediate aftermath of the Mavi Marmara attack by every single member of the UN Security Council other than the US, by the authoritative findings of the UN fact-finding mission, by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, not to mention Israeli rights groups like B’Tselem and Gisha.

And the Palmer Panel is but one example of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s complicity in Israel’s occupation and war crimes.

The Mainstream Media’s Role
In short, it is a simple point of fact under international law that the blockade is illegal.

Yet here’s an example of how the US media explained the legality of Israel’s blockade following the release of the Palmer Report: Isabel Kershner writing in the New York Times informed readers of Israel’s position that its blockade was “in accordance with international law” and that its position was “backed up by the Palmer report”.

That’s it. No mention of the consensus view of the rest of the planet. Just Israel’s position and the non-authoritative opinion of two former politicians with no qualifications in legal jurisprudence whose stated purpose was to advance a political agenda and who adopted false premises and engaged in demonstrably willful deceptions in order to arrive at the desired conclusion.

Here’s the BBC explaining the context for the recent reconciliation agreement: “Israel maintains its blockade of Gaza to try to prevent weapons or materials reaching Palestinian militants … while allowing humanitarian aid into the territory. Palestinians say the policy is tantamount to collective punishment, and UN and aid officials have warned of deteriorating conditions in Gaza.”

So Israel’s blockade, according to the lying BBC, is aimed solely at the military sphere, without blocking goods for the civilian population. That the blockade is illegal is relegated by the BBC to merely the Palestinians’ point of view—rather than the view of every country on the planet other than Israel itself and its superpower benefactor. UN and aid officials warn of a worsening situation, but fall short of condemning the blockade’s illegality, in the fantasy world painted by the British news agency.

With regard to the question of whether IDF commandos began using live fire against passengers before or after landing on the deck of the Mavi Marmara by rope from helicopter above, the BBC article adds, “A UN inquiry was unable to determine at exactly which point the commandos used live rounds.”

That’s a most peculiar statement, in light of the fact that the UN fact-finding inquiry into Israel’s attack on the flotilla rather determined that “live ammunition was used from the helicopter onto the top deck prior to the descent of the soldiers.” The evidence indicated that most of the victims were executed at close range, including Furkan Doğan, the youngest person killed and an American citizen of Turkish descent.

Such is the nature of the mainstream media’s coverage of international affairs, which serves the goal of manufacturing consent for Western government’s complicity in Israel’s perpetual trampling of Palestinians’ human rights.

Conclusion
This week’s reconciliation deal certainly isn’t the first time Turkey has betrayed the Palestinians and their just cause.

Following the Mavi Marmara attack, Turkey declared that its military would escort future flotillas in order to protect them from Israeli attack and see their humanitarian mission through to Gaza.

Turkey also vowed to pursue legal recourse through the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—which in 2004, relevantly, had issued an advisory opinion affirming the illegality of Israel’s settlements, including in occupied East Jerusalem, as well as of the annexation wall Israel was constructing in the West Bank.

That was all meaningless talk, of course—empty promises of solidarity with the Palestinians in their plight to be free from Israeli oppression.

Turkey’s true colors were revealed in full display this week with its reconciliation agreement with Israel—a deal that, far from helping the people of Gaza, makes Turkey Israel’s partner in perpetuating the occupation regime.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that his government consulted with the Palestinians “every step” of the way during its negotiations with Israel.

What he meant, however, is that he consulted with the Palestinian Authority (PA) under Abbas’s illegitimate leadership. The PA’s acquiescence to the agreement is simply a reflection of the role defined for it under the Oslo Accords: that of Israel’s collaborator in the occupation regime. (Turkey also apparently consulted with Hamas, whose reasons for approval are more ambiguous, but presumably attributable to a belief among its leadership that they will benefit politically, and perhaps also financially, irrespective of the long-term detriment to the civilian population living under Hamas’s thumb.)

The Palestinian people, on the other hand, who don’t enjoy the same elite status as Abbas and his cronies, certainly weren’t consulted on the matter.

What the people of Gaza need isn’t more charity. What they really need is their freedom and dignity, to be able to have the means and opportunity to provide a living for themselves—for the world community to cease turning their backs on them and to stop participating in the perpetual violation of their human rights.

Turkey, through its reconciliation agreement with Israel, has chosen to commit itself to helping Israel sustain the status quo of oppression that has kept the people of Gaza in need of so much humanitarian aid in the first place.

_____

This article is largely drawn from material in the author’s new book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Click here to read the entire first chapter now for free.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jul 06, 2016 8:19 am

Foreign Funds at Center of New Police Investigation Against Netanyahu
Channel 2 report says the money transfers under examination took place since Netanyahu resumed office in 2009

The new and secret investigation against Netanyahu
AG holds intensive discussions on several cases involving Netanyahu
Probe Netanyahu's French connection
Police have been investigating whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received funds illegally from foreign donors, Israel's Channel 2 reported on Monday.
The report said that the money transfers being looked into took place after Netanyahu resumed office as prime minister in 2009.
The investigation is being conducted by a small group of police detectives and attorneys.
According to the report, the investigation is not limited to Israel and requires questioning abroad as well. Officially Israeli law enforcement officials have described the information gathering as an "examination," but in effect it is a full-fledged investigation, and all acceptable steps are being taken except for summoning suspects for questioning.
Netanyahu, on an official trip to Africa, told reporters during a flight from Entebbe in Uganda to Nairobi in Kenya: "Every time I leave for a historic visit abroad there's talk on some investigation. That's rubbish."
Last month Gidi Weitz revealed in Haaretz that Attorey General Avihai Mandelblit has been holding intensive consultations for weeks about material related to Netanyahu. 
The consultations have been joined at times by senior prosecutors and sometimes the head of police investigations. They have been shown material gathered to see whether the information has any criminal potential.
Contrary to his predecessor, Yehuda Weinstein, Mandelblit holds meetings with relatively few participants on issues regarding Netanyahu. Well-informed sources have told Haaretz that Mandelblit aspires to swiftly complete handling the material gathered against Netanyahu.
"There is a lot of movement with regard to the incidents involving the prime minister," an informed source said.
After Haaretz exposed material being gathered against Netanyahu Channel 2 reported that Lahav 433, the elite police investigations unit was involved in examining cases allegedly involving the prime minister. The examination is in addition to three other affairs regarding the prime minister's residence, the Bibi-tours affair, and the Mimran affair. Channel 10 reported at the time that "new information has been received on many subjects, very in depth, credible and backed up information."
Details of these cases involved police recommendations issued at the end of May to indict Netanyahu's spouse, Sara, for suspected irregularities, such as ordering food from private chefs for a family event, and a live-in caregiver for her father at the public's expense.
At around the same time, Israeli authorities renewed an investigation into questions regarding the funding of Netanyahu and family members' trips during the period he served as finance minister around a decade ago.
Another pending investigation into Netanyahu's affairs centers on alleged links to French tycoon, Arnaud Mimran, who has previously donated money to him and is currently standing trial for fraud in France.
An Haaretz and investigation has found suspicions that Mimran has in the past financed vacations for Netanyahu and family members. During his trial Mimran has testified that he gave Netanyahu a million Euro for his election campaign. Later Mimran corrected that, saying the sum was actually much less and that it was paid out before Netanyahu's election to public office.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jul 06, 2016 10:25 am

Frenchman testified he gave Netanyahu $200,000 in 2009Contradicting other statements he’s made, Arnaud Mimran told police last year that he gave the PM funds in run-up to election


Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu 'persuaded world powers to water down illegal settlements report'
'There's just no appetite to go toe-to-toe with Israel and deliver a really harsh indictment,' says ambassador


The President of Uganda Kept Calling Israel ‘Palestine’ During Netanyahu’s Visit
BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADYJULY 5, 2016 - 2:14 PM

The President of Uganda Kept Calling Israel ‘Palestine’ During Netanyahu’s Visit
In July 1976, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s older brother Yonatan flew some 2,300 miles from Israel to Entebbe, Uganda, where pro-Palestinian hijackers were holding more than 100 people hostage in an abandoned airport terminal.

The elder Netanyahu was part of a small group of elite Israeli commandos sent to assist in the rescue of the hostages, most of whom were Israeli and whose kidnapping was endorsed by then-Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. He was also the only Israeli soldier who would not return home alive from the otherwise successful mission: He was shot outside the Entebbe airport and buried days later in Jerusalem’s Military Cemetery.

On Monday, 40 years after his brother died in Entebbe crossfire, the younger Netanyahu, who has repeatedly pointed to his brother’s death as a turning point in his own pursuit of a career in politics, flew to Uganda to mark the grim twin anniversary.

“This is a deeply moving day for me,” Netanyahu said in a speech in Entebbe on Monday. “Forty years ago they landed in the dead of night in a country led by a brutal dictator who gave refuge to terrorists. Today we landed in broad daylight in a friendly country led by a president who fights terrorists.”

But despite the Israeli leader’s praise for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986 and was controversially re-elected for another five-year term this year, the aging Ugandan leader barely made note of Israel in his Monday speech. That’s because Museveni repeatedly called it “Palestine” in what appears to be an embarrassing gaffe, considering that Netanyahu’s visit was meant to mark the anniversary of his brother’s death at the hands of the pro-Palestinian liberation movement’s hijacking.

“The sad event, 40 years ago, turned into another bond linking Palestine to Africa,” Museveni said. “I said this is yet another bond between Africa and Palestine because there were earlier bonding events.”

According to some reports, Israeli radio stations cut off broadcast of Museveni’s speech after his repeated references to Palestine. But Netanyahu, who sat beside Museveni as he made his speech, hardly seemed to flinch.

A representative of the Ugandan government could not be reached by Foreign Policy Tuesday, but Ofwono Opondo, a Museveni spokesman, reportedly tweeted that the Ugandan president hadn’t made a mix-up at all.

“The whole of that land was originally known as Palestine so Museveni’s reference isn’t wrong,” he wrote. The tweet was no longer publicly available Tuesday.

The gaffe didn’t seem to disrupt Netanyahu’s landmark visit to sub-Saharan Africa, the first of any Israeli prime minister in three decades. His itinerary includes Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, and is meant to reinvigorate Israel’s partnership with the region, which Netanyahu in a speech in Kenya on Tuesday called critical to defeating terrorism.

“I think we see eye to eye on the nature of this problem, and I think Africa and Israel overwhelmingly see eye to eye on this,” he said, pointing to al-Shabab terrorist attacks in Kenya in recent years.

In the mid-20th century, after many African countries had freed themselves from their European colonizers, Israel helped them transition to independent states. But after Arab countries upped their assistance to the continent in the 1970s, many of those aid recipients cut their ties with Israel in an effort to boost the funds Arab leaders promised them.


'Netanyahu was used to smuggle Auschwitz blueprints out of Germany'
WATCH: Thousands walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau in March of the Living Auschwitz museum recovers thousands of missing Holocaust victims' items
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Former editor-in-chief of German newspaper claims that he had Netanyahu covertly smuggle Auschwitz plans out of the country to be taken to Yad Vashem.

The original Auschwitz architectural plans were smuggled out of Germany by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009 against the wishes of the German Interior Ministry, former Bild editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann said.

The original construction plans used for a major expansion of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1941 were found in 2008 in a Berlin flat, Germany's Bild newspaper reported.

The plans were subsequently acquired by Bild and made available to the public.



The daily printed three architect's drawings on yellowing paper from the batch of 28 pages of blueprints it obtained. One has an 11.66 meter by 11.20 meter room marked "Gaskammer" (gas chamber) that was part of a "delousing facility."

"We had to decide what to do with the drawings. I was convinced that they need to get to Yad Vashem," Diekmann told the Berlin-based Hebrew-language magazine Spitz.

The National Archives of Germany disagreed and Diekmann was warned by the German Interior Ministry that should he attempt to take the documents outside of Germany, he would be arrested.

"They and the German Interior Ministry told us that these documents belong to the government of Germany, because the German government is the legal successor of the Third Reich," Diekmann said.

"Then I had an idea: to find someone who can take them past the border, someone who would not be arrested."

Diekmann then invited Netanyahu to Berlin to attend a ceremony and handed the blueprints over to him.

"We asked him if he would come to Berlin and attend a ceremony during which we will give him the documents - and that's what happened," Diekmann explained.

He added that it was not apparent whether Netanyahu was aware of Germany's opposition to the plans being taken out of the country.

“Auschwitz, like nothing else, stands for the guilt and the blindness of an entire nation. Something so huge, it can hardly be grasped by new generations. That is why it is of the utmost importance to continue to be reminded of it. Because only those that know the past can act responsibly in the future.”

"These documents reveal that everyone who had even anything remotely to do with the planning and construction of the concentration camp must have know that people were to be gassed to death in assembly-line fashion," Bild wrote.

"The documents refute once and for all claims by those who deny the Holocaust even took place," it added.

The blueprints are currently located in the Yad Vashem archives and can be viewed in their online exhibit.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby stefano » Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:39 am

They lose some, they win some...

Netanyahu hopes Egyptian visit will revive Palestinian peace talks

Sameh Shoukry’s meeting with prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu reflects improved relations betwen two countries


Image

Despite the statement's focus on Egypt's concern with the Palestinian issue, which also came out in the press conference that followed the meeting, some observations suggest that Palestine may not have been the primary motivation for the visit.

For one, this week the Israeli government approved US$13 million in financing for the occupied West Bank settlements of Kiryat Arba and Hebron. Netanyahu described the plan as a form of support for settlers who "stood heroically in the face of terrorism," as he was quoted in the Associated Press.

And last week, the Israeli government made a similar decision to build hundreds of houses in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Jul 30, 2016 12:56 pm

Israel and U.S. are close to a deal on the biggest military aid package ever

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on July 24. (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)
By Carol Morello and Ruth Eglash July 29 at 7:26 PM
A senior Israeli official will arrive in Washington next week for a final round of negotiations involving the largest military aid package the United States has ever given any country and that will last more than a decade after President Obama leaves office.

Brig. Gen. Yaakov Nagel, the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council, has been dispatched with instructions to meet with White House officials in hopes of signing an agreement “as soon as possible,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said this week.

That represents a striking about-face for Netanyahu, who angered the Obama administration when he mused during a February meeting with his cabinet that Israel might decide to wait and “reach an agreement with the next administration.”

Nagel’s visit signals that Netanyahu may have concluded that he won’t necessarily get a better deal than the one he can forge with Obama, with whom he has had a visibly testy personal relationship. Both countries are now eager to strike a deal before Obama’s term ends.

The Obama administration has said it is prepared to sign a 10-year “memorandum of understanding” that significantly raises the $3.1 billion a year the United States currently grants Israel under an existing agreement that expires in 2018. In addition, Congress has provided additional money for missile defense.

[Senate wants Obama to hurry up on aid package for Israel]

Over months of secret negotiations that picked up steam late last year, Netanyahu was holding out for as much at $5 billion a year, according to accounts in the Israeli news media. Israelis argued that they need to spend much more on defense in the wake of last year’s Iran nuclear deal, which is freeing up frozen Iranian assets that Israel fears may be used in part to fund Iranian aggression in the region.

One major obstacle to finalizing an agreement, however, is a dispute over where the funds can be spent.

According to U.S. and Israeli analysts familiar with the negotiations, the Obama administration is insisting on phasing out a special arrangement that has allowed Israel to spend 26 percent of U.S. aid on its own defense research, development and procurement. No other country receiving U.S. funds is permitted to do so, but it was carved out in the 1980s to allow Israel to build up its nascent defense infrastructure. With Israel’s defense industry now thriving, the administration wants to pare that back and require that more U.S. aid go to American companies providing goods and services.

The possibility that Israeli defense companies could lose hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts is already causing controversy. Critics say they fear it could impair Israel’s ability to maintain equipment that is the most advanced in the region, known as its qualitative military edge.

[Israel braces for losses and layoffs under new military aid package]

“It will be devastating to Israeli military industries,” said Reuven Ben-Shalom, the former head of the North America branch of the Israeli military’s strategic planning division. “It’s not only a matter of business. . . . This money, 26 percent, enables the sustainment of our qualitative military edge.”

Israelis are also said to be displeased with a U.S. position that whatever amount of money they agree on will be final and that Israel will not go to Congress requesting more money, according to reports in the Israeli news media.

As the talks have dragged on, Netanyahu started getting pressured to finalize an agreement soon so that the Israeli military could proceed with its long-term planning. Israel’s finance and defense ministers both complained publicly that the delay was creating uncertainty that made planning difficult, and they urged that the deal be completed and signed quickly.

Some analysts said there was also growing recognition that concluding the agreement with Obama carried strong symbolism.

“Though he has been a strong supporter of Israeli security throughout his term, there’s clearly a difficult relationship between Netanyahu and Obama,” said Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. “For them to agree on this would send a signal to the world that although their personal relationship is not great, here Obama is making a down payment on 10 years of deep U.S.-Israeli security cooperation. That’s a powerful message.”

David Makovsky, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that Israelis are conscious that support for Israel is slipping in some liberal quarters and that a 10-year deal with a liberal president would make it “bulletproof.”

Makovsky also cited the “unpredictability factor” of Donald Trump as a potential successor to Obama.

“He professes his support of Israel,” Makovsky said of Trump. “But he’s also someone saying America’s broke. A bit of bird-in-the-hand would lock that in.”

The U.S. election season also has put a more subtle pressure on Netanyahu, as Israeli diplomats and advisers expressed concern that the bipartisan support Israel could always count on could erode in a super-politicized election.

“The security assistance to Israel should not become a political football, anytime, and especially during an election season,” said Sallai Meridor, who was Israel’s ambassador to the United States when the last memorandum of understanding was signed, in 2007. “It’s a prerequisite that it should be endorsed and supported by both parties. That’s very important.”

The arrival of Nagel suggests that an agreement is entering the homestretch. Netanyahu has said he hopes talks will be concluded “within a few weeks.” Ultimately, both Obama and Netanyahu would gain political benefits from a deal, analysts say.

“It’s an exclamation point on the case the Obama administration has been making for years, that he strengthened more than ever the U.S. commitment to Israeli security,” said
David Halperin, director of the New York-based Israel Policy Forum. “And it helps Netanyahu rebut criticism in recent years that he has sometimes quietly, sometimes very bluntly, sided with Republican points of views.

“It helps a bit to restore balance,” Halperin said, “to return to the notion of bipartisanship when it comes to Israel’s security.”
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Sep 04, 2016 8:34 am

Will Israel be put on trial for war crimes?
An expected visit by ICC delegation could increase the risk of Israeli officials being tried for war crimes.
Jonathan Cook

ICC is interested in examining how effective Israel's legal mechanisms are for investigating allegations of war crimes [Getty]
Nazareth - Israel has agreed to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to send a delegation to Israel and the occupied territories. It was revealed over the weekend in a step that could dramatically increase the risk of Israeli officials being tried for war crimes.

Emmanuel Nahshon, a foreign ministry spokesman, confirmed to Al Jazeera on Sunday that Israel had agreed to the visit in principle, though the "when and how" were still under discussion.

The ICC's move comes as human rights groups have harshly criticised Israel for closing investigations into dozens of allegations that its military has broken the laws of war during an attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014.

The Hague prosecutors are reportedly interested in examining how effective Israel's legal mechanisms are in investigating allegations of war crimes.

Under the terms of its founding statute, the ICC could take over jurisdiction of such probes if it is persuaded that Israel is unable or unwilling to conduct credible investigations itself.

READ MORE: 'Strong evidence' of Israeli war crimes in Gaza

So far, only three Israeli soldiers have been indicted on a relatively minor charge - of looting - even though Israel's 51-day offensive, named Protective Edge, in July and August 2014 resulted in some 2,250 Palestinian deaths. The vast majority were civilians, including 551 children.

We have seen Israel conducting flawed investigations or dragging out the legal process with long delays. The main aim appears to be to place obstacles in the way of the investigations so that Israel's armed forces are not held accountable.

Nadeem Shehadeh, a lawyer with Adalah
The Israeli military exonerated itself late last month in 13 cases it had been investigating. These included lethal attacks on three Palestinian families, the shelling of a hospital and a United Nations shelter for civilians, and the bombing of Gaza's main power plant. It declined to investigate another 80 complaints.

In response, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon criticised Israel for the "low rate of investigations opened into these serious allegations".

Since Protective Edge, two of Israel's largest human rights groups, B'Tselem and Yesh Din, have refused to cooperate with Israeli investigations in Gaza, accusing the Israeli military of using them to "whitewash" its actions.

In June, the New York-based monitoring group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), added to the pressure on the ICC, calling for it to open a formal investigation into the Gaza offensive.

The credibility of Israel's probes has been further undermined by a report issued last week by two local human rights groups. Adalah and Al Mezan, based in Israel and Gaza, respectively. The report accused Israel of failing to examine properly the evidence they had collected relating to 27 suspected war crimes during the 2014 offensive. Five cases referred to the Israeli attacks on UN schools sheltering civilians.Two years on, the groups noted, Israel had issued no indictments. Investigations, where they occurred, were "clearly flawed".

Nadeem Shehadeh, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal centre for Palestinian citizens in Israel, told Al Jazeera the possibility of legal redress in many cases was close to "exhausted".

"We have seen Israel conducting flawed investigations or dragging out the legal process with long delays," he said. "The main aim appears to be to place obstacles in the way of the investigations so that Israel's armed forces are not held accountable."

Israel's failure to conduct thorough and transparent inquiries could open the door to the ICC launching its own formal investigation, he said.


On Friday, an unnamed Israeli official tried to downplay the significance of the visit, telling the Haaretz daily, "We have nothing to hide."

The official added that Israel would point out to the ICC that it "has neither the authority nor the justification to handle the Palestinians' complaints".

Nahshon told Al Jazeera: "The goal is to give the ICC a better grasp on Israel's legal and judicial system." However, he continued, "That will make things easier if we move to another stage," - an apparent reference to the possibility that the ICC may consider launching a formal investigation.

Ghazi Hamad, a Palestinian official dealing with ICC matters, said the Palestinian Authority hoped that the visit would "speed up the opening of the investigation" by the court into Israel's conduct during Protective Edge.

"That would provide a clear message to Israel that it cannot continue to commit crimes with impunity," he told Al Jazeera. Hamad said the PA was not told whether the ICC had requested or was granted permission from Israel to access Gaza


Remembering Shujayea
This is the first time Israel has agreed to cooperate with an international body over allegations that could ultimately lead to war crimes trials. Israel denied entry to UN commissions of inquiry in 2009 and 2014, following major offensives in Gaza.

Officials in Washington have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the ICC exercising jurisdiction over Israeli nationals. Neither the US nor Israel has ratified the Rome Statute, the document establishing The Hague court in 2002.

Sari Bashi, director of the Israel-Palestine branch of HRW, said israel's continuing restrictions on human rights organisations entering Gaza had further undermined the credibility of Israel's investigations. The strict controls had made it "more difficult for [the groups] to do their jobs and to bring relevant information to light", she told Al Jazeera.

Israeli authorities, she added, had previously conceded that human rights groups played an important role in helping to "overcome the fear that Palestinian residents have of meeting [Israeli military] personnel."


Gaza's Shifa Hospital - Al Jazeera World
Al Mezan and Adalah said that, in many cases, Israel had refused to speak to any witnesses outside the military before it dropped inquiries into suspected war crimes.

Israel has received a total of 500 complaints relating to 360 incidents in Gaza in which there are suspicions of violations of international law.

So far, only a handful of investigations have been opened, relating mainly to physical assaults on civilians, "unlawful firing" at buildings, and looting. On August 24, Israeli announced the closure of more than 93 cases. In 80 cases, no formal investigation was conducted.

Two years on, Israel is still undecided whether to scrutinise some of the most contentious phases of its offensive, including the massive bombardment of Rafah to prevent an Israeli soldier from being taken as prisoner. The incident, known as Black Friday, is believed to have killed more than 100 Palestinian residents of the area.

Aida Burnett-Cargill, a spokeswoman in Gaza for Al Mezan, said Palestinian human rights organisations had sent to the ICC Palestinian witness statements relating to Black Friday in March.

"We hope these materials and others are raising doubts in the minds of the ICC's prosecutors about the seriousness with which Israel is handling its investigations," she told Al Jazeera.

Hamad said that the Palestinian foreign minister, Riad al-Malki, had met the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in The Hague on Friday to promise any help the court might need to launch a formal investigation.

The ICC is currently conducting a "preliminary inquiry" to examine whether an investigation is warranted into suspected violations of international law, either by Israel or Palestinian factions.

Protective Edge is the first major offensive against the Palestinians over which The Hague court has potential jurisdiction. In ratifying the Rome Statute last year, the Palestinians gave the ICC authority from June 2014, a month before Israel's attack on Gaza.

Among the investigations Israel closed last month was one looking into the shelling of a UN school in Rafah that was serving as a temporary shelter for 3,000 Palestinians. Some 12 civilians, including eight children, were killed and at least 25 injured. Chris Gunness, a UN spokesman in Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera that Israel had been given the school's coordinates and was warned on 33 separate occasions of its role as a shelter, the last time being an hour before the attack.

Human rights groups have challenged Israel's claims that the school was hit because militants riding a motorbike changed course towards the school after a missile had been fired at them. Al Mezan's testimonies suggest that the riders were civilians and should not have been targeted. HRW, meanwhile, discovered that the type of munition Israel used could have been diverted when it was clear it would explode near the school.

Adalah and Al Mezan said Israeli authorities had refused to divulge the basis for most of their decisions either to exonerate soldiers or refuse the opening of investigations, claiming the evidence was classified.

Human rights groups have criticised the closing of other investigations. In June, inquiries were dropped against Neria Yeshurun, a brigade commander who had admitted to ordering the shelling of a medical clinic "to raise morale", apparently in revenge after one of his officers was killed. He was reprimanded instead.

In another controversial case, Israel closed an investigation in June 2015 into the killing of four boys as they played football on a beach, close to hotels where foreign reporters were based. Shehadeh said Adalah, which supplied testimonies to Israel about the boys' deaths, had immediately appealed the decision to Israel's attorney general but had heard nothing for more than a year.

In May, leading Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said it would no longer submit complaints to the Israeli authorities. It said it was pointless to work "with a system whose real function is measured by its ability to continue to successfully cover up".

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/i ... 37369.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
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Re: Zionism’s Lost Shine

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:23 am

Beyond Apartheid and Genocide—Justice for BLM and Palestine
By: Noura Khouri

Image
Activists make the links between Black Lives Matters and Palestine.

Published 4 September 2016 (16 hours 43 minutes ago)

Perhaps Israel’s main success in battle lies in its public relations campaign, where the conflict ultimately becomes a war for public opinion.
A recent statement issued by the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of 60 grassroots organizations, describes Israel as “an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people." Progressive organizations from all over the world have endorsed the platform, to end state violence and genocide against Black people.

Recognizing this as a shared experience with Palestinians, what has generated the greatest backlash are the words “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s actions towards Palestinians, and its support for BDS. This has led Jewish groups of all stripes to reject the statement outright, “We were stunned and outraged by the erroneous and egregious claims of genocide and apartheid” the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement said.

The Anti-Defamation League supposed mission statement is to stand against “all forms of bigotry, defend democratic ideals and protect civil rights for all,” CEO Jonathan Greenblatt had this to say, “Whatever one’s position on the relationship between Israel, its Palestinian citizens, and the residents in the West Bank and Gaza, it’s repellent and completely inaccurate to label Israel’s policy as ‘genocide’."


To say that occupation exists best in the dark explains the controversy surrounding use of the words "genocide" and "apartheid." It also explains what’s a simple fact to those on the receiving end of the reality on the ground, causes so much confusion and strife to those who are not.

The irony should not be lost on us that the same people opposed to the use of "genocide" and "apartheid" are the same people justifying, therefore perpetuating and complicit in, the crimes in Palestine.

Similarly in the U.S., police are not held accountable and their supporters are in deep denial of the state violence and countless crimes against Black people taking place in their name. All those making justifications and denunciations, who are outraged—not at the violence itself—but at those like Colin Kaepernick and others that choose to no longer stand for symbols of this centuries-old and ongoing oppression, are too directly complicit.

When generalities are made, distinctions are muddled, and even those with the best intentions are left to interpret meanings or are completely confused by the insidious details of the system at work. Regardless of one’s opinion on how to frame the political situation, according to the United Nations General Assembly definition under article 1: “apartheid is a crime against humanity; and acts resulting from the policies and practices of apartheid and similar policies and practices equal racial segregation and discrimination."

In other words apartheid in South Africa (where the reprehensible system originated) literally meant ‘apart’ ’hood’ and was the official policy of economically, legally and politically segregating and oppressing the non-white population. These practices can be seen from within Israel itself, where the parallels more accurately represent apartheid.

Yet in the West Bank and Gaza, a far more accelerated process is in place, more accurately reflecting a slow, but very real genocide. Under international law genocide is: "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group such as: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part … as well as forcible transfer." All of which are routine practices, or mowing the lawn, as Israeli lawmakers bluntly put it, every few years.


Still to the outside world, they must walk the line of upholding the appearance of a democracy, while maintaining its racist nature. Thus, the conflict ultimately becomes, a war of public opinion. Perhaps Israel’s main success in battle lies in its public relations campaign.

Since 1948, Israeli leaders have engaged in the world's most cunning public relations campaign. As they must have known then, the key to success on the battlefield was how to disguise the fact that Europe's Jews facing transfer, persecution and genocide, were to flee directly to a land where they would commit transfer, persecution and genocide against millions of Palestinians to this day.

A recent public relations stunt designed to make the Israeli government appear to show compassion (for animals) and win global support, is this article titled Israel helps evacuate animals as 'world's worst zoo' in Gaza closes. A Vienna-based animal rights group Four Paws states: “Due to poor conditions and the lack of ability to continue proper care for the animals in the zoo of Khan Yunis, we were asked to assist and coordinate the transfer of these animals to zoos in Israel and around the world,” implying Palestinian savages can't even take care of animals.


Meanwhile no mention is made of the decade long completely debilitating siege, lack of access to food, clean water and building supplies, or indiscriminate bombings. Adding "All the while there were sounds of explosions in the background, reminding us where we are and what the animals had to endure," proudly prioritizing the rescue and safety of zoo animals over the besieged people of Gaza!

Even supporters of a ‘two-state solution’ point to Palestinians within Israel who are allowed to vote, as an example a functioning democracy. Adding to the profound confusion, is that from the outside it appears to be one of the most multi-racial places on earth, although violence and racism against Black Jews in Israeli society is well-documented.

Also in South Africa as with Jim Crow, the practice of racism was much easier to identify due to separate laws for “whites” and “non-whites." Yet in Israel, despite the color of your skin, your status under law is determined by if you are Jewish, whether you are religious or not, or non-Jewish.


The struggle for justice is universal and one need not be Palestinian or Black to see the truth, as documented in this debate about zionism by Israeli Rogel Alpher, "Zionism Today is an Illusion", “The problem is that most Jewish eyes in Israel are blind to the apartheid, and to the fact that the occupation and apartheid will necessarily lead to the creation of a binational state—one that is, in essence, anti-Zionist. Anyone ever expecting Israel to end the occupation, either voluntarily or via international pressure, needs to think again.”

Ultimately, under all human rights and international law standards, an occupied and oppressed people have the right to resist and fight back, by any means necessary.

After decades of waiting for a political solution that will ease the insanity they are faced with due to lack of political will, Palestinians, BLM and our supporters are done hoping for an arbitrary end to the illusion of democracy. Towards that end the Movement for Black Lives has declared its support for Boycott Divestment Sanctions. And #Arabs4BlackLives has responded affirming its unequivocal support and its will to divest economically from police terror and militarism.

It is due time for those on the front lines to define in our own terms and to claim our rights, as recognized in theory by all standards—and call for the end of the acquiescence of apartheid and genocide, in part and in full—both in the U.S., in historic Palestine and beyond.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinio ... -0015.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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