Tag Archives: Israel

AIPAC gathering aims at 2024 game plan for electing pro-Israel candidates

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It has created a structure of video conferences and smaller local get-togethers as a substitute and has not scheduled large gatherings even as other groups have resumed their pre-pandemic conventions. Still, it has not counted out reviving the conferences.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — With a new right-wing government in Israel raising alarm bells among many in the United States, the timing seemed ripe for a gathering by AIPAC, which regularly convenes bigwigs to talk about the US-Israel relationship.

But the group’s conference this week in Washington is focusing not on that relationship but on American electoral politics.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s “Political Leadership Forum” on Monday and Tuesday was closed to press.

But it offers the latest signal of how the group’s activities have evolved from the days when its policy conferences were feel-good affairs that sought to elevate pro-Israel policy above nitty-gritty politicking.

The forum brought in “1,000 of our top political leaders to strategize for the 2024 election cycle,” an AIPAC official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

AIPAC’s political action committees include a conventional PAC, AIPAC PAC, which relies on smaller donations, and a Super PAC, United Democracy Project, which has unlimited spending power.

Together, the PACs raised over $50 million.

The success rate was high, with UDP’s preferred candidates prevailing in eight of the 10 races it involved itself in, and AIPAC PAC backing 342 winners out of 365.

Illustrative: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer prepares to speak at the 2019 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, at Washington Convention Center, in Washington, March 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

That made AIPAC a force to be reckoned with in a shifting political landscape, but directly backing candidates also exacted a price at a complicated time in the history of US-Israel relations.

Liberals faulted AIPAC for backing more than 100 Republicans who would not certify Joe Biden’s presidential election even after a deadly insurrection aimed at keeping Congress from doing so.

Conservatives wondered why AIPAC was backing Democrats who backed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal so reviled by AIPAC.

A theme of the get-together this week was how to navigate that polarized environment.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, joined Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, to discuss maintaining bipartisan support for Israel, at a time when a vocal Israel-critical minority maintains a degree of influence among Democrats.

“We are working to make sure that the US-Israel relationship remains bipartisan and durable,” Gottheimer said. Gottheimer and Fitzpatrick co-chair the bipartisan Problem-Solvers Caucus.

There was policy as well, with a video conference address by Israel’s freshly elected prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and one in person by Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary.

Netanyahu suggested in his remarks that differences with Democrats over Iran policy were no longer as sharp as they were when Netanyahu faced down then-US president Barack Obama in 2015 over the Iran nuclear deal.

(AIPAC’s opposition to the deal at the time spurred a similar fly-in of top activists in a failed bid to quash it in Congress).

“It’s time to close ranks between Israel and the United States — and others,” Netanyahu said of the Iran issue.

“And I look forward to discussing this issue with President Biden and his team.

I think there is more of a meeting of the minds today than there has ever been.”

US President Joe Biden initially sought to revive the deal, which former US president Donald Trump quit in 2018, but those plans are moribund because of Iran’s deadly repression of pro-woman protests and its support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Then-US vice president Joe Biden is seen on large video screens as he addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, March 20, 2016. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is carefully monitoring the moves made by Netanyahu’s new government, formed in coalition with right-wing extremist parties.

The government is seeking to diminish the country’s judiciary, and some of its leaders are aggressively pursuing the annexation of the West Bank — a move that the Biden administration opposes.

Neither Netanyahu nor Gottheimer addressed Israel’s current political climate in the partial remarks that were released by their offices.

AIPAC shuttered its springtime policy conferences, which attracted more than 15,000 people, after its conference in March 2020 drew unwanted attention because two of the conference-goers appeared to be spreaders of the then-unfamiliar COVID-19 virus.

It has created a structure of video conferences and smaller local get-togethers as a substitute and has not scheduled large gatherings even as other groups have resumed their pre-pandemic conventions. Still, it has not counted out reviving the conferences.

Normalization ‘smacks of desperation’ as US and Israel court emboldened MBS

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2 June 2023

“In order for this Israeli government to survive, they need to keep alive the narrative that normalisation with Saudi Arabia is incredibly imminent,” he said. “When in fact, it isn’t.”

US and Israeli officials are putting a chill on reports that Saudi Arabia and Israel are inching closer to establishing official relations, underlining how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has time on his side to normalise ties.

A senior US official told lawmakers on Wednesday there had been “a lot of hyperventilation in the press, a lot of excitable rumint” that a breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Israel was near.

“Especially in the Israeli press,” assistant secretary of state Barbara Leaf told a Senate hearing.

“They’re just electric with the idea that Saudi Arabia might take that step.”

The day before, Israel’s national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, suggested there was daylight between the Biden administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which he said was “in a fog” on normalization talks between Washington and Riyadh.

The comments follow a deluge of reports – primarily within the Israeli press – providing near-daily updates on the Biden administration’s back and forth with Israel and Saudi Arabia. 

Hopes for an agreement rose in early May when top Biden advisor Jake Sullivan declared that Saudi-Israel normalization was in the US national security interest.

A report by Axios that the White House aimed to seal a deal within 6-7 months, before the next US elections, added to the frenzy.   

“The rhetoric has definitely moved,” Yoel Guzansky, a Gulf expert at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told Middle East Eye.

 “That was the first time the Biden administration put normalization out there so publicly as a priority, but when you move past the rhetoric, not all that much has changed from a year ago.” 

On Friday, the State Department announced that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia next week for talks on strategic cooperation expected to include normalisation.

A senior US official said the admininstration would continue to push for a deal while also pursuing progress “short of formal diplomatic normalization.” 

Keeping narrative alive

Aziz Alghashian, based in Riyadh and a fellow at Sepad with a research focus on Israel-Saudi ties, told MEE that the drip-drip of media leaks had reached an “annoying crescendo” and “smacked of desperation by Israel to appear closer to Saudi Arabia”. 

“In order for this Israeli government to survive, they need to keep alive the narrative that normalisation with Saudi Arabia is incredibly imminent,” he said. “When in fact, it isn’t.”

To be sure, Saudi Arabia and Israel are closer now than at any time in history.

Saudi Arabia was not a party to the 2020 Abraham Accords that saw the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain normalise ties, but it has been impacted.

The two cooperate quietly on security and intelligence to combat Iran.

The US move to put Israel in Centcom – US military command for the Middle East – expanded those defence links.

Last year, Saudi Arabia and Oman publicly joined Israel in US-led naval exercises for the first time.

‘If Saudi did this deal with a Republican president, it would cement the idea they are a partisan player’

– Prem Kumar, Albright Stonebridge Group

This month, Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen spoke on the phone twice to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman within one day as part of negotiations to allow direct commercial flights to the kingdom for Muslims from Israel making the Hajj pilgrimage. 

“There is no doubt that we are closer than ever to a deal, given the fact that ‘ever’ was almost zero a few years ago,” Aaron David Miller, former State Department advisor, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told MEE.

Contradicting Biden, Saudis deny opening of airspace is step toward ties with Israel | The Times of Israel

For its part, the Biden administration is looking to patch up ties with Riyadh that are under strain over human rights and oil production.

The kingdom’s decision in March to reestablish ties with Iran in a deal brokered by China signaled Saudi’s drift from Washington.

“The administration feels it over-course corrected,” Miller said.

“Now, there is no more talk of Riyadh as a pariah and they are looking for a way to strengthen the relationship.”

A normalization deal would showcase US diplomatic heft in the region when allies complain of waning interest.

It would also be a triumph for Netanyahu, who returned to office last year with a pledge to expand the Abraham Accords but has had to pivot to domestic challenges after backlash to his contentious judicial overhaul. 

“Biden wants it more than ever. Bibi wants it more than ever.

But Mohammed bin Salman can wait,” Alghashian told MEE.

Unlike the 2020 Abraham Accords, where talks between Arab states and Israel were conducted in secret, Saudi Arabia’s opening demands were leaked for the world to see.

In exchange for normalizing ties, it wants security guarantees from the US, help in developing a civilian nuclear program and fewer restrictions on arms sales.  

“The obstacle boils down to whether the Saudi demands can be met,” Miller said.

“And the price they want is very high.”

The elephant in the room is Saudi Arabia’s position on Palestine. 

In January, Saudi’s top diplomat said that the kingdom will not normalise ties until an independent Palestinian state is created, and the Saudis have not publicly indicated a change to that position.

Guzansky said Saudi demands for an independent state are likely a negotiating position, but “Riyadh’s wishlist to normalize definitely includes something in the Palestinian arena, it’s below the threshold of state, but it must be addressed and it’s not clear this [Israeli] government can do that.”

Building consensus

Saudi’s demands  require major lobbying in Congress on behalf of the Biden administration, at a time when members of the president’s own party want to curtail the relationship over human rights concerns.

Many lawmakers have also expressed unease with its nuclear ambitions.

On Wednesday, US Senator Chris Murphy elicited a public pledge from Leaf, the State Department’s top Middle East official, that the administration would not make security guarantees to Saudi Arabia without first seeking congressional approval.

Current and former US officials tell MEE that if the Biden administration wanted, it could override congressional opposition to arms sales with a presidential veto, but there is little appetite to do so given the delicate state of US-Saudi ties and the upcoming presidential election. 

‘MBS feels he is in a very strong position and doesn’t have to give in to anyone’

– Abdullah Baabood, Carnegie Middle East Center 

“The Biden administration does not want to go to war with members of the Democratic Party for this deal,” Miller told MEE. 

But building consensus in Congress is more difficult now that US-Israel ties have hit a rough patch.

Netanyahu leads a government made up of once-fringe, far-right lawmakers and his judicial overhaul has become a lightning rod issue within the Democratic Party.

The Israeli leader has yet to be invited to the White House. 

 

Israel itself has been vague on how it would respond to the Saudi nuclear program.

Hanegbi, the Israeli national security advisor, said the file would have to pass through US counter-proliferation regulations first, but a final deal wouldn’t be clinched without consulting Israel, where a debate is raging on how to address Riyadh’s nuclear ambitions.

“If the price for peace is giving Saudi Arabia enrichment capabilities, I think it’s too high,” Guzansky told MEE.

“Who knows what MBS would do in five years or even next year with that card.”

The US requires countries looking to cooperate on nuclear technology to sign a 123 agreement, which bans them from enriching and selling uranium – a Saudi goal.

‘MBS wants something outstanding’

Iran-Saudi Pact Is Brokered by China, Leaving U.S. on Sidelines – The New York Times

The administration has tried to trim Riyadh’s sails by emphasizing the political benefits of an agreement.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham even told the Saudis that normalization during Biden’s term could help them build goodwill in Washington.

“That’s an argument the Saudis have internalized,” Prem Kumar, a former advisor to President Obama on the Middle East who is now at the global advisory firm, Albright Stonebridge Group, told MEE.

“They realize that if they did this deal with a Republican president, it would just cement the idea that Saudi Arabia is a partisan player in Washington,” he added. 

Abdullah Baabood, a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, believes that card is overplayed in the DC establishment.

‘Biden wants it more than ever. Bibi wants it more than ever.

But Mohammed bin Salman can wait’

– Aziz Alghashian, foreign policy expert

“We saw what the Saudis did to Biden when he visited,” he said, referring to Biden’s July 2022 trip to the kingdom.

“If Saudi wanted to get closer to the Democrats, they could have responded to the visit a lot more positively.

But they didn’t care.”

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is pursuing a foreign policy that is more independent from Washington. 

China Brokered Truce Between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Could Ukraine and Russia Be Next? | Time

He is riding a boom in oil prices that have buoyed state coffers and put the kingdom back at the centre of global energy security concerns.

“MBS feels he is in a very strong position and doesn’t have to give in to anyone,” Baabood said.

“MBS wants something outstanding to normalize.”

Costly military interventions in hotspots like Yemen that defined the crown prince’s early rule have given way to efforts to position Riyadh as a mediator.

Besides restoring ties with Iran, he welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad back to the Arab fold and hosted a Hamas delegation alongside representatives of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel and the US label Hamas a terrorist group.

But Kumar believes normalizing ties with Israel fits with the foreign policy pivot. 

“It would potentially demonstrate that Saudi Arabia can have a strong relationship with both Iran and Israel,” he told MEE.

“No other Arab country would be able to claim that mantle.”

Netanyahu’s far-right government and tensions in the occupied West Bank, especially at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem, also muddy the equation with Saudi Arabia. 

“I think it’s an extremely risky move for Saudi Arabia as it tries to act as a leader of the Arab world. It would undermine their reputation,” Baabood said.

“Right now Saudi Arabia enjoys the benefits of security cooperation with Israel, without having to defend those ties publicly.”

Divine judgment has been unleashed on the entire world

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Since the dawn of the Zionist movement, suffering has not ceased to exist in the world. All the warnings of the Torah have been fulfilled in their details among our people all over the world. For a believer it is no surprise that the Zionists are the same as the heretics at the time of the Destruction of the Temple. Divine judgment has been unleashed on the entire world.
Rabbi Shaul Brach, Rabbi of Kasho, Hungary (1865-1940)

The term “Antisemitism” originated in 1860 by a European Ashkanazi Jew. The first Zionist congress was held in 1897 

The strategy of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is, in fact, a strategy to conceal and distract from the very real, old antisemitism that was always an ally of the Zionist movement – an alliance that goes back to the 1890s and continues to this very day. 

The First Zionist Congress  was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel, from August 29 to August 31, 1897.

208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attended the event.[1] It was convened[2] and chaired[3] by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement.

The Congress formulated a Zionist platform, known as the Basel program, and founded the Zionist Organization.

It also adopted the Hatikvah as its anthem (already the anthem of Hovevei Zion and later to become the national anthem of the State of Israel).

And thus the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was discovered and published. 

The Protocols, the record of secret meetings of Jewish leaders, describes a conspiracy to dominate the world. 

“Although the term [antisemitism] now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, since it implies a discrimination against all Semites.

Arabs and other peoples are Semites, and yet they are not the targets of antisemitism as it is usually understood,” asserts the online encyclopedia.

When Zionists Murder authentic Jews: The Story of the Ringworm Children

Ashkenazi Jews (not one drop Semitic )

(ASH-keh-NAH-zee jooz)
One of two major ancestral groups of Jewish people whose ancestors lived in France and Central and Eastern Europe, including Germany, Poland, and Russia.
The other group (Semitic Jews) is called Sephardic Jews and includes those whose ancestors lived in Spain, Portugal, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Most Jewish people living in the United States are of Ashkenazi descent.

The AntiChrist as described in the Bible:

Verse 36: He will take absolute power for himself, the biggest power grab the world has ever witnessed.

Verse 36: He will oppose everything called God, and he will exalt himself over everything, reminiscent of Lucifer.

Verse 36: He will be the arch-blasphemer against God and all that God represents.

Verse 36: He will prosper-during the time God allows him. God will still be in control.

Verse 37: He will reject all deities.

Verses 38, 39: He will worship and ruthlessly use military might.

Verse 40: His might as head of the Revived Roman Empire will be challenged.

Verses 40-43: Since he will have made a covenant with Israel, he will fight the kings of the north (Syria) and south (Egypt and joining nations), and will be victorious at the beginning.

Verse 44: But additional conflict will take place.

Verse 45: Antichrist will set up headquarters in Jerusalem and will break his covenant with Jerusalem, posing as Christ and introducing his one-world system.

Verse 45: Antichrist will “come to his end,” when Christ descends to earth with His armies and His bride at the end of the Tribulation and defeats the world ruler (see also Zechariah 14:1-4; Revelation 19:19-21).

 

The truth behind Israeli propaganda on the ‘expulsion’ of Arab Jews

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HOW THE  NON SEMITIC ASHKENAZI SOUGHT TO POISON AND MURDER SEMITIC SEPHARDIC CHILDREN.

The history of Arab Jewish immigration to Israel is not one of expulsion by Arab regimes, but rather one of Israeli criminal actions and conspiracies

Israel’s outrageous fabrications about the immigration of Arab Jews to Israel in the 1940s and 50s are an attempt to mask the injustices meted out to Palestinians

Israeli propaganda about the “expulsion” of Arab Jews from Arab countries in the late 1940s and early 1950s continues without respite.

Earlier this month, Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he “intends to submit a draft resolution requiring the international body to hold an annual commemoration for the hundreds of thousands of Jews exiled from Arab countries due to the creation of the State of Israel,” according to a report in Ynet. 

The history of Arab Jewish immigration to Israel is not one of expulsion by Arab regimes, but rather one of Israeli criminal actions and conspiracies

Israel’s fabrications about the immigration of Arab Jews to Israel are so outrageous that the country holds a commemoration on 30 November each year.

This date just happens to coincide with the ethnic cleansing by Zionist gangs of Palestine, which began on 30 November 1947, a day after the UN General Assembly adopted the Partition Plan.

The choice of date seeks to implicate Arab Jews in the conquest of Palestine, when most had no role in it.  

Erdan alleges that, after the establishment of the Israeli settler-colony, Arab countries “launched a widespread attack against the State of Israel and the thriving Jewish communities that lived within [the Arab world]”. 

Israeli fabrications, with which Israel always hoped to force Arab countries into paying Israel billions of dollars, have a second important goal: to exonerate Israel from its original sin of expelling Palestinians in 1948 and stealing their land and property. 

Ideological pitfalls

In December 1948, the UN General Assembly mandated that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return home and that they be compensated for the destruction and theft of their property by Israel.

Israel not only wants to hold on to all of those lands, but to extort Arab countries to pay out billions more.

There is a further irony to the Israeli ploy: Israel has always insisted that Palestine, and later Israel, is the homeland of world Jewry, while simultaneously claiming that Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel are “refugees”.

The legal and internationally accepted definition of a refugee, however, is of a person who was expelled or fled their homeland, not one who “returns” to their homeland.

President of the Egyptian Jewish Community Magda Shehata Haroun talks during an interview with AFP at the Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue in Cairo, also known as Temple Ismailia or Adly Synagogue in downtown Cairo on October 3, 2016.
President of the Egyptian Jewish Community Magda Shehata Haroun at the Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue in Cairo on 3 October, 2013 (AFP)

These ideological pitfalls aside, the history of Arab Jewish emigration to Israel is not one of expulsion by Arab regimes, but rather one of Israeli criminal actions that forced Jews in Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt and other countries to leave for Israel.  

In 1949, the Israeli government was working assiduously with British colonial authorities in Aden and with Yemeni officials to airlift Yemeni Jews to Israel.

While the League of Arab States had resolved to ban the emigration of Arab Jews to Israel, Yemen’s imam allowed Jews to leave as early as February 1949, with the help of Zionist emissaries and Israeli bribes to provincial Yemeni rulers, according to prominent Israeli historian Tom Segev’s book: 1949: The First Israelis.

Some provincial rulers asked that at least 2,000 Jews remain, as it was the religious duty of Muslims to protect them, but the Zionist emissary insisted that it was a Jewish religious “commandment” for them to go to the “Land of Israel”.

The fact that Israel’s prime minister at the time was David Ben Gurion also suggested to many that Israel “was the kingdom of David,” according to Segev and other sources.

 Tens of thousands of Jews were urged to leave their homes and travel to Israel. 

Institutionalised discrimination

As for the Jews who opted to stay, the Jewish emissary in Aden, Shlomo Schmidt, asked permission to propose that Yemeni authorities expel them, but Yemeni authorities did not. 

Some of the luggage of the departing Jews, including ancient Torah scrolls, jewellery and embroidered garments, which they were encouraged to bring with them, disappeared en route and mysteriously “made their way to antique and souvenir shops in Israel,” according to Segev and other sources.

About 50,000 Yemeni Jews were essentially removed from Yemen by the Israelis in 1949 and 1950 to face institutionalised Ashkenazi discrimination in Israel.

This included the abduction of hundreds of Yemeni children from their parents, who were told the children died; the children were then allegedly handed over for adoption to Ashkenazi couples.

Arab rulers and Israel’s leaders: A long and secret history of cooperation

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Zionists were also active in bringing about the emigration of Morocco’s Jews to Israel. Morocco was under French colonial occupation at the time, so the Jewish Agency had to strike an agreement with the French governor of Morocco to bring about the emigration of Moroccan Jews, who had to face horrific conditions on Israeli ships, according to Segev and other sources. 

Some of the 100,000 Jews who left, according to the Jewish Agency emissary, had to be virtually “taken aboard the ships by force”. 

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Said, Britain’s strongman in the Arab east, was maligned by Israeli propaganda that it was persecuting Jews, when in fact these were Israeli fabrications. Zionist agents had been active in Iraq, smuggling Jews through Iran to Israel, which led to the prosecution of a handful of Zionists. 

Then, attacks on Iraqi Jews began, including at the Masuda Shemtov synagogue in Baghdad, killing four Jews and wounding around a dozen more.

Some Iraqi Jews believed that this was the work of Mossad agents, aiming to scare Jews into leaving the country. Iraqi authorities accused and executed two activists from the Zionist underground.

Amid Israel’s global campaign to pressure Iraq into allowing Jews to leave – which led to Israeli attempts to block a World Bank loan to Iraq, accompanied by American and British pressure – the Iraqi parliament relented and issued a law permitting Jews to leave.

Zionist agents in Iraq telegraphed their handler in Tel Aviv: “We are carrying on our usual activity in order to push the law through faster.” Iraq’s 120,000 Jews were thus soon transferred to Israel.

Targeting western interests

Among Egypt’s relatively small Jewish community, an even smaller number were Ashkenazi (mostly from Alsace and Russia) who arrived since the 1880s.

The larger community consisted of Sephardi Jews who arrived during the same period from Turkey, Iraq and Syria, in addition to the tiny community of Karaite Jews.

All in all, they numbered fewer than 70,000 people, half of whom did not hold Egyptian nationality. 

Zionist activism among the small community of Ashkenazi Jews in Egypt led some to go to Palestine before 1948.

However, it was after the establishment of Israel that many of Egypt’s upper-class Jews began to leave to France, not Israel.

Nonetheless, the community remained essentially intact until Israel intervened in 1954, recruiting Egyptian Jews for an Israeli terrorist cell that placed bombs in Egyptian cinemas, the Cairo train station as well as American and British educational institutions and libraries.

The Israelis hoped that by targeting western interests in Egypt, they could sour the then-friendly relations between Egypt’s president and the Americans. 

Egyptian intelligence uncovered the Israeli terrorist ring and tried the accused in open court.

The Israelis mounted an international campaign against Egypt and president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was dubbed “Hitler on the Nile” by the Israeli and western press, while Israeli agents shot at the Egyptian consulate in New York, according to David Hirst’s book The Gun and the Olive Branch and other sources.

When Israel joined the British-French conspiracy to invade Egypt in 1956, and after its military occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, public rage ensued against the settler-colony

Combined with the new socialist and nationalist campaign of Egyptianizing investments in the country, many rich businessmen began to sell their businesses and leave.

By the time nationalization began in the late 1950s and early 1960s, most of the nationalized businesses were in fact owned by Egyptian Muslims and Christians, not Jews. It was in this context, and in the context of public rage against Israel, that many Egyptian Jews got scared and left after 1954 to the US and France, while the poor ended up in Israel (as recounted in Joel Beinin’s Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry).

When Israel joined the British-French conspiracy to invade Egypt in 1956, and after its military occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, public rage ensued against the settler-colony. The Egyptian government detained about 1,000 Jews, half of whom were Egyptian citizens, according to Beinin, and Egypt’s small Jewish community began to leave in droves. On the eve of Israel’s second invasion of Egypt in 1967, only 7,000 Jews remained in the country.

Formal invitations

Despite Israeli culpability in bringing about the exodus of Arab Jews from their countries, the Israeli government continues  to blame it on Arab governments.

As for the property of Arab Jews, indeed, they should be fully entitled to it and/or to compensation – not on account of some fabricated expulsion narrative that serves the interests of the Israeli state, but on account of their actual ownership. 

Contrary to Israeli propaganda that there was a population swap, it is notable that  while European and Arab Jews who emigrated to Israel were given the stolen land and properties of expelled Palestinians free of charge, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris and other sources, the Palestinians did not receive the property of the Arab Jews who migrated to Israel.

A picture dated before 1937 during the British Mandate in Palestine shows Arabs demonstrating in the Old City of Jerusalem against the Jewish immigration to Palestine.
A picture dated before 1937 during the British Mandate in Palestine shows Arabs demonstrating in the Old City of Jerusalem against the Jewish immigration to Palestine (AFP)

Indeed, the Palestine Liberation Organization, which in 1974 received recognition by the Arab League and the UN as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” was very aware of this Israeli strategy.

Understanding that the emigration of Arab Jews to Israel was a boon to the Israeli settler-colony, the PLO demanded, in a much-publicised 1975 memorandum to the Arab governments whose Jewish populations had left to Israel, that they issue formal and public invitations for Arab Jews to return home. 

Notably, none of the governments and regimes in power in 1975 were in office when the Jews left between 1949 and 1967.

 Public and open invitations were duly issued by the governments of Morocco, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Iraq and Egypt for Arab Jews to return home, especially in light of the institutionalised Ashkenazi racist discrimination to which they had been subjected in Israel.

Neither Israel nor its Arab Jewish communities heeded the calls. 

Rewarding crimes

All this aside, there is the matter of Israel’s unceasing attempts to equate the financial losses of Arab Jews with those of Palestinian refugees.

A conservative official Israeli estimate comparing Palestinian property losses to Arab Jewish property losses gave a ratio of 22 to one in favour of Palestinians – despite Israel’s gross overestimation of Arab Jewish losses and even grosser underestimation of Palestinian losses.

How the Arab League helped dissolve the Palestinian question

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Researchers’ conservative estimates of Palestinian refugee losses amount to more than $300bn in 2008 prices, excluding damages for psychological pain and suffering, which would raise the total substantially.

This excludes the losses in confiscated land and property for Palestinian citizens of Israel since 1948, and the losses incurred by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem since 1967. 

Whereas none of the Arab regimes in power when Arab Jews emigrated to Israel exists today, the same Israeli colonial-settler regime that expelled the Palestinian people and engineered the exodus of Arab Jews from their countries remains in power. 

Yet, in his letter, Erdan complains that “it is infuriating to see the UN mark a special day and devote a lot of resources for the issue of ‘Palestinian refugees,’ while abandoning and ignoring hundreds of thousands of Jewish families deported from Arab countries and Iran”.

The irony of Erdan’s letter is that it demands that the Israeli regime be financially and morally rewarded for the crimes it has committed over the last seven decades.

Turkey bust Mossad ring operating against Iranian targets

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11 arrested and several are on the run, publishes name and photo of alleged ringleader; incident marks 2nd Israeli spy ring Ankara claims to have disrupted

23 May 2023

Turkish authorities have reportedly arrested 11 people suspected of spying on Iranian targets for Israel.

According to a report Tuesday by the Daily Sabah, which is widely seen as supportive of  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, authorities have identified 15 suspects, 11 of whom were arrested, who allegedly were part of a 23-member ring of operatives.

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization and the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office suspect the 15 used a company that does business in Iran to gather intelligence for Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the newspaper reported.

Authorities are searching for two additional suspects.

The 18-month long investigation initially had focused on 23 individuals, according to Sabah, which said two of the suspects are Turkish citizens.

Authorities are searching for two additional suspects.

The 18-month long investigation initially had focused on 23 individuals, according to Sabah, which said two of the suspects are Turkish citizens.

Unusually, the report included the name of a suspect alleged to be the ring’s leader: Selçuk Küçükkaya. A picture said to be of Küçükkaya shows a bearded, middle-aged man. Sabah said Mossad recruited Küçükkaya through an alleged member of the Gülen movement, an opposition network that Turkey has designated as a terrorist group.

Küçükkaya allegedly met with Mossad agents in Europe, who gave him five test assignments before recruiting him to establish a ring, follow people of interest and transmit to Mossad “the family members of the target persons, phone calls and signal information, bank accounts and assets,” the report said.

A picture published by Turkish media of Selçuk Küçükkaya, an alleged ringleader of a Mossad cell in Turkey on May 23, 2023 (Twitter: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The report described the arrests as part of a broad counterintelligence effort directed not only at Israel, but also at thwarting Russian and Iranian operatives on Turkish soil.

Israel, which rarely comments publicly on Mossad actions, has not reacted to the allegations. The Sabah report did not specify the legal procedures pending in the case of the 11 suspects in custody.

Last year, Turkey also claimed to have broken up a Mossad ring and put 15 people on trial for espionage.

Turkish-Israeli relations, which had been robust both commercially and on security, soured after Erdogan came to power in the early 2000s and have since been through several up and downs.

Ties have been recently been warming, with Jerusalem and Ankara agreeing to restore full diplomatic relations last year.

Erdoğan, head of the pro-Islam AKP party and widely seen in Turkey as a champion of the Palestinian cause, is running for reelection in the second round in Turkey’s presidential race on May 28.

The runoff was scheduled after Erdoğan failed to obtain a 50% majority in the first round on May 14. He is running against opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

Israel: Justice minister says ‘Jews are not ready to live with Arabs’

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Yariv Levin calls for judges who ‘understand’ that Jews leave cities where Palestinian citizens of Israel buy property

29 May 2023 

The Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin said on Sunday that the purchase of houses by Palestinians in towns and cities in Israel has pushed Jewish people to leave these areas.

The comments were made during a meeting on Sunday where Levin made the case that the Supreme Court needs to feature judges who can “understand” why Jewish Israelis wouldn’t want to “live with Arabs”.

“Arabs buy apartments in Jewish communities in the Galilee and this causes Jews to leave these cities, because they are not ready to live with Arabs.

We need to ensure that the Supreme Court has justices who understand this,” said Levin, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

Levin, one of the chief architects of judicial overhaul plans that would see greater political control over the judiciary, made the comments in support of pushing ahead with the controversial reforms.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to pause his plans following mass protests and an international outcry.

The cabinet meeting on Sunday also discussed a new government proposal to assert “Zionist values” in government policy, which critics have argued could enable Jewish Israelis to receive preferential treatment in housing planning and construction.

Creating fear for Israeli citizens…nothing could be further from the truth!

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that it was illegal to prevent Palestinian citizens of Israel from purchasing a house in a given community.

In 2011, the Israeli government passed the Admission Committee Law.

This allows small communities – particularly the Galilee and the Negev, where there is a significant presence of Palestinians – to screen incoming residents.

The law, which many believe is aimed at keeping Palestinians out of Jewish communities, has since been upheld in court.

21 weeks of protests

In March, Netanyahu announced a “pause” to allow for talks on the reforms, which were moving through parliament and have split the nation.

The ongoing dialogue produced no major breakthrough, and last week parliament approved the state budget, with Netanyahu vowing to “continue our efforts to reach understandings as broad as possible on the legal reform”.

On Saturday last week, Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv for the 21st straight week of protests against the far-right government’s judicial reform plans just days after parliament approved the state budget.

Protesters gathered in other major cities, Haifa and Beersheba, as well as at dozens of junctions and locales throughout the country, to decry what they perceive as a threat to Israel’s democracy.

The government’s reform proposals would curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.

Kissinger 2012: “Israel Will Be Gone in Ten Years”

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October 02, 2012

The US government no longer has the military and financial resources “to continue propping up Israel against the wishes of more than a billion of its neighbors”

“Kissinger’s statement is flat and unqualified. He is not saying that Israel is in danger, but could be saved if we just gave it additional trillions of dollars and smashed enough of its enemies with our military.…

He is not offering a way out. He is simply stating a fact: In 2022, Israel will no longer exist,” political columnist Kevin Barrett wrote in an article published on Press TV website on Sunday.

He also pointed to a study commissioned by the US Intelligence Community (IC), comprised of 16 US intelligence agencies, earlier this year, titled “Preparing for a Post-Israel Middle East,” and pointed out that the content of the IC’s report corroborates Kissinger’s contention.

“The sixteen US intelligence agencies agree that Israel cannot withstand the coming pro-Palestinian juggernaut consisting of the Arab Spring, the Islamic Awakening, and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the analyst added.

The IC report contends that the US government no longer has the military and financial resources “to continue propping up Israel against the wishes of more than a billion of its neighbors” and suggests that “the US will have to follow its own national interests and pull the plug on Israel,” Barrett said.

Considering the fact that the Jewish Kissinger has long been viewed as an ardent friend of Israel and that the majority of US officials, including the authors of the IC report, are influenced by pro-Israeli lobby, the emerging messages become more remarkable, the article added.

The article argues that the emerging “complacency” among the US officials about Israel’s fate can be traced in the following reasons:

• American politicians and political activists “are growing fed-up with Israeli intransigence and fanaticism.”
• Americans feel “festering resentment over the Israel lobby’s imperious domination of public discourse.”
• “The American Jewish community is no longer united in support of Israel.”
• It is becoming a common knowledge that Israel and its supporters carried out the 9/11 false-flag attacks.

Dead-in-the-water GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

“In fact, the US is going broke and sacrificing thousands of lives in wars for Israel – wars that damage, rather than aid, US strategic interests,” the article said.

“It will become ever-easier for American policymakers, following in the footsteps of Kissinger and the sixteen intelligence agencies, to recognize the obvious: Israel has reached the end of its shelf-life,” Barrett concluded.
Source: Press TV

MBS says Palestinians ‘the central issue’ for Arabs, as US pushes Israel-Saudi peace

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Saudi crown prince stresses backing for Palestinian state amid intensified US effort to secure normalization; Egypt’s Sissi, who mediated Gaza ceasefire, slams Israeli ‘escalation’

19 May 2023

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed his commitment to Palestinian statehood at the Arab League summit on Friday, amid intensified US efforts to broker a normalization deal between the Gulf kingdom and Israel.

“We will not delay in providing assistance to the Palestinian people in recovering their lands, restoring their legitimate rights and establishing an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” bin Salman said in his address to the Jeddah conference, where considerable attention was focused on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s return to the forum after a 12-year suspension.

“The Palestinian issue was and remains the central issue for Arab countries, and it is at the top of the kingdom’s priorities,” added the de facto Saudi leader, who is known by his initials MBS.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed his commitment to Palestinian statehood at the Arab League summit on Friday, amid intensified US efforts to broker a normalization deal between the Gulf kingdom and Israel.

“We will not delay in providing assistance to the Palestinian people in recovering their lands, restoring their legitimate rights and establishing an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” bin Salman said in his address to the Jeddah conference, where considerable attention was focused on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s return to the forum after a 12-year suspension.

“The Palestinian issue was and remains the central issue for Arab countries, and it is at the top of the kingdom’s priorities,” added the de facto Saudi leader, who is known by his initials MBS.

Foreign Ministry director-general Ronen Levy also spoke with administration officials about a potential Saudi deal during his trip to Washington earlier this week.

While there is some renewed optimism in Jerusalem, Israel’s Arab neighbors have sent other signals, expressing severe discontent with Netanyahu’s new hardline government over its far-right members and antagonistic policies toward the Palestinians.

In this photo provided by the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, leaders of Arab countries pose for a group picture ahead of the Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Netanyahu’s planned visit to the United Arab Emirates has been put on hold and the Negev Forum ministerial summit, which was planned for earlier this spring, has yet to be scheduled by Morocco.

The US even recommended that Israel change the name of the Negev Forum so that it is less specifically identified with the Jewish state, amid increased discomfort with Jerusalem in recent months.

A senior Middle East diplomat told The Times of Israel last month that the Netanyahu government has made maintaining the Abraham Accords, let alone expanding them to include Saudi Arabia, “very difficult.”

Still, Saudi Arabia has been willing to name its price for normalizing with Israel in talks with Biden officials.

The senior diplomat said that Riyadh has asked the US to green-light its development of a civilian nuclear program in exchange for the kingdom normalizing relations with Israel.

In this photo provided by the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, leaders of Arab countries meet during the Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

The civilian nuclear program is among several demands Riyadh has presented in talks with the Biden administration over the past year, the diplomat said, while clarifying that such a deal remains “very far off.”

The senior diplomat said that although Washington is interested in brokering a normalization agreement, Riyadh is not rushing to sign on, recognizing Congressional opposition to Saudi demands for closer US defense cooperation.

In this photo provided by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, left, is greeted by Prince Badr Bin Sultan, deputy governor of Mecca, upon his arrival at Jeddah airport, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023, to attend the Arab summit. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Given the Biden administration’s fears that a Saudi nuclear program could further accelerate a regional nuclear arms race, Riyadh has suggested developing it in full cooperation with the US and agreeing to American monitoring and inspections, the diplomat said, while acknowledging that Washington has not yet been sold on the idea.

Further complicating the effort, Saudi Arabia is also conditioning a normalization deal with Israel on a significant expansion of defense ties with the US, including a system of guarantees to prevent future administrations from pulling out of weapons deals that have already been signed, the diplomat said.

In this photo provided by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Syrian President Bashar Assad chairs his deletions during the Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Notably, the Middle East diplomat revealed that Saudi officials have not raised a specific demand related to the Palestinian issue in their talks with the US, as the United Arab Emirates did when it conditioned its decision to normalize ties in 2020 on Netanyahu shelving his plan to annex large parts of the West Bank.

The diplomat speculated that a Palestinian-related demand would likely be raised toward the end of the negotiations.

Just about every Arab leader was present at Friday’s summit in Jeddah, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also attended after receiving a surprise invitation.

Abbas used his speech to urge Arab countries to join Ramallah’s effort to drag Israel before the International Criminal Court over its conduct against the Palestinians.

In this photo provided by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends the Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

“Israel violates signed agreements and UN resolutions and maintains its colonial Zionist project, which is based on the continuation of the occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid,” he charged, adding that Jerusalem has continued to carry out “unilateral measures” that further entrench the conflict in defiance of the international community.

Jordan’s King Abdullah struck a similar tone as bin Salman, saying that “the Palestinian issue remains the focus of our attention. We cannot give up on the pursuit of a just and comprehensive peace, which will not be achieved if the Palestinian people are not able to establish an independent state within the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

He blasted Israeli settlement construction, demolition of Palestinian homes and expulsion of Palestinians from their lands, insisting that the alternative to a two-state solution — which Israel opposes — is an “ongoing state of conflict.”

In this photo provided by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, attends the Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who often presents as a slightly more moderate foil to Abdullah on Israel, said in his speech that Cairo “followed with sorrow and pain Israel’s irresponsible escalation in the territories and what happened in Gaza.”

He appeared to be referencing last week’s five-day conflict in Gaza, which ended after Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“We call on Israel to end the occupation and to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Sissi said.

Arab League Secretary-General Aboul Gheit lambasted Israel in his speech as well. “The reckless actions of the Israeli government have led to a shocking escalation in the level of violence and killing in recent months.

We salute the steadfastness of the Palestinians. The [Israeli] government’s provocative policies and actions are extreme, and a decisive response by the international community must be taken.”

Syria’s Assad also raised the issue, saying, “the Arab League summit presents a historic opportunity to address regional problems without Western and foreign interference,” namely the “crimes of the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people.”

The comments were largely standard for leadership in Riyadh, which has long insisted publicly that it remains committed to the Palestinian cause and will only normalize ties with Israel after a two-state solution has been reached.

This has not stopped the Biden administration from working to strike a deal between Jerusalem and Riyadh, with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan calling it a “national security interest” earlier this month.

The next week, Sullivan flew to Riyadh, where he met with bin Salman and raised the issue.

Sullivan was accompanied by senior White House aides Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein who subsequently traveled to Jerusalem to brief Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the status of the endeavor.

Why Israel can’t defeat the Palestinian resistance

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No matter how many Israeli missiles and airstrikes hit their houses and workplaces, Palestinians do not wave a white flag to Israel. Here is why.

May 14, 2023

Israel has a strong army equipped with nuclear weapons and for most of its existence, the country has used its military power against Palestine, a nation that has been reduced to a few tiny, fragmented pieces of land where different armed groups have emerged to challenge the Israeli occupation at different times. 

Palestinians have always been defiant, strong-willed and absolutely sure about fighting for a just cause, which is to defend their native lands against a brutal occupation. 

While world history is filled with stories of occupations and assimilation of people under the rule of invaders, Palestinians have stayed loyal to their identity. They have an unwavering faith in their cause, which is to win back the right to live in their own native lands with freedom and dignity.  

As a result, they formed various resistance movements to fight against the Israeli occupation. Even those who were forced to leave Palestine have fiercely defended their identity in exile. They all long for the day when they will return to their homeland. 

“Central to the Palestinian diaspora experience is a paradox of existing in a past that despite its pain seems more secure than the precariousness of your present home. Life is a struggle to build a new home while preserving the memory of the one that was taken from you and desperately searching for a way to return to it,” Laila al Arian, an award-winning Palestinian-American journalist, wrote in The New York Times.  

After their forceful migration from Palestine, Arian’s maternal grandfather and his family has moved from one country to another to find a safe refuge, she explained in her article. The family could not live in houses and apartments it bought due to both the Israeli invasion’s illegal measures and problematic refugee laws of countries like Egypt, where they lived after the 1967 war. 

Despite facing hardships, the family never gave up resisting the Israeli occupation. Sami al Arian, Laila’s father, who now lives in Turkey, is one of the prominent voices on Palestine. He was born in Kuwait in 1958 as his parents had taken refuge there following the 1948 War which led to the creation of Israel. 

AP ARCHIVE

Sami al Arian’s fierce defense of Palestinian resistance led to his deportation from the US.

“Over the years, Palestinians have internalized their struggle against the colonialist-settler nature of their invaders. They know that the Zionist movement and its aggressive state will not stop short of their total annihilation,” Arian tells TRT World.  

A genuine native resistance

The Palestinian struggle has several striking aspects. It has evolved over the decades and Palestinians have surprised the world with their art of resistance, which ranged from leading two Intifadas in the early 1990s and 2000s, to witnessing the emergence of several armed resistance groups. 

Fatah, a secularist nationalist movement, which has been the leading faction in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), was founded in 1959 by Palestinian students like Yasser Arafat and Salah Khalaf. 

But when Fatah began losing its influence over Palestinians following the signing of the 1993 failed Oslo Accords, Hamas, a religiously-inspired movement, emerged in the early 1990s under the leadership of a modest cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who had several handicaps. 

Palestinian popular rebellions, the First Intifada (1987-1991) and the Second Intifada (2000-2005), were also clear demonstrations of support ordinary people from children to elders have given to the liberation cause. 

“They concluded that the alternative to their dispossession, exile, suffering, and total defeat is to continue to struggle until they gain their rights and attain justice. They have experienced many traumas and offered many sacrifices because they believe in their cause and are determined to liberate their country,” Arian recounts. 

In the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli fighting, against the Israeli assaults, Hamas and its allies have fiercely defended Gaza, where Laila al Arian’s grandfather and his family once lived and bought land for a house, which could not be built due to the 1967 War and Israeli occupation afterwards. 

AFP

Israeli F-16 warplanes dropped numerous bombs and missiles on Gaza. Some of the missiles fell unexploded.

The recent Israeli attack marked another major military engagement of Tel Aviv for the control of Gaza, which has solely been under Hamas since 2007. Hamas and its allies have fought back against three full-scale Israeli ground invasions in 2006, 2008-09 and 2014. 

During those battles, which were also the scene of the Israeli execution of civilians in Gaza’s dense neighbourhoods, thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Zionist state. In the most recent escalation, 232 Palestinians including 65 children were killed by Israelis while at least 72,000 of them were forcibly displaced. 

“The alternative to victory, liberation, and return is not defeat but Shahada, or martyrdom,” says Arian, referring to Islamic religious conviction that if the faithful die for a just cause, their death can not be regarded as a mere loss of life. 

According to Islam, that kind of death has been considered as shahada, an Arabic word, whose root word means witness. By sacrificing his/her lives for the defense of Palestine, martyrs become the witnesses of their noble cause to Palestinian thinking. Most Palestinians are Muslims, but Christian Palestinians are also fierce defenders of liberation from Israel. 

“Any people who are willing to die in dignity over living in servitude or humiliation will achieve victory. No amount of power or oppression could defeat such a spirit,” says Arian. 

Even after 11 days of constant bombing and destruction of their residences and lives, Palestinians in Gaza were jubilant after a midnight ceasefire declared on Friday, celebrating their defiance against Israel one more time in the rubbles of their beloved city. 

“The cessation of violence between Hamas and Israel is welcomed. Israel was surprised by the ferocity and depth of Hamas rockets, seemingly ill-prepared and unable to stop rockets from Gaza landing across vast parts of Israel,” Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist, author and film-maker who was based in East Jerusalem 2016-2020, tells TRT World. 

In order to respond to Israeli airstrikes and missiles, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired rockets at Israel, aiming at key locations like Tel Aviv International Airport, which has led to cancellations of flights. 

“The Palestinian people’s objective is to rise in unity, resist and inspire global solidarity around their cause; they have done so with flying colours,” says Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian author and political analyst. 

“Israel had no other objective but to carry out another episode of grisly murder and wanton destruction, thinking that this time, too, the war crimes will go largely unnoticed,” Baroud tells TRT World. 

International support

While Palestinians have fiercely opposed the Israeli occupation from the very beginning, they have also been supported by countries like Turkey, Iran and some Arab states. Middle Eastern states like Egypt, Syria and Jordan had fought with Israel in different times, but their disorganised political nature has cost much to the liberation of Palestine. 

AP

Several European countries witnessed massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the past 10 days.

“All revolutions conceived in Palestine have been aborted in the Arab capitals,” said famously Salah Khalaf, one of the founders of Fatah, referring to the Arab failure to back the Palestinian cause in a consistent and strategic manner. 

Palestinians have also been backed by different groups like Catholic Irish political organisations and important figures like Richard Falk, a Jewish-American international law professor and a former UN expert. 

“Our people are determined to live on their land as dignified, free, and liberated. That’s what the world respects and supports,” says Arian. The professor thinks that Western public opinion has steadily shifted towards recognising the genuine nature of the Palestinian resistance. 

He thinks that global public opinion gives not much credit to the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian Authority’s passive stances, which he defines as a “defeated approach. 

“On the other hand, the path of Resistance and willingness to stand up to the Zionist brutal military machine brought renewed feelings of self-respect, victory, and possibility of total liberation. The support of this approach worldwide is unmistakably clear,” he says. 

Tens of thousands of people, from the US to the UK, France, Germany and New Zealand have protested Israeli attacks; some American Democratic lawmakers have urged US President Joe Biden to force Israel to stop its latest aggression.

“Palestine has gained more international solidarity than ever recorded in its modern history; even mainstream media voices are now openly daring to say that ‘Palestine has the right to defend itself,'” says Baroud. 

“This historic shift in narratives will have massive consequences for Palestinian freedom in the future,” he adds. 

Under immense international pressure, Israel’s embattled hardliner Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to accept a ceasefire last night. 

“Palestinians and the millions who support their struggle will dismantle the Israeli Apartheid regime in Palestine. Palestinians inside and outside Palestine believe more than ever that freedom from occupation, return to their historical land, and dismantlement of the Israeli Apartheid system will be realized,” Arian concludes. 

Despite the Israeli occupation, Laila al Arian’s grandfather, Abdul Kareem, who became an American citizen in the 2000s, returned to Gaza in 2004. While having all kinds of difficulties – from food shortage to Israeli harassment – he lived in Gaza and died there in 2019. 

 

BRICS leaders stand against delaying resolution of Palestine-Israel conflict

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Heads of BRICS member states are “unanimous in the resolve that the conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa should not be used as pretext to delay resolution of the long-standing Palestinian-Israeli conflict”

What will happen is that Israel will be forced to abide by international law> So simple a demise!! No breaking international rules…no Israel. No occupation to hold the Palestinians back…no Israel. Once Palestinians are released, no more Israel.

 Leaders of BRICS member states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have called for a resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict that would allow for the coexistence of both states, the declaration signed on Thursday on the outcomes of the summit in Brasilia informs.

“We are unanimous in our resolve that the conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa should not be used as pretext to delay resolution of the long-standing Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” the leaders stressed.

The Children need their friends NOW!

“Guided by the international framework in place, such as the relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid principles and the Arab Peace Initiative, we reiterate that the two-state solution will enable Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side, in peace and security.”

“In this context, we express, furthermore, the need for new and creative diplomatic efforts to achieving a just and comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in order to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East,” the leaders noted.

Will 1,300 Children Have Nowhere to Run?

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Parents in a kibbutz near Gaza to protest after bomb shelter bus stops revealed to hold a fraction of the town’s students.

Just as parents across Israel protest overcrowding in preschools on Monday, parents from one kibbutz near Gaza are protesting for another reason: the lack of adequate protection from rocket fire. 

Parents’ committees from both the elementary and high schools in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai are protesting during the first day of classes on Tuesday, after discovering that the bus stops near both schools are only capable of protecting a fraction of attending students against rocket fire. 

Over the next academic year, approximately 1,300 students will attend schools in Yad Mordechai, located about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) from the Gaza border. 

However, two bus stops near the school only provide protection for 300 students – a real danger in light of the resumption of rocket fire from Islamists in Gaza. 

“Our biggest fear is to have a code red siren and for 1,300 children to have nowhere to run,” parent Meirav Shmilovitz stated to Walla! News Monday.

Uh oh! They are about to be set loose. Palestine has friends. And they are pissed! Israel does not.

“The Arad disaster is what will happen there, and I can’t sleep at night knowing my child could have nowhere to run when I’m somewhere [at work in] Kiryat Gat.”

“If anyone in this government, or the [Regional] Council think it can be run this way, when school is located two kilometers from the border, acting as if we live in Switzerland – they are seriously mistaken.” 

Yad Mordechai was among the communities which suffered most from rocket fire during Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014. 

Recently, it was revealed that despite the end of the operation purporting to bring “quiet” between Israel and Hamas, at least 12 rockets have struck Israeli soil in the one year since the war ended – not including dozens of rocket attacks which resulted in hits on the Gaza side of the border.

None of Israel’s wars have ended with quiet for southern Israel. 

The Eshkol Regional Council insisted despite the onslaught of rockets, however, that the 300-student shelters are simply a temporary solution until better shelters can be built. 

“The amount of money we raised in recent months stands and 2.5 million shekel [$635,615 – ed.] to build new, protected classrooms, as well as to build new bus stops,” it stated in response. “However, the bus stops can [currently] accommodate about 300 students and constitute a temporary solution until a permanent solution can be found.” 

The Council added that, for the time being, shuttles to and from both campuses were being scheduled at intervals to lessen the chances of all 1,300 children being in the same place during a potential rocket attack. 

“This solution has a successful precedent in the region and is an adequate security response,” it said, adding that it is the government’s responsibility to add additional protection to Gaza area residents to support the growing demographic there. 

Zionists ran the concentration camps

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Why Palestine?

“Zionists operated the concentration camps and helped murder millions of innocent Jews.”

There is ample evidence that world Zionism collaborated with the National Socialist government during the Second World War, in order to: (1) protect certain elitist Jews and their various interests; (2) pressure most of the Jews of Europe to leave;(HOLOHOAX)(3) thus, accomplishing the establishment of the state of Israel

Everything about Israel is a lie and Psyop!

Jewish Agency: David Ben-Gurion and Zionazi members. (Note the Hitler mustaches)


Israel refuses to hand over Khader Adnan’s body to grieving family

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ByNews Desk– May 06 2023

The family of Palestinian resistance icon Khader Adnan has denounced that Israeli authorities are refusing to hand over his body days after his death and will not say whether they intend to do so.

“It’s collective punishment,” Hassan Jabareen, the director of Palestinian human rights organization Adalah, told the New York Times (NYT). “These are bodies of people who live under Israeli occupation,” he added.

Adnan died on 2 May inside an Israeli prison after an 87-day hunger strike, the first such death in over 30 years.

A prominent member and spokesperson of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance group, Adnan was being held without trial or charge.

Israel’s refusal to hand over Adnan’s body has drawn renewed attention to this practice, which is often used as leverage to obtain the bodies of Israelis held by Palestinian groups.

Tel Aviv has kept the bodies of about 130 Palestinians since 2015, some buried in cemeteries but most held in freezers, according to the Jerusalem legal center.

International human rights groups have denounced this practice by the occupation authorities, saying the withholding of bodies punishes the families of the dead collectively and could violate international law.

According to the NYT, Israel’s prison service said that it transferred the body to the military on Tuesday, the day of his death, but a military spokesman said on Wednesday that it was not in their possession, and as of Friday, the body’s location remained unknown.

Beetlejuice GIF - Beetlejuice - Discover & Share GIFs

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Israel this week to return the body “so his family can mourn and arrange a dignified burial according to their customs and beliefs.”

“We want the sheikh among us,” Adnan’s wife said, referring to a religious honorific given to her husband. “And we want him to be buried next to his father as he willed.”

Adnan was detained on 5 February and immediately went on hunger strike.

In the days before his death, he suffered from severe health problems, including frequent vomiting of blood, weakness, frequent loss of consciousness, difficulty speaking, and severe pain all over his body.

UN officials recently called for Israel to be held accountable for his death, calling it “a tragic testament to Israel’s cruel and inhumane detention policy and practices, as well as the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable in the face of callous illegalities perpetrated against Palestinians.”

Israel currently holds approximately 4,900 Palestinians in its prisons, including 1,016 administrative detainees held indefinitely without trial or charge.

Administrative detention orders are reviewed every six months to see if a detainee may be released or if the order will be renewed. This process can go on for years or even decades.

The end of “limited conflicts” for Israel

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What does China’s growing power and the shift towards a multipolar world mean for Palestine and its broader region?

An Ass, having put on the lion’s skin, amused himself by terrifying all the foolish animals. At last coming upon a Fox, he tried to frighten him also, but the Fox no sooner heard the sound of his voice than he exclaimed, “I might possibly have been frightened myself, if I had not heard your bray.” The moral of the story is often quoted as Clothes may disguise a fool, but his words will give him away.

“They understand that when Iran is taken out of isolation, so too are the resistance factions,” Lowkey adds. “Instantly what that does is weaken Israel’s ability to assert power over the Palestinians.”

That was a key theme in a livestream I participated in with hip hop artist Lowkey, a Mint Press writer and a contributor to The Electronic Intifada.

We were hosted by journalist Danny Haiphong on his YouTube show. You can watch the video above.

Our lively discussion touched on issues I raised in my recent article, “Why the Saudis have called off their Israeli wedding.”

Central to considering China’s role is looking at the rapid unraveling of US global power, especially in the light of the US going all-in on a proxy war against Russia on the European continent, which Ukraine has no chance of winning.

In many regions China is stepping into the vacuum left by the US, gaining friends and allies not with military threats, but by building infrastructure including roads, ports, schools and hospitals in dozens of countries all over the world.

In Iraq, which was destroyed by the United States, for example, China is building 8,000 schools.

A major win for Chinese diplomacy was its recent brokering of an historic reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a rapprochement that has the potential to bring progress on other fronts, such as finally ending the US-led proxy wars in Syria and Yemen.

“What China has been able to do is say to Saudi Arabia, ‘if you want us to trade with you in currencies other than the dollar, if you want the benefit of a good relationship with us, then you have to drop the sectarian agenda in the region and be willing to engage with Iran as a good faith actor,” Lowkey explains.

Saudi Arabia, long dependent on the US, is now diversifying its relations with other major powers. As it does so, it sees less need to normalize ties with Israel, a move whose primary purpose would have been to please its patrons in Washington.

According to Lowkey, this realignment is also giving resistance factions in Palestine and Lebanon “a new found confidence” to confront Israel as a united front.

“They understand that when Iran is taken out of isolation, so too are the resistance factions,” Lowkey adds. “Instantly what that does is weaken Israel’s ability to assert power over the Palestinians.”

The end of “limited conflicts” for Israel


I pointed out that Israel understands this emerging reality, as reflected in recent comments by its defense minister.

“This is the end of the era of limited conflicts,” Yoav Gallant told reporters earlier this month. “We are facing a new security era in which there may be a real threat to all arenas at the same time.”

“We operated for years under the assumption that limited conflicts could be managed, but that is a phenomenon that is disappearing,” Gallant added. “Today, there is a noticeable phenomenon of the convergence of the arenas.”

In other words, Israel can no longer have the confidence that if it attacks Gaza, the conflict will remain limited to Gaza, or that if it attacks the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, that events will remain localized in Jerusalem.

Neither can it be assured anymore that during a major escalation with the Palestinians, Lebanon’s powerful Hizballah resistance group will stay out of the fight.

Although Israel still possesses enormous military might, its ability to dictate terms is eroding as the US slowly retreats from the region after its military and political failures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan.

I noted that China recently offered to mediate between Palestinians and Israelis, and while I do not think this is likely to lead to any results in the near term, it is significant that Beijing feels willing and able to step into a role that the United States has always monopolized – consistently to the benefit of Israel and the detriment of the Palestinians and the rest of the region.

Perhaps more important in the short term, as we discussed, is China stepping up its diplomacy towards ending the war in Ukraine as indicated by the recent phone call between President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Taiwan provocations

Not satisfied with entering a bloody quagmire in Ukraine just months after their defeat in and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States and its European vassals are also trying to pick a fight with China over Taiwan.

This month European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged member states to send their warships to the Taiwan Strait, a policy I called madness.

I pointed out that the United States, the EU – in fact the whole world except a tiny handful of countries such as Guatemala – agree that the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China, of which Taiwan is an integral part.

I argued that China has never shown any interest in reintegrating Taiwan by force and has instead focused on fostering the burgeoning economic ties between the island and the mainland.

The only factor that brings in the military equation is the meddling and provocations by the United States and now the EU.

But if the EU – acting as an American proxy – successfully instigate a war across the Taiwan Strait, we can be sure that European armies and navies are not going to sail to the rescue of Taiwan. All that would happen is that yet another country would be destroyed at enormous human cost.

One can only imagine the reaction if China were to send its brand new aircraft carrier Fujian to the English Channel or to the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, or park it off of New York harbor.

And yet the US and EU think it is the most natural thing in the world for them to go and interfere halfway around the world where nobody asked them to, where they can do no good and where there are no problems except the ones they themselves are creating.

This dangerous foolishness looks like the death throes of a dying empire.

Tlaib’s tweet calling Israel ‘apartheid state’ gets validated by instant fact check

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Occupied Palestine. No apartheid here…

Twitter’s new fact checking system hit back at Rep. Rashida Tlaib after the Michigan Democrat called Israel an “apartheid state.”

“Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Tlaib said Monday on Twitter.

“75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day.”

Tlaib’s tweet, which was in response to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s post noting the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S., was the subject of an instant fact check by Twitter, with notes below the post pointing out several errors.

It’s not the holyland, it’s a filty Ashkanazi haven.

They did not make the desert “bloom”!

The fact check first points out that Israel was created by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, linking to the document at the U.N.’s official website. 

The fact check then points out that the “ethnic cleansing” Tlaib claimed happened “affected both Jewish and Arab communities caught up in the war initiated by 5 Arab states who

opposed the existence of Israel.”

 

To bolster the second point, the Twitter fact check linked to the State Department’s official history of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

The last note pointed out that Israel has over 20% Arab citizens who have “full and equal rights,” linking to a Democracy Institute study that found the country’s Arab residents had declining rates of infant mortality and rising life expectancies. 

Twitter’s “Community Notes” system has been expanded by new platform owner Elon Musk, who announced last month that there would be “no exceptions” to fact checks for those who post “materially false statements on this platform.”

Musk pointed out that anyone could be fact checked under the system, including heads of states and even the billionaire owner himself.

Say hello to the ‘new Jews’ 

The fact check of Tlaib, a high-profile Democratic member of the progressive “Squad,” comes after conservatives have long argued social media companies unfairly target conservative views for arbitrary fact checks and bans, something that is evidently changing at Twitter under the leadership of Musk.

Tlaib’s tweet also received scorn from other users of the platform, including former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who argued the Michigan Democrat was “a bit off” on the facts.

“You’re a bit off on this congresswoman,” Friedman said in a response on Twitter.

“Actually, the State of Israel was born notwithstanding the unsuccessful Palestinian attempts at ethnic cleansing to remove the Jews, through acts of terror and collaboration with Hitler (whose dear friend was Grand Mufti of Jerusalem).”

The tweet was also condemned by Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, who told Fox News Digital the comments were an example of the Democrat’s “antisemitic lies.”

“Tlaib’s ignorance and hatred toward the Jewish people and the State of Israel know no bounds,” Erdan said.

“The facts are clear: the Arabs rejected the UN’s resolution to establish a Jewish state and started a war to annihilate the Jews in Israel. 

 “We wish to express our definite opposition to a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.” Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem (1867-1948)

Since then, for the past 75 years, the Palestinians are bringing upon themselves a Nakba by continuing to incite hate and terrorism and rejecting every peace plan,” Erdan continued.

“Tlaib is rewriting history and her antisemitic lies ignore the fact that the only ethnic cleansing took place against the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab countries following Israel’s establishment.”

The Invention of Antisemitism

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Starts here

Then they came to Palestine

To coerce the Jews to immigrate to Palestine, Zionist leaders followed Theodor Herzl’s recommendation where he stated: “It is essential that the sufferings of Jews become worse.

This will assist in realization of our plans.

I have an excellent idea … I shall induce anti-Semites to liquidate Jewish wealth … the anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews.

The (invention of) anti-Semites shall be our best friends.”

Zionist leaders launched a covert anti-Jewish and propaganda campaigns claiming that Jews were persecuted and massacred in Eastern Europe.

By the 19th century, those who wanted Jews to “return” to the Holy Land were more likely to be Christian Zionists than Jews.

Lord Shaftesbury, a compassionate Tory who contributed to improving the conditions of lunatics in asylums and children in factories (The Ten Hours Act, 1833), agitated endlessly for promoting a Jewish presence in Palestine.

Sand describes him as an Anglican Theodor Herzl before Herzl; and with reason, since Shaftesbury appears to have even coined the famous line: “A country without a nation for a nation without a country.”

He hoped, of course, the Jews would also convert to Christianity. Lord Palmerston, on the Liberal side, warmed to the idea, not because he cared in the slightest about Jews (or Christians), but because he thought that British Jews colonising a part of the Ottoman Empire would increase British influence.

At the time, few Jews were Zionists.

When persecuted, as they were in the tsarist empire, they much preferred to flee to the new lands of immigration such as Argentina and the United States, than to the Promised Land.

What made the “State of Israel” possible was not God’s promise of a return to a long-lost land, but the Holocaust and the western reluctance to provide a refuge for its survivors.

This is how they made the “desert bloom.”

Holocaust is the Zionist MO. It follows them everywhere.

Much of what Shlomo Sand reveals is known to specialists.

His achievement consists in debunking a nationalist mythology which holds sway in large sections of popular opinion.

It also normalizes Jews, since it challenges the belief in exceptionalism.

The Holocaust was a unique event, but the basic nationalist litany is similar across nations – almost a literary genre in itself – for it is poised between a lachrymose sense of self-pitying victimhood and a vainglorious account of heroic deeds.

“We”, so goes the story, have been around for centuries (1066, famously, in Britain; 966 in Poland; since antiquity in Italy and in Greece).

Eventually, after centuries, we achieved our freedom, our independence, our happiness, and we, who are unlike everyone else, can finally be like everyone else: members and possessors of a country and a nation.

Demystifying what the French call le roman national seems to be today one of the major tasks of historians (once they used to write it).

This can be an uphill struggle, yet it is to the credit of the Israeli book-reading public that Sand’s previous book, The Invention of the Jewish People became a bestseller. Truth-telling may be painful but necessary.

Mom, Why does everyone hate us so much?

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By Phyllis G. Heideman

 [admin: Deluded people amaze me. Hense this zionist post. It’s tragically comical. ]

Antisemitism is a mental disease.
It is irrational and illogical.

Much like alcoholism, drug abuse and baseless hatred, if left untreated, it grows and spreads.

We have seen the universal spread of this disorder throughout history.

I have little to offer you as an answer to the long-pondered question of why people hate us so much.

Is it our persistent existence, against all odds; is it our hunger and thirst for knowledge and discovery; is it our resilience; is it our drive to excel?

Is it the strangeness of our ways; is it our age-old struggle for a homeland; is it our disproportionate success rate?

Perhaps it is our defiance of extinction……….much to the chagrin of our enemies.

The ‘enemies’ being chased from their homes to make way for the Eurojews.

And yet….despite the hatred, the boycotts, the wars, the attempts at annihilation, the labeling, the slander, the assaults, the lousy press coverage, the scandals, the internal struggles, the scuds, the missiles, the rockets and the UN, we are still here.

Alive, well and even flourishing.

Perhaps these challenges have made us stronger.

We do know – even with our flaws – how obstinate we the Jewish People can be.

I myself hope and pray we remain so for many millennia to come.

Ever hopeful that Israel Forever is not just the name of a foundation but descriptive of the future………

– Mom

Différence entre Judaïsme et Sionisme

 

 

 

Does ‘Israel’ have any friends left?

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Israel’s main allies are USA and India. Oops!

For the USA the Israeli occupation of Palestine WAS a very important service to its global dominance. (no more US dominance, no use for Israel.)

‘Israel’ is the most important proxy army the USA have in the Middle East.

Such a vital ally is not going to be attacked for a few sins like apartheid, random killing or ethnic cleansing, practices the USA knows all about.

And has vast experience with.

South Africa has taken a hardline stance against Israel and staunchly supports the Palestinians. In 2019 it downgraded its embassy in Tel Aviv and pulled out its ambassador.

South Africans protest against Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Violence escalated between Israel and Palestine sparked by unrest at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Those who assume the USA acts on the basis of values are immensely wrong.

It acts on yes or no service to its global domination.

If the the answer is yes, the USA will support you.

Apartheid regimes, murderous regimes, random imprisonment regimes, bulldozering regimes, they can count on the US of America.

 

Israel’s nuclear weapons are greatest threat to Middle East

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Ramzy Baroud

As western countries are floating the theory that Russia could escalate its conflict with Ukraine to a nuclear war, many western governments continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s own nuclear weapons capabilities.

Luckily, many countries around the world do not subscribe to this endemic western hypocrisy.

‘The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was held between November 14-18, with the sole purpose of creating new standards of accountability that, as should have always been the case, be applied equally to all Middle Eastern countries.

The debate regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East could not possibly be any more pertinent or urgent. International observers rightly note that the period following the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to accelerate the quest for nuclear weapons throughout the world.

Considering the seemingly perpetual state of conflict in the Middle East, the region is likely to witness nuclear rivalry as well.

For years, Arab and other countries attempted to raise the issue that accountability regarding the development and acquisition of nuclear weapons cannot be confined to states that are perceived to be enemies of Israel and the West.

The latest of these efforts was a United Nations resolution that called on Israel to dispose of its nuclear weapons, and to place its nuclear facilities under the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Resolution number A/C.1/77/L.2, which was drafted by Egypt with the support of other Arab countries, passed with an initial vote of 152-5. Unsurprisingly, among the five countries that voted against the draft were the United States, Canada and, of course, Israel itself.

US and Canadian blind support of Tel Aviv notwithstanding, what compels Washington and Ottawa to vote against a draft entitled: “The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East”?

Keeping in mind the successive right-wing extremist governments that have ruled over Israel for many years, Washington must understand that the risk of using nuclear weapons under the guise of fending off an “existential threat” is a real possibility.

Since its inception, Israel has resorted to, and utilised the phrase “existential threat” countless times.

Various Arab governments, later Iran and even individual Palestinian resistance movements were accused of endangering Israel’s very existence.

Even the non-violent Palestinian civil society-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement was accused by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015 of being an existential threat to Israel.

Netanyahu claimed that the boycott movement was “not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence”.

This should worry everyone, not just in the Middle East, but the whole world. A country with such hyped sensitivity about imagined “existential threats” should not be allowed to acquire the kind of weapons that could destroy the entire Middle East, several times over.

Some may argue that Israel’s nuclear arsenal was intrinsically linked to real fears resulting from its historical conflict with the Arabs.

However, this is not the case. As soon as Israel finalised its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland, and long before any serious Arab or Palestinian resistance was carried out in response, Israel was already on the lookout for nuclear weapons.

As early as 1949, the Israeli army had found uranium deposits in the Negev Desert, leading to the establishment, in 1952, of the very secretive Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC).

In 1955, the US government sold Israel a nuclear research reactor.  But that was not enough.

Eager to become a full nuclear power, Tel Aviv resorted to Paris in 1957.

The latter became a major partner in Israel’s sinister nuclear activities when it helped the Israeli government construct a clandestine nuclear reactor near Dimona in the Negev Desert.

The father of the Israeli nuclear programme at the time was none other than Shimon Peres who, ironically, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

The Dimona Nuclear Reactor is now named “Shimon Peres Nuclear Research Centre-Negev”.

With no international monitoring whatsoever, thus with zero legal accountability, Israel’s nuclear quest continues until this day.

In 1963, Israel purchased 100 tons of uranium ore from Argentina, and it is strongly believed that during the October 1973 Israel-Arab war, Israel “came close to making a nuclear preemptive strike”, according to Richard Sale, writing in United Press International (UPI). 

Currently, Israel is believed to have “enough fissionable material to fabricate 60-300 nuclear weapons,” according to former US Army Officer Edwin S. Cochran.

Estimates vary, but the facts about Israel’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are hardly contested.

Israel itself practices what is known as “deliberate ambiguity”, as to send a message to its enemies of its lethal power, without revealing anything that may hold it accountable to international inspection.

What we know about Israel’s nuclear weapons has been made possible partly because of the bravery of a former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, a whistleblower who was held in solitary confinement for a decade due to his courage in exposing Israel’s darkest secrets.

Still, Israel refuses to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), endorsed by 191 countries.

Israeli leaders adhere to what is known as the “Begin Doctrine”, in reference to Menachem Begin, the rightwing Israeli prime minister who invaded Lebanon in 1982, resulting in the killing of thousands.

The doctrine is formulated around the idea that, while Israel gives itself the right to own nuclear weapons, its enemies in the Middle East must not. This belief continues to direct Israeli actions to this day.

The US support for Israel is not confined to ensuring the latter has “military edge” over its neighbours in terms of traditional weapons, but to also ensure Israel remains the region’s only superpower, even if that entails escaping international accountability for the development of WMDs.

The collective efforts by Arab and other countries at the UNGA to create a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons are welcomed initiatives. It behooves everyone, Washington included, to join the rest of the world in finally forcing Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a first but critical step towards long-delayed accountability.

Sports body sides with South Africa over removal of Israeli team

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World Rugby has said it is “satisfied” the club’s participation in the Mzansi Challenge posed a legitimate security threat

28 Apr, 2023

The global governing body for rugby has concluded that a decision made by the South African Rugby Union (SARU) to disinvite an Israeli team, Tel Aviv Heat, from an international competition last month was not discriminatory, but justified by security threats, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on Thursday.

World Rugby reportedly based its verdict on public reactions to the Israeli team’s initial invitation, which included a Facebook post warning of a potential “blood bath” and a statement from the South African Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) coalition claiming that SARU would “have blood on its hands” if the Heat participated in the tournament.

In February SARU withdrew the Tel Aviv Heat from the Rugby Mzansi Challenge, pointing to security concerns.

The union’s president said that the decision was made after listening to “the opinions of important stakeholder groups” and in order to “avoid the likelihood of the competition becoming a source of division.”

The South African department of sports, arts, and culture also supported the move, citing the need to maintain a safe environment.

The action was widely criticized, with Israel-based NGO International Legal Forum, according to Jewish News Syndicate, describing it as a “cave-in to extremist anti-Israel forces promoting the racist BDS campaign.”

New Zealand-based lawyer Ian Dunwoodie filed a complaint with the World Rugby Council alleging that SARU breached the World Rugby constitution by axing the Israeli side from the game.

Dunwoodie requested an investigation, citing the constitution, which prohibits “discrimination of any kind against a country or against a private person or groups of people,” according to the Algemeiner.

Trans athletes banned from female competitions

However, as reported by the JTA, World Rugby stated in a letter dated March 29 that it “is satisfied with the explanation provided by SA Rugby that the decision to withdraw the invitation to Tel Aviv Heat to participate in the Mzansi Challenge was based on concerns about an increased safety and security threat.”

The letter also acknowledged “potential threats of violence, disruption and risks to the safety of stakeholders, together with concerns about the ability of SA Rugby to meet its obligations as an event organizer under the Safety at Sports and Recreational Events Act.”

The manager of the Israeli team, Pete Sickle, has challenged the ruling, claiming that they had anticipated a more thorough investigation by World Rugby into the circumstances surrounding the revocation of the invitation.

“We still have not seen tangible evidence of credible and significant threats to public safety. We haven’t seen any evidence of SARU or South African security forces analyzing those threats before making this decision,” Sickle told JTA

Could the African Union push Israel into international isolation?

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The draft declaration calls on “the international community … to dismantle and prohibit the Israeli system of colonialism and apartheid

Even by the low standards of a country used to being regularly condemned for human rights abuses, disregarding international law and committing war crimes, February was a pretty bad month for Israel and its standing in the world.

From revelations about its companies subverting democratic elections across the globe to this week’s scenes of its illegal settlers, protected by its army, carrying out a pogrom against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank town of Huwara, the country has had its true face exposed to the world in a cruel and meticulous fashion.

At the opening ceremony of the African Union’s annual summit, held at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia two weeks ago, there was another nasty surprise and more humiliation in store for the Jewish state.

Ambassador Sharon Bar-Li, the deputy director of the Africa Division of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was booted out after turning up, brandishing a non-transferable invitation that had supposedly been issued to Israel’s ambassador to the African Union, Aleli Admasu.

A video posted on social media showed uniformed security personnel escorting her out of the auditorium and Moussa Faki, chairperson of the AU, followed up with a clarification that Israel’s controversial 2021 accreditation as an observer state, which it had pursued for two decades, had actually been suspended and “so we did not invite Israeli officials to our summit”.

Even worse was to come.

According to a Draft Declaration On The Situation In Palestine And The Middle East circulated among reporters at the end of the summit, the AU not only expressed “full support for the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle against the Israeli occupation”, decrying the “unceasing” illegal settlements and Israel’s intransigence but, significantly, urged member states to “end all direct and indirect trade, scientific and cultural exchanges with the State of Israel”.

This latter recommendation, which echoes the demands of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, if implemented, could be the start of a change in Israel’s fortunes, not just on the continent, but across the globe.

After all, Africa is no stranger to leading a global movement seeking to isolate and pressure oppressive, ethno-supremacist regimes, having led one targeting the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1980s.

And, in fact, the draft declaration calls on “the international community … to dismantle and prohibit the Israeli system of colonialism and apartheid”.

That’s tough talk. But whether any action is likely to follow is up in the air.

The relationship between Africa and Israel is complex and has fluctuated.

Further, the AU’s stance on relations with Israel and the foreign policies of its individual members do not always align.

While Israel’s actions towards its neighbors have been a major irritant, they are far from the only consideration for African nations.

Israel’s enemies

And in the last 21 years, the AU has tended to be more principled while its member nations have been more pragmatic.

Initially, Israel cultivated close ties with newly independent African countries as a way to counter the isolation and hostility imposed on it by its Arab neighbors.

In the 1960s, more than 1,800 Israeli experts were running development programs on the continent and by 1972, Israel hosted more African embassies than Britain.

It had established diplomatic relations with 32 of the 41 independent African states which were also members of the Organisation of African Unity, the forerunner to the AU, founded in 1963.

For much of this period, attempts by the North African nations, led by Egypt, to gain backing for the Arab cause from the rest of Africa had been largely unsuccessful, the relatively young nations not wanting to become enmeshed in the conflict.

But attitudes began to change following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

African reactions to the conflict were mixed, with some countries such as apartheid South Africa and Ethiopia, which was initially critical, expressing support for Israel and others siding with the Arab states.

Overall, however, many African leaders, with memories of colonialism’s acquisition of land by force still fresh, viewed Israel’s actions dimly and on June 8, as the fighting was ongoing, the OAU condemned Israel’s “unprovoked aggression” and called for an immediate ceasefire.

aljazeera.com/2023/3/5/

BRICS Sans Israel

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Since its return to the international arena, post-apartheid South Africa has been at the forefront of the international campaign against Israel and has pushed or facilitated a variety of anti-Israeli statements, actions, and resolutions.

Just days before the September 11 attacks, Durban hosted the UN conference against racism that singled out Israel for vilification.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  The 43-page Xiamen Declaration issued at the end of the ninth BRICS summit in early September marks an interesting shift concerning Israel.

In paragraph 42, it makes the usual references to “relevant” UN resolutions, the Madrid Principles, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, and “previous agreements” and calls for “a just, lasting and comprehensive solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Declaration calls for the creation of “an independent, viable, territorially contiguous Palestinian State living side by side in peace and security with Israel” – but contains no reference whatsoever to East Jerusalem.

The BRICS organization, which is comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, represents over 40% of the global population, and its collective economy accounts for over one-fifth of global GDP.

Two of the countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council and the other three are aspiring to be. BRICS is thus a major world power bloc.

Initially, the BRICS countries were concerned solely with developmental issues and did not address the Middle East at all, let alone the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We Fought Apartheid; We See No Reason to Celebrate It in Israel Now! | MR Online

Things began to change when South Africa joined as a full member at the Sanya Summit in April 2011.

Stating that they “are deeply concerned with the turbulence in the Middle East,” the leaders hoped for “peace, stability, prosperity and progress.”

Popular protests in the Arab world were more ominous than the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate.

The Palestine question reared its head in March 2012 when the BRICS leaders met in New Delhi for their fourth summit.

They urged both sides “to take constructive measures, rebuild mutual trust and create right conditions for restarting negotiations, while avoiding unilateral steps.”

This moderate tone changed dramatically in March 2013 when South Africa hosted the summit.

The Durban Declaration made explicit reference for the first time to East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state.

In addition to the usual, it called among other things for a two-state solution including the creation of “a contiguous and economically viable Palestinian state, existing side by side in peace with Israel, within internationally recognized borders, based on those existing on 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Since its return to the international arena, post-apartheid South Africa has been at the forefront of the international campaign against Israel and has pushed or facilitated a variety of anti-Israeli statements, actions, and resolutions.

Just days before the September 11 attacks, Durban hosted the UN conference against racism that singled out Israel for vilification.

Thus, as BRICS host, Pretoria was able to flag its position on East Jerusalem, and the other BRICS leaders signed up.

(A reference to East Jerusalem also appeared in early 2010 when South Africa was part of the three-member IBSA group, with Brazil and India the other two members.)

Members of the BRICS countries have indeed been more sympathetic towards the Palestinians than Israel.

China and India did not normalize relations with Israel until January 1992, and the erstwhile USSR did not have diplomatic relations with Israel between June 1967 and October 1991.

Only Brazil has had formal ties with it since the late 1940s. Hence, others joined Pretoria’s chorus on East Jerusalem.

The political status of Jerusalem has been controversial ever since the UN partition plan of 1947, which suggested it be an international city.

The global community does not recognize West Jerusalem, which has been part of Israel since May 1948, as the country’s capital.

Most countries, including the US, have their embassies in Tel Aviv.

At the same time, the city remains the de facto capital of Israel and is home to all the symbols of the state and its sovereignty such as the prime minister’s residence, the Knesset (the parliament), and the Supreme Court.

The presentation of credentials by foreign ambassadors accredited to Israel, including Arab-Muslim ambassadors such as those from Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey, takes place in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv.

Moreover, there are no UN resolutions or plans declaring the city the capital of the Palestinian state.

The Oslo and other bilateral agreements merely indicate that the final political status of the city will have to be resolved through negotiations and accommodation.

The core of the Jerusalem issue lies in the Old City, which houses sites holy to all three Abrahamic faiths.

The city is not a Berlin, to be divided or partitioned, but can only be shared through accommodation and compromise.

Outside intervention in favor of one party, in this case the Palestinians, only makes the problem more intractable.

The Israeli government has to take its share of responsibility for the East Jerusalem controversy.

For example, until the UNESCO resolution of April 2016, which questioned Jewish links to Jerusalem, the Netanyahu government was indifferent to international shifts.

Even countries that were friendly towards the Jewish state voted with the Arab-Islamic countries.

Israel’s post-resolution anger could not hide its diplomatic sloppiness.

Meanwhile, over the past decade, East Jerusalem became integral to India’s engagements with the Middle East and figured in major policy statements and bilateral declarations.

The reference to Jerusalem was maintained even after the change of government in India when the rightwing Hindu nationalist BJP-government replaced the Congress Party, which has been sympathetic towards the Palestinians since the early 1920s.

Ever since his first BRICS summit in Fortaleza in July 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has included East Jerusalem.

As late as April of this year, East Jerusalem figured in the statement of Middle East envoys of BRICS countries hosted by India. The same formulation could be seen in Delhi’s engagements with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and others.

But a major shift occurred in May of this year, shortly before Modi’s July visit to Israel. With Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas standing by his side, Modi called for “a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.” For the first time in nearly a decade, there was no reference to East Jerusalem.

Will this new trend continue? The answer lies in the vagaries of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in Israeli diplomatic finesse.

Israel’s days are numbered

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The Writing on the Wall

 ‘It’s time to end the puppet theater of the fake regime’; adds his country is approaching nuclear ‘peak’

Iran is approaching the “peak” in its nuclear program and will not yield to Western pressure to halt its activities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad was speaking in the southwestern town of Bushehr near the site of Iran’s planned first nuclear power plant, being built with Russian help, and predicted the country would have nuclear electricity by this time next year.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says Jewish state’s ballistic missile capability won’t help it in confrontations with Islamic republic; meanwhile, Iranian-Egyptian rapprochement in the works

“If you (Western powers) imagine that the Iranian nation will back down you are making a mistake,” he said in a televised speech.

“On the nuclear path we are moving towards the peak,” he said without elaborating.

Turning his attention to Israel, Ahmadinejad said, “The religious Palestinian people will bring down the last screen with its powerful hand on the Zionists’ puppet theater. It’s time to end the puppet theater of this fake regime.”

The Iranian president noted that Israel’s days were numbered and that it has reached its end.

Turning to the Western powers supporting Israel, he said, “Those who remain silent in light of this regime’s crimes and support it should know that they are taking part in the bloodshed of the Palestinian people and will be tried in the future.

“The world’s states will never forget these crimes,” the Iranian president was quoted as saying by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Defying international pressure, Iran has been working on producing its own nuclear fuel, technology the West fears will be used to make atomic bombs.

Tehran says its work is peaceful and has refused to stop.

He was speaking two days after Iran received the eighth and final consignment of nuclear fuel from Russia for the Bushehr plant.

Tehran has said the plant will start in mid-2008, though past deadlines have slipped.

“Next year at this time … nuclear electricity should flow in Iran’s electricity network,” he told the crowd.

Russia delivered the first shipment of uranium fuel rods on December 17 and urged Tehran to scrap its efforts to produce nuclear fuel.

Tehran says its work is peaceful and has refused to stop.

Iran, the world’s fourth-largest crude producer, says it wants to build a network of nuclear plants so it can preserve more of its oil and gas for export.

It says it wants to make nuclear fuel itself to guarantee its supplies.

World powers last week agreed the outline of a third UN sanctions resolution against Iran which calls for mandatory travel bans and asset freezes for specific Iranian officials and vigilance on banks in the country.

South Africa to Use BRICS Chair Role (bad for ‘Israel’)

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South Africa calls for Israel to be declared an ‘apartheid state’

The South African government has remained a strong ally of Palestine, providing both material and public support for its liberation cause.

The South African government has expressed concerns that Israel’s continued occupation of “significant portions of the West Bank” and the development of new settlements there “are glaring examples of violations of international law” as the longrunning Israel-Palestine conflict goes on.

“The Palestinian narrative evokes experiences of South Africa’s own history of racial segregation and oppression,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations and cooperation, said at the second meeting of the Palestinian Heads of Mission in Africa, held in the capital Pretoria.

(1) South Africans Condemn Israeli Aggression Against the Palestinians. ANC, COSATU maintains long held position in opposition to Zionist occupation Quote: “While Israel says it fights Hamas because it is a terror organization that does not recognize its existence as a Jewish state, it unleashes the same violence on virtually any Palestinian. It practices ruthless collective punishment. It opposes unity among Palestinians ostensibly because this includes Hamas, but it acts just as harshly against other political movements in the Palestinian territory. The latest escalation of violence against Palestinians comes just over a month since they established a unity government, which was then recognized by many world governments to the chagrin of the state of Israel. Hamas has become a convenient explanation for indiscriminate violence visited on Palestinians before unity efforts.”

“As oppressed South Africans, we experienced firsthand the effects of racial inequality, discrimination and denial and we cannot stand by while another generation of Palestinians are left behind,” she said.

Pandor said Pretoria believes Israel should be classified as an apartheid state and that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) should establish a committee to verify whether it satisfies the requirements.

Palestinian foreign minister Riad Malki, who attended the forum, spoke to the state-run South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) after the session.

“If there is any country or countries that can comprehend the suffering and the struggle for freedom and independence of Palestine, it is the African continent and the people of Africa,” Malki said.

Ties that bind

Our Campaigns - Palestine Advocacy Project

The first Palestinian embassy in South Africa was accredited in 1995, marking the beginning of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Over the years, the South African government has remained a strong ally of Palestine, providing both material and public support for its liberation cause.

“Our position on Palestine has always been clear, consistent, and convergent with the international community,” Pandor said.

According to a recent report by the Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, a civil organisation with headquarters in the Gaza Strip, approximately 5,418 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military operations in the embattled Gaza Strip during the past 15 years, including 1,246 children and 488 women.

A recent UN commission of inquiry to investigate violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, determined in its report that Israel is responsible for severe human rights violations against Palestinians.

“These reports are significant in raising global awareness of the conditions that Palestinians are subjected to and they provide credence and support to an overwhelming body of factual evidence, all pointing to the fact that the State of Israel is committing crimes of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians”, said Pandor while referencing the reports.

Global campaign for Shireen

Israel defiant as Al Jazeera drags Tel Aviv to ICC over Shireen Abu Akleh killing I Key Details - YouTube

Pandor was the first representative of the South African government to denounce the killing of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May by Israeli forces during a raid in the West Bank.

At the time of Abu Akleh’s death, she compared the violent disruption of her funeral procession by Israeli police to the cruelty of the South African apartheid military.

After Tuesday’s conference session, she told SABC that “we can’t leave the matter of Shireen Abu Akleh untouched.”

“We will push the Palestinian cause at the UN General Assembly and we need also civil society to join us,” said Pandor.

The End of Zionism: Thoughts and Next Steps

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The BRICS leaders spoke against continuous construction and expansion of settlements “in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by the Israeli Government”

Of course, it is absurd to believe that one people can make peace with their occupiers. Israel is an occupation not  country. Occupations are not peaceful by nature! Israel has to go because peace means letting the Palestinians back to their natural homes. 

FORTALEZA, July 16. /ITAR-TASS/. The BRICS countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have called on Israel and Palestine to resume negotiations leading to the creation of a viable Palestinian state that can exist side by side with Israel.

“We reaffirm our commitment to contribute to a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of the universally recognized international legal framework, including the relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid Principles and the Arab Peace Initiative.

We believe that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fundamental component for building a sustainable peace in the Middle East,” the BRICS leaders said in a resolution adopted on Tuesday at the summit meeting in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza.

“We call upon Israel and Palestine to resume negotiations leading to a two-State solution with a contiguous and economically viable Palestinian State existing side by side in peace with Israel, within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders based on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the declaration said.

The BRICS leaders spoke against continuous construction and expansion of settlements “in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by the Israeli Government, which violates international law, gravely undermines peace efforts and threatens the viability of the two-State solution”.