Palestine

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 14, 2020 11:19 am

United Arab Emirates Betray Palestine

U.S. President Donald Trump just announced that the United Arab Emirates and Israel "agreed to full normalization" of their relations and that they will "establish reciprocal embassies".

In exchange Israel will "suspend declaring sovereignty" over parts of the West Bank land that it, for all intent and purpose, has already annexed and controls.

Here is the term sheet Trump posted. It is headlined as a "Joint Statement" of the U.S., Israel and the UAE:

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While the UAE and Israel have been in bed together for decades they never established formal relations.

This will create waves in the Arab world. It is treason towards the Palestinian cause and its supporters. The Arab boycott of Israel was always supposed to press Israel towards recognizing the rights of the Palestinians. Netanyahoo had claimed that he could make peace with Arab states before making peace with the Palestinians. The UAE has now proven him right.

This is a huge political success for Netanyahoo. His previous moves to formerly annex parts of the West Bank were never serious. But he has now used that to 'pay' for a deal that is a much bigger win for him.

This is also a huge success from Trump's perspective. His many pro-Zionist voters and donors will show their gratitude for this.

The announcement does not say what the United Arab Emirates is expecting to receive for the deal. It may claim that it stopped the annexation of the West Bank but that annexation would not have happened anyway.

UAE's ruler Mohamed Bin Zayed seems to disagree with a detail that Trump posted:

محمد بن زايد @MohamedBinZayed - 15:00 UTC · Aug 13, 2020
During a call with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, an agreement was reached to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories. The UAE and Israel also agreed to cooperation and setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship.

"Setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship" differs from the claim in Trump's term sheet that the parties "agreed to full normalization".

Netanyahoo also seems to disagree with Trump's declaration:

avi scharf @avischarf - 15:36 UTC · Aug 13, 2020
This is hilarious. Senior Israeli source now says Israel still committed to annexation and that Trump only asked for a temporary freeze until peace deal with UAE is signed. Seems like Bibi is afraid of losing the settlers and his base in case we are heading for elections.

It is likely that there will be protests in Arab countries against this step. Support for the Palestinian cause has weakened in the younger generation. But for many older Arabs it is still a very serious matter.

As MbZ has nothing to show for the huge gift he is handing to Netanyahoo and Trump the rage will concentrate on him.

Posted by b on August 13, 2020 at 16:04 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/08/u ... .html#more
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:50 pm

Hezbollah and US / Israel interference in Lebanon

Image

by Giuseppe Sini

The perception of Hezbollah is in "information" and in some fringes of the Western left
The explosion that devastated Beirut on 4 August 2020 causing, according to a still provisional toll, about 200 dead, 6,500 injured and leaving at least 300,000 thousand people homeless [1] , represented yet another opportunity for the Western information sideshow. to honor one's totemic animal: the jackal. The aim of the clumsy ritual is to associate Hezbollah more or less explicitly with the tragedy, usually by reprising insinuations about alleged purchases of ammonium nitrate and weapons by the Lebanese movement, insinuations spread by "sources" ranging from the Israeli army to " experts "ex-FBI, passing through US" anti-terrorism "officials [2] .

Allegations amalgamated in recent months with the usual mash - compulsively regurgitated by the press and TV every time they turn their distracted gaze to Lebanon - whose fundamental ingredient consists in reducing Hezbollah to an Iranian prosthesis; a foreign body to a mythical and young civil society anxious to free itself from the yoke imposed on the country of the cedars first by Syria, then by Nasrallah and his puppeteers in Tehran, the only obstacle to the modern and pro-Western nation glimpsed in the fabled era of the governments of Rafiq al- Hariri. It was, which lasted from 1992 to 1998, in the re-enactment of which we are careful not to understand details such as the architectural and urban disfigurement of the Lebanese capital, the result of a building speculation in which the then prime minister and associates had their hands in the dough,[3] .

A part of the left, predominantly Anglophone and Francophone but also influential in Italy, does not fail to take up this approach, albeit seasoning it with apparently refined analyzes of the class composition of the Hezbollah base and leaders, as well as pointing to the latter as an obstacle to a genuine and non-denominational mobilization of the Lebanese masses; adding also the minimization of US and Israeli aggression in the region, particularly in Syria and Lebanon, and therefore of the movement's role in countering it. The derision of concepts such as "Axis of Resistance", when evoked by Hezbollah and Syria on the part of this left it appears today - also in the light of the certainly unsurprising normalization of relations between Zionist entities and puppets of US imperialism such as the United Arab Emirates - ungenerous. Even grotesque, if coming from geopolitical punishers such as Joseph Daher, who nevertheless does not disdain the hospitality of the "Fondation pour la recherche stratégique",geopolitical think tank and haunt of Atlanticism in French sauce, or even, by Michael Karadjis, on other occasions so not picky as to speak in reference to Jabhat al-Nusra of “decent revolutionaries” [4] .

Anxiety to belittle Hezbollah's leading role in the resistance to US imperialism and its main bastion in the Middle East, Israel, which borders on mystification when a news organization highly respected by a certain left, International, gives space to the cliché that " the populations of the region no longer care about the Palestinian cause ” [5] . Thus, not only the role of the movement led by Nasrallah, or the opposition of many states - Tunisia, Algeria, Kuwait and Syria - to that de facto renunciation of any Palestinian claim that is the so-called Agreement of the Century is thus hidden., but also popular demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinians; which also speaks volumes about a left intent on invoking the "agency" of the masses as soon as the imperialist exploitation or co-option of certain "revolts" is denounced, only to spread rumors that deny subjectivity to those same masses by reducing the Arab world to regimes reactionaries like the United Arab Emirates, which, moreover, have never shone for their support for the Palestinians.

To return to Hezbollah and its effectiveness in facing the Zionist entity, it is enough to listen to the clearest Palestinian voices, such as Abdul Sattar Kassem, to see it indicated as an alternative model to the now almost thirty-year and exhausting strategy of agreements, almost always to the decline, carried out by the PA [6]. Among other things, with reference to the Israel / United States dynamic, at least part of the leadership of the Lebanese movement - in fact, there is no lack of the opposite idea or one that tends to identify the two subjects - takes a correct position, identifying the first as a "tool" or "external base" of US imperialism; the latter are often attributed primary responsibility for Israeli crimes in the Middle East, albeit within a rhetoric in which the condemnation of the "great satan" is wrapped up, as is obvious for a party that appeals to religion right from its name, from cultural and religious as well as political elements [7] .

Role of the United States in some episodes of Lebanese history
The role of the United States in Lebanon, it was said, today undervalued by the left but also recognized in academia - albeit at times in order to downsize it - and documented as dating back well before the founding of Hezbollah. The historian Irene Gendzier, for example, investigates its development even before the sending to Beirut, in 1958, of about 15,000 marines.by the Eisenhower administration, in the context of an interventionism that struck from Latin America to Southeast Asia, passing through Africa and the Middle East; therefore, writes the same author, even after Lebanon does not have oil, since the Second World War "its integration into the oil economy of the region, dominated by the US international cartel, indicated it as a strategically important state". Landed on the escort of the Eisenhower Doctrine, the marinesthey served to shore up the pro-Western president Camille Chamoun, a Christian-Maronite - whose political bloc had won the 1957 elections also thanks to the massive funds provided by the CIA - from the shocks inflicted on him by a vast opposition front, including Muslims (very Sunni, Shiites than Druze) also Christians. All this with the bogeymen in the background, for the United States and their Lebanese protege, of Nasserism and above all of the nationalist and anti-imperialist revolution which in 1958 in Iraq, under the leadership of General Qasim, had overthrown the Hashemite monarchy [8] .

In the 1960s, US concern about Lebanon was caused by the further growth of parties, however weak, inspired in various ways by Arab nationalism, such as the Pan-Arab Movement of Arab Nationalists and other Nasserian or Baathist groups, or more. or not on the left like the Lebanese Communist Party and, above all, Kamal Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, which enjoyed broad support among the Druze community; trying to overcome ideological divisions and internal conflicts, these subjects tried to reach some form of cooperation, especially with regard to the modalities of support for the Palestinian cause. While on the other side of the political spectrum the leadersChristian-Maronites Pierre Gemayel, Raymond Edde and the aforementioned Chamoun - hostile to the albeit tenuous concessions to Nasserism in relations with Israel made by President Chehab and his successor Helou - converged, in 1967, forming the tripartite alliance, also competing with the several governments of the country in seeking the favors of the US embassy. In particular, in the climate of growing hostility towards the United States created after the Six Day War, with the recall of their respective ambassadors, and which materialized among other things in attacks on symbols of Western economic interests in Lebanon, the Christian-Maronite right distinguished by its enslavement to Washington and Israel.

Thus, that of the Sixties was a period against US and Israeli interests in Lebanon, in particular, in 1968, the Israeli attack on Beirut airport strengthened the determination of leftist groups about defending the country from the Israeli threat - with respect to the which the government was deemed flawed - as well as with regard to support for Palestinian fighters, who, under the agreement obtained by Nasser in Cairo in 1969, could now act on Lebanese territory. In this context, the US trained and supplied the Lebanese army and internal security forces, including through the arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian, in order to thwart activities in Palestinian refugee camps; in some circles of the Nixon administration, meanwhile, the possibility of favoring a military solution - similar to that undertaken by King Hussein in Jordan in September 1970 - in the presence of the Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon, as well as supplying weapons to Christian militias, was beginning to be considered. US Embassy official Robert Oakley argued that the United States financed and armed Christian parties before 1973, and again between that year and the next, armaments reached the same formations by more less indirect ways - through theDeuxième Bureau , ie the then Lebanese military intelligence , and again through Soghanalian - but always with US support and well before the outbreak of the civil war in 1975 [9] .

We will not dwell on the conflict that in various phases has bloodied Lebanon for fifteen years, there is certainly no shortage of reconstructions on its development, with the Syrian intervention following the Ryad summit in 1976 - Damascus will navigate unscrupulously supporting according to the circumstances different communities and imposing their own presidential candidates - and the Israeli invasions of 1978 and 1982, the latter culminating in the brutal siege and bombing of Beirut, followed by the withdrawal of PLO fighters from the Lebanese capital. Nor is it intended to support the thesis of some re-enactments according to which Kissinger and the CIA pushed the country towards civil war, however the proximity with the latter and Israel of leading figures of the Christian-Maronite right, such as Bashir Gemayel - son of Pierre,leader of the Lebanese Phalangist Party - are well known. Equally well known is the Israeli complicity, and the US acquiescence, in the massacre carried out by the Falangist militias in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982; not so well known is the involvement of the CIA in the 1985 attack on the Shiite cleric close to Hezbollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, who emerged unscathed from the attack in which around eighty civilians were killed [10] .

Hezbollah in the resistance against Israel
After the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, the multinational force, made up of Americans, French and Italians, charged with overseeing the withdrawal of Palestinian fighters - the West in fact endorsed the presidency, sponsored by Israeli bombs, of the phalangist Bashir Gemayel and then, after his killing, of his brother Amin - returned for the second time to Lebanon, also on that occasion showing his partiality, leaving the Israeli army and the Falangist militias to act undisturbed. Multinational force that will suffer a severe attack in 1983, with the attacks on the Marines barracksUSA and the headquarters of the French paratroopers, usually attributed to the Islamic Jhiad group, sometimes referred to as one of the many formations later part of the Hezbollah embryo. In the emergence of the latter, however, the role of a splinter fringe of Amal is certain - born as the armed wing of the Disinherited Movement animated by Musa al-Sadr, a movement rooted above all in the Shiite community, but with an openly interfaith political-social vocation - disagree with the choice to support the Israeli invasion and Amin Gemayel. Without denying the weight in its foundation of the thought and action of leading figures of the Islamic Republic of Iran, it can be said that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was an unavoidable and decisive factor in the formation of Hezbollah;

The 1989 Ta'if agreements, while putting an end to the civil war, did not affect the confessional system, but reduced the pre-eminence of the president in favor of the prime minister - respectively, according to what was agreed at the end of the French mandate in 1943 Maronite and a Sunni, with a Shiite presiding over the parliament - also legitimizing the Syrian presence. Above all, the Israeli occupation in the south of the country remained, also through the Falangist militia Army of South Lebanon, which between 1978 and 1984 had operated under the puppet entity of the self-styled Free State of Lebanon. Although Hezbollah harshly condemned the Lebanese state's sectarian approach, the movement opted pragmatically, under the leadership of Secretary General Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi,Accountability and Grapes of Wrath ) of 1993 and 1996 [11] .

The electoral program for the 1996 parliamentary elections, regarding the so-called peace process sponsored by the United States, correctly defined by Naseer Aruri as "co-belligerents" and certainly not mediators, today appears premonitory in stigmatizing a logic that "[...] aimed at consecrate a joint Israeli-American hegemony over the Arab world, in exchange for the restitution […] of a small part of the territories occupied in 1967 ”. In 2000, the Israeli occupation of the south of the country, increasingly unsustainable due to the Hezbollah guerilla warfare - as well as effective propaganda, with the movement's TV, al-Manar, showing Israeli citizens the humiliation of their army - it ended after twenty-two years except for the area, bordering the Golan Heights, of the Shiba farms.[12] .

Hezbollah's rooting in Lebanese society and the illusions / delusions of Western information
The previous year, in 2005, Rafiq al-Hariri was killed in an attack which was followed by his almost sanctification by Western news, the same that magnified the anti-Syrian demonstrations - which would have led to the withdrawal of Damascus, hastily accused of the death of the prime minister - and ignored a part of the country that was anything but a minority, the protagonist of mobilisations of opposite sign, in which Hezbollah was the pre-eminent though not the only component. An attitude in the following years repeated punctually on the occasion of any expression, more or less spontaneous, of popular indignation, constantly and superficially presented as a sign of intolerance towards Hezbollah; the latest example following the explosion in the port of Beirut, with the well-tested exploitation of anti-corruption issues to target people unpopular with the United States and Israel, in this specific case the movement led by Nasrallah, indicated by some press as the only or main target of the anger following the tragedy. These are pathetically disappointed illusions at every electoral round - in the 2018 general elections Hezbollah reaffirmed and in some cases, with its allies, strengthened the good results of the previous ones in 2009 - confirming a rooting in Lebanese society that is clear to anyone. you take off the blinkers of the stars and stripes disinformation. by some press indicated almost as the only or main objective of the anger following the tragedy. These are pathetically disappointed illusions at every electoral round - in the 2018 general elections Hezbollah reaffirmed and in some cases, with its allies, strengthened the good results of the previous ones in 2009 - confirming a rooting in Lebanese society that is clear to anyone. you take off the blinkers of the stars and stripes disinformation. by some press indicated almost as the only or main objective of the anger following the tragedy. These are pathetically disappointed illusions at every electoral round - in the 2018 general elections Hezbollah reaffirmed and in some cases, with its allies, strengthened the good results of the previous ones in 2009 - confirming a rooting in Lebanese society that is clear to anyone. you take off the blinkers of the stars and stripes disinformation.

Hezbollah's social commitment is a fact mentioned even in Western news, although it is dismissed more often as a kind of clientelism in an Islamic guise or, at best, to a state within a state; while it would be more accurate to say that the movement takes the place of the state where - in the south of Lebanon, the Beqa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut, where part of the poorer Shiite community resides - the latter is absent or fugitive, in particular in the fields of health care, education and housing, but also agriculture and the economy in general. Although the financial contribution of Iran is important, the fact remains that these are initiatives usually conceived, implemented and managed in Lebanon and which benefit large sections of the country's population. not infrequently regardless of religious denomination, confirming that Hezbollah's criticism of the sectarian character of the Lebanese state is not merely propaganda. Intervention in the social field is also fundamental in alleviating the disastrous consequences of repeated Israeli aggressions, as well as today, in the context of a very serious economic situation - precipitated as a result of the explosion, and aggravated by further US sanctions against the movement in addition to those against neighboring countries and its allies - crucial to ensure the resistance not only of the Shiite community but of the entire country[13] .

US imperialism, main threat to the Lebanese and Middle Eastern masses
The sanctions, moreover, are nothing more than the latest act of the decades-long US interference in Lebanon, aimed as we have seen above all at disarming the resistance - at the time of the PLO guerrillas based in the land of the cedars, today of Hezbollah - against their right hand in the region; the words of the aforementioned Dhaer therefore sound all the more singular when he writes: "Hezbollah's armaments have been increasingly oriented towards objectives other than the military confrontation against Israel". It is a reference to the participation of the movement in the defense of Syria from aggression - because this was, as amply documented by even the most compromised press - launched by US imperialism. That the inscription of this intervention in the concept of "Axis of Resistance" is anything but a "propaganda tool", as Daher still defines it, is attested by the events of the last few days, with the announcement by Sudan that it wants to normalize relations with Israel, in exchange for removal from the ridiculous list of "terrorist sponsors"; all made even more grotesque by the agreement under which the country will have to pay out millions of dollars to compensate the "American victims of terrorism", basically blackmail and extortion. An outcome of this kind is clearly one of the reasons for Washington's work in the Middle East, it does not matter that it materializes in various forms of economic bullying, the case just mentioned in Sudan and the sanctions against Hezbollah for example,

The one brought by the United States in Lebanon is, as stated by the scholar of the movement Amal Saad, not so much a "regime change, but a change of party", aimed at ousting Hezbollah from the country's institutions, undermining its role in Lebanese society and regional level, putting an end to what, at least in the last two decades, has proved to be one of the most concrete and effective challenges to their interests, as well as their main ally / instrument in the Middle East. All this through the now customary combination of economic abuse - the collective punishment of sanctions which, as already stated in our previous articleon the issue, is a continuation or continuation of the war itself -, manipulation of "civil society", with the US embassy openly boasting its proximity to the sectors of protest most hostile to Hezbollah and, finally, mystification, painting this 'last as an alien and corrupting entity, heterodirected from Iran [14] .

The task of the left and the communists of the central countries is certainly not to get involved in this narrative, perhaps by adding some Marxist nuances, or worse by raving about Iranian imperialism, thus equating aggressors and assailed; but if anything, resolutely oppose any measure already in place, or proposed under Israeli-US pressure, against the Lebanese movement - whether it is blacklisting, imposing sanctions or otherwise - as well as the interference of subjects, in in particular, Macron's France and the IMF, with demands for political and economic reforms, to which Hezbollah has already declared its opposition. Furthermore, if you really care about the Lebanese and Middle Eastern masses in general, and sincerely trust in their non-sectarian mobilization,[15] .

1) https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1 ... morts.html ;

2) https://thegrayzone.com/2020/08/26/beir ... ror-plots/ ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mi ... /c3ed5ce2- d714-11ea-a788-2ce86ce81129_story.html ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mi ... /c3ed5ce2- d714-11ea-a788-2ce86ce81129_story.html .

3) Georges Corm, The Arab World in Conflict. From the Lebanese drama to the Kuwayt invasion , Jaca Book, 2005, pp. 158-162; Georges Corm, American Hegemony in the Near East , Jaca Book, 2004, pp. 135-140; https://www.persee.fr/doc/ecofi_0987-33 ... s_3_1_1944 .

4) https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/hezb ... tion-labor ; https://jacobinitalia.it/author/daher-joseph/ ; https://www.frstrategie.org/programmes/ ... orts-avec- israel-2017 ; http://links.org.au/node/4346 ; https://web.archive.org/web/20161105044 ... ir-strikes .

5) https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/ ... io-oriente .

6) https://mondoweiss.net/2020/05/palestin ... omes-next/.

7) https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/i ... est-enemy/ ; https://ottobre.info/2020/02/12/la-ques ... una-lotta/ ; Marco Di Donato, Hezbollah: History of the Party of God, Mimesis , 2015, p. 61; Amal Saad Ghorayeb, Hizbu 'lahh. Politics and Religion , Pluto Press, 2002, pp. 91-93.

8) James R. Stocker, Spheres of Intervention. US Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Lebanon, 1967-1976 , Cornell University Press, 2016, pp. 6-9; Irene L. Gendzier, Notes from the Minefiled. United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945-1958 , Columbia University Press, 2006, pp. 3-7; Eugene Rogan, The Arabs , Bompiani, 2016, pp. 432-439; Christopher Davidson, Shadow Wars. The Secret Struggle for the Middle East , Oneworld Book, 2017, pp. 68-70.

9) Stocker, 2016, pp. 23-25, 28-29, 32, 39-40, 63-64, 66, 71-72, 84-85, 89-91, 131-133; Rogan, 2016, p. 486.

10) Rogan, 2016, p. 536-537, 574-576; Corm, 2004, pp. 34-36; Di Donato, 2015, pp. 44-45, 50-51; the hypothesis that Kissinger has “decided to push Lebanon towards civil war” is supported in the volume of the journalist Dilip Hiro Fire and Embers: a History of Lebanese Civil War , St. Martin Press, 1993; https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 2122db88ce ; Georges Corm, Contemporary Lebanon. History and Society , Jaca Book, 2006, pp. 132-133; https://www.thenation.com/article/archi ... in-beirut/ ;https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/09/1 ... velations/ ; Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs. Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam , Serpent's Tail, 2010, p. 168.

11) Corm, 2006, pp. 133-134, 153; Rogan, 2016, p. 568; Di Donato, 2015, pp. 32, 45, 48-49, 61, 92-97, 101, 127-131; Amal Saad, Challenging the sponsor-proxy model: the Iran-Hizbullah relationship , in Global Discourse: An interdisciplinary journal of current affairs, Vol. 9, N. 4, November 2019, p. 631-632.

12) Naseer H. Aruri, A dishonest broker. The United States between Israel and Palestine , Il Ponte, 2006, p.23; Di Donato, 2015, p. 138; Augustus Richard Norton, Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon , in Journal of Palesine Studies, Vol. 30, N. 1, Autumn 2000, pp. 22-35; Rogan, 2016, pp. 662-663; https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/13 ... -israel-2/ .

13) Corm, 2005, pp. 160-161; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-leba ... SKCN25E18R ; Di Donato, 2015, pp. 74-83, 168-170; https://twitter.com/amalsaad_lb/status/ ... 4664961030 ; https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2020/0 ... 264106361/ ; https://www.lcps-lebanon.org/publicatio ... _1_eng.pdf ; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... lks-stall/ ; https://fair.org/home/hiding-the-impact ... n-lebanon/ ; https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/n ... ated-areas .

14) https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/hezboll ... uprisings/ ; https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/worl ... trump.html ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mi ... ww.youtube. com / watch? v = XEXu_u4JPKE & feature = youtu.be & fbclid = IwAR29pa6fFgsa1DmRbS9fuvHfFUZxXJYYqfUTDCG-htw8RT9bUDmrOHowEi4 ; https://twitter.com/usembassybeirut/sta ... 3610875904 ;

15) https://it.euronews.com/2013/07/22/hezb ... ento-della ; https://aic.camera.it/aic/scheda.html?n ... ERA&leg=18 ; https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN25O14A ; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-leba ... SKBN20Q2II ; https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/ ... ed-many-59 .

https://ottobre.info/2020/10/29/hezboll ... in-libano/

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 28, 2021 2:04 pm

While the Israeli prime minister received the coronavirus vaccine, Israel has denied millions of Palestinians that right. (Photo: AFP.)
ISRAEL PREVENTS COVID-19 VACCINES FROM REACHING PALESTINE
22 Jan 2021 , 9:24 am .

Image
While the Israeli prime minister received the coronavirus vaccine, Israel has denied millions of Palestinians that right. (Photo: AFP.)

Israel rejected an informal request from the World Health Organization (WHO) to immediately deliver COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinian medical personnel and prevent a health disaster, arguing that there are not enough doses for its own citizens.

Researcher Yanis Iqbal argues that the justification of the Zionist state does not hold:

The Israeli government has purchased 10 million vaccines from the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca which is enough for five million people. This is in addition to vaccines already purchased from Pfizer (8 million, which is enough for 4 million men and women) and Moderna (6 million, which is enough for 3 million people). Given the fact that there are around 6 million people in Israel over the age of 15 (the vaccine will not be given to children at this time), immunization for the Israeli population is fully covered.

The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has touted Israel's vaccination campaign as "successful" for the more than 2 million injections distributed since the end of December.

The campaign is supposed to include Arab and Palestinian citizens living in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, yet only 20% of Palestinians over the age of 60 and residing there have been vaccinated, which contrasts with 75%. of Israelis of the same age group who have been immunized.

Some 2.7 million Palestinians living in the West Bank have not had access to the vaccine, as have those living in the Gaza Strip, and they are likely not to be delivered for several weeks or months. Israel, which has these areas under military control, has indeed vaccinated Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

"While settlers from illegal settlements on usurped Palestinian land have access to vaccines, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza remain unimmunized ... in a so-called apartheid health," says a report released by the Liberation Organization. of Palestine (PLO).

The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines could easily be transported to the Palestinian territories under Israeli occupation, not requiring special refrigeration, but Israel has refused to do so.

These actions violate the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which in its article 56 stipulates the responsibility of the occupying powers to guarantee health in the occupied territory: “with special reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. "

For its part, the Palestinian Authority has arranged for supplies of the Russian vaccine to arrive . On January 11, the Palestinian Ministry of Health approved the emergency use of Sputnik V and the first shipments could be shipped starting next month from partner production plants in China, India or South Korea.

https://misionverdad.com/israel-impide- ... -palestina

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**************************************

ISRAEL SAYS IT WILL ATTACK IRAN IF US EASES "SANCTIONS" AND RETURNS TO NUCLEAR DEAL
27 Jan 2021 , 8:33 am .

The Breaking Defense media reported that Israel will attack Iran if the United States softens unilateral coercive measures against the Islamic Republic and agrees to return to the nuclear agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, its acronym in English), from which the Administration withdrew. Trump and which the Zionist state claims is "the greatest hoax in recent history."

A source told Breaking Defense that "Israel needs to know, and quickly, if Washington plans to stop Iran's race to the bomb or take any action to do this."

That same source claimed that Israeli intelligence is closely watching Iranian nuclear facilities and is attacking alleged related targets in Syria.

Israel's actions are part of a public relations campaign and military maneuvers with the aim of pressuring the new Biden Administration not to return to the Iranian nuclear agreement in favor of the Zionist interests of being the only actor in Southwest Asia to have a nuclear bomb.

"This pressure will continue and grow, in preparation for a direct attack on targets in Iran," the Israeli source added to Breaking Defense .

Senior officials of the Zionist state, led by the Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have reiterated that Israel could attack Iran's nuclear program if the United States rejoins the nuclear deal, as President Joe Biden has indicated he plans to do. .

In recent months, Iran has repeatedly signaled that it wants an end to unilateral coercive measures by Washington and, in order to push the end of the blockade on its economy, it has begun to enrich uranium to a level of 20% due to violation of commitments under the JCPOA.

Iran has emphasized that its action is reversible and is ready to return to its obligations under the JCPOA if the United States returns to the agreement and lifts the "sanctions."

Breaking Defense cites several Israeli officials rejecting Iranian pressure for Biden to make the option of quickly returning to the JCPOA.

"Now how will the Biden Administration react?" He asks to end the website article.

https://misionverdad.com/israel-dice-qu ... do-nuclear

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 16, 2021 12:43 pm

Israel Blocks Shipment of COVID-19 Vaccines To Gaza

Image
Amid the COVID-1 pandemic, Israel insisted that the immunization of Palestinians is the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority. | Photo: Twitter/ @SavePa2

Published 15 February 2021

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, explained that it tried to send 2,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine to the Gaza Strip as the territory, home to about 2 million Palestinians, has not received any vaccines yet.


Palestinian authorities denounced on Monday that Israel is blocking access to COVID-19 vaccines to Gaza. This, as the Israeli counterpart, is reported to have recognized that Palestine had made the transfer request, but it awaits a political decision.

"Today, 2,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine were transferred to enter the Gaza Strip, but the occupation authorities prevented their entry," Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said in a statement.

"These doses were intended for medical staff working in intensive care rooms designated for Covid-19 patients, and staff working in emergency departments," the official added.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, explained that it tried to send 2,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine to the Gaza Strip as the territory, home to about 2 million Palestinians, has not received any vaccines yet.

Although the Israeli government has not commented on the prohibition, news agencies such as Reuters, AP, and AFP said that COGAT, "the Israeli authority that runs civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories," confirmed that the PA had asked for authorization to carry the vaccines but "this request is waiting for a political decision."

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel insisted that the immunization of Palestinians is the responsibility of the PA. However, since it occupies its territory, the international community has mostly criticized Israel for this position noting that it has is a legal obligation to provide the vaccines.

After growing pressure, which included the United Nations, Israel sent the PA only 5 000 doses to be administered in the West Bank in early February.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Isr ... -0020.html

What we have come to expect from these genocidal sonsofbitches. Appalling is a gross understatement. Anyone, especially the US government, who supports Israel, 'owns' this. Extermination by a million cuts.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:49 pm

Exposing Israel’s vaccine apartheid in West Bank & Gaza
Reem ZubaidiFebruary 26, 2021

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Saturday Night Live has been attacked for a joke exposing Israel's refusal to provide vaccine to the Occupied Territories. Photo: Screenshot from You Tube.

The Israeli apartheid regime has been praised for its quick COVID vaccine rollout. Israel has the world’s highest number of doses per head of population, according to BBC News. However, 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are excluded from the vaccine rollouts while Israeli citizens, even those living in illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories, are prioritized.

This is medical apartheid.

More than 45% of Israel’s 9 million citizens have received vaccinations as of Feb. 19, including around 450,000 settlers living in the West Bank. The reason for the quick vaccine uptake and supply in Israel is due to their agreement with Pfizer to exchange citizens’ data for 10 million doses of the vaccine, according to Politico. This includes a shipment of 400,000-700,000 doses a week.

In return, Israel will provide anonymous details to Pfizer (and the World Health Organization) about the age, gender and medical history of those vaccinated including side effects and efficacy. This information could help Pfizer enormously boost its sales internationally.

Occupied Territories hit hard by pandemic

Israel’s defenders say that all Israeli citizens of all faiths, including Arabs, are eligible to be vaccinated. In East Jerusalem, only those with Israeli citizenship are entitled to the vaccine. Most living there are not citizens, but “permanent residents.” Only after facing pressure from rights groups, has Israel agreed to begin vaccinating Palestinian prisoners.

Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank are disproportionately affected by the pandemic with a total infection rate of about 40% compared to Israel’s 6.2%. As of Feb. 11, the World Health Organization recorded a total of 186,861 confirmed cases and 2,102 deaths from the virus in the West Bank. In Gaza, more than 530 people have died from the virus. According to the Palestine Authority Frontline medical workers in Gaza were also supposed to receive 2,000 doses at the beginning of this month, but the transfer was prevented by Israel.

The opportunism behind Israel’s ‘vaccine diplomacy‘

Israeli health officials have said they would be willing to consider immunizing Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza once all Israeli citizens have been vaccinated. But this was exposed as a lie when, instead of vaccinating the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government pledged to send thousands of “spare” vaccines to foreign allies.

This week, the Czech Republic and Honduras, both of whom accepted Israel’s claims of sovereignty over Jerusalem, received 5,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine. In return, they will move their diplomats to Jerusalem. Hungary and Guatemala will also be receiving doses, also in return for their support of Israel’s Jerusalem move.

These examples of vaccine diplomacy have drawn criticism from UN officials and at home. Israel has deflected these criticisms, insisting that it is not their responsibility to provide Palestinians with the vaccine.

The critique on Saturday Night Live

Criticism of this policy has also extended to the mainstream media through a Saturday Night Live joke which called attention to Israel’s policy of denying equal access to healthcare to millions of Palestinians. “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m going to guess it’s the Jewish half,” comedian Michael Che said in the SNL skit on Feb. 20.

Producer’s of the show are now being accused of anti-semitism by Zionists organizations and pro Israel lobbying groups, continuing the dangerous and blatantly false equating of anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism. NBS SNL has actually apologized.

In response to this, Ali Abunimah, cofounder of the Electronic Intifadah, stated in an interview on the Katie Halper Show: “The reason that Israel defenders and the Israel lobby are going nuts over it and denouncing it as anti-Semitic is because it points to a truth that is pretty unpallatable which is that you have COVID apartheid in Israel and vaccine apartheid.”

Abby Martin in an episode of Empire Files, points out that “U.S. and Israeli politicians like to pretend that the only Palestinians that matter are the ones living within Israel’s 1948 borders and that the 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are not their problem. … It’s a deliberate concealing of the situation that all of Palestine is under a brutal Israeli military occupation or blockade.”

Martin pointed out that Israel has a population of 9 million, including 1.5 million Palestinian citizens. And 5 million Palestinians live the West Bank and Gaza. “If you properly include that population, SNL’s reference [that half are vaccinated] is actually quite accurate. Under international law, Israel is responsible for the occupied Palestinian population.

According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, occupying powers are responsible for the medical supplies of the occupied population, including adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics to the fullest extent of the means available to it.

Jim Crow medicine

“The Palestinian Authority was able to get some doses of the…Russian vaccine and Israel blocked them from getting (it), but what you also have in the West Bank, and this really brings home the Jim Crow apartheid nature of it, is that if you are an Israeli settler living in the West Bank, on land stolen from Palestinians, you will get a vaccine, but if you’re a Palestinian living next door to that settlement, you will not get a vaccine,” said Abunimah.

Israel claims that it does not technically occupy the West Bank and Gaza and under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority has oversight of public health. This is a misleading statement, as the Israeli government controls the borders of the West Bank and Gaza, and the air space above it, and has steadily encroached on the land itself. As Dr. Mustafa Barghouti states in an interview with Democracy Now: “The Palestinian Authority is in charge only of 38% of the West Bank, only. Sixty-two percent of the West Bank is Area C, under full Israeli military control, and Israel is doing nothing for Palestinians there.”

In addition, while administering vaccines may be under the PA’s jurisdiction, there are a number of obstacles to actually putting this in practice. These include getting a permit from Israel to actually be able to import the vaccine, a lack of funding and access to the vaccine, and the infrastructure to distribute it.

Gaza often goes 12 or more hours a day without electricity, which makes it impossible to store the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that Israel has been using at the required minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit.

On Jan. 11, the Palestinian health ministry announced its approval of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, with plans of vaccinating 50,000 Palestinians by March. Palestine is also expected to receive doses from the British AstraZeneca.

The World Health Organization is leading a partnership called Covax which is aimed at helping poorer countries, and has pledged to vaccinate 20% of Palestinians. But this plan faces many obstacles. The vaccines that the Covax scheme is depending on, which are cheaper and easier to transport, are still in the testing stage and have yet to be approved for emergency use.

Israel’s medical apartheid is but a feature of its apartheid state and the Zionist colonial project. This project is funded by U.S. tax dollars. In 2019, the US provided $3.8 billion in foreign military aid to Israel, almost all of it military assistance. Israel also benefits from about $8 billion of loan guarantees. .

All U.S. aid to Israel must end. All Palestinians must be granted the right to return, to have self determination over every aspect of their lives and full control over the destiny of their homeland.

Feature image: Saturday Night Live has been attacked for a joke exposing Israel’s refusal to provide vaccine to the Occupied Territories. Photo: Liberation News screenshot from You Tube.

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 03, 2021 1:50 pm

Image

Oxfam Director: Israel’s Vaccine Export Deal “Shameful” as Nearly 5 Million Palestinians Wait
March 2, 2021

February 28, 2021.- In reaction to Israel’s announcement on sending surplus vaccines to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Honduras, and Guatemala, Oxfam Acting Country Director in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Dina Jibril has described the deal as “shameful”, as millions of Palestinians are left to wait.

“Israel’s deal to exchange surplus vaccines for UN votes and embassies, while the vast majority of almost 5 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are left to wait for the potentially life-saving vaccine, is shameful and shortsighted,” said Jibril in a statement.

She added,
“Shipping excess vaccine stocks across the world while Palestinians living, in many cases, only a few hundred meters away from vaccinated Israelis is yet another example of the Israeli government’s refusal to fulfill its legal obligation as an occupying power.”
Jibril stressed that the occupying state had “a moral and public health imperatives to ensure all Palestinians have access to adequate, basic services including healthcare. Israel must direct its efforts to ensure an urgent, free vaccination campaign for all Palestinians.”
“Once again Israel’s treatment of Palestinians not only endangers Palestinians’ health and prioritizes politics over people, this short-term thinking harms Israel’s own long-term interests too. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said, none of us are safe from COVID-19 until we are all safe”.
Featured image: Palestine is currently under a state of emergency to prevent the spread of coronavirus infections. (Photo: Fawzi Mahmoud)

https://orinocotribune.com/oxfam-direct ... ians-wait/

****************************************************

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Gaza Suffers $1.5m Losses as Israel Open Floodgates, Destroys Crops
February 26, 2021

February 22, 2021.- Palestinian agricultural areas suffered $1.5 million in damages as a result of Israel’s decision to open rainwater floodgates, Anadolu reported.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture in the Gaza Strip, Israel has so far flooded nearly 700 dunums of agricultural land including 600 dunums (148 acres) east of Gaza City, and 100 dunams (24.7 acres) east of the town of Beit Hanoun.

The ministry added that Israel has opened floodgates twice this month, and called on human rights organizations to immediately intervene and stop the Israeli violations against the agricultural sector in Gaza.’

Israel has built a number of dams to hold back rainwater along the eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip to prevent it from naturally flowing into Gaza.

After heavy rains, the Israeli authorities open the gates towards the Palestinian agricultural lands in Gaza.

Featured image: Flooded farmlands in eastern Gaza Strip. (Photo: Supplied)

(Palestine Chronicle)

https://orinocotribune.com/gaza-suffers ... oys-crops/

Genocide by one thousand cuts, by any means. Despite it all:

Image

Palestinians Resist Expansion of Illegal Israeli Settlements, Plant Olive Trees Amidst Aggression in Nablus, Occupied West Bank
February 15, 2021

Kolkata, Feb 14, 2021 (Special for OrinocoTribune.com)- On February 12, hundreds of Palestinians joined an anti-settlement rally in the village of Beit Dajan, located to the east of Nablus city, Occupied West Bank. The protest had been convened against threats of confiscation of Palestinian-owned land for expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, reported Middle East Monitor. According to the portal, there were intense clashes as a large Israeli military deployment violently suppressed the rally with tear gas and live fire. In retaliation, protesters showered the armed personnel with stones.

Israeli soldiers opened up with both rubber bullets and live ammunition on the participants of the rally. The Popular Committee for Land Defense reported that two protesters were injured in the shooting and had to be transferred to a hospital. Several others suffered asphyxiation from tear gas and were treated on the spot by paramedics.


In recent weeks, Beit Dajan has become an epicenter of protests as the settler-colonial Israeli authorities have started constructing new Jews-only settlements and expanding existing ones, all on Palestinian land.

On the same day, in the Burin region of Nablus, Palestinian residents and activists from various organizations planted about 200 olive trees. This tree planting drive came after months of violence and aggression by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian community of Burin. The acts of aggression included cutting down and burning hundreds of olive trees belonging to Palestinian families.

As people turned up in groups with potted plants and gardening equipment, Israeli military personnel physically assaulted them and also used stun grenades. However, the Palestinian tree-planters successfully resisted the aggression and completed the farming program.

Destroying olive trees and other fruit-bearing plants is a routine act of Israeli violence against Palestinians, says Dr. Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian academic and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. It not only constitutes an attack on the livelihoods of Palestinians, but also causes ecological degradation in the entire Asian Mediterranean region. “Residential, agricultural and infrastructure construction by and for Jewish settlers is itself an environmental disaster,” asserted the scholar.

Featured image: Photo courtesy of The Palestine Chronicle.

OT/SC/JRE

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:59 pm

Oil Spill Caused By Israeli Attacks On Iranian Oil Bound for Syria

The Wall Street Journal reports today:

Israel has targeted at least a dozen vessels bound for Syria and mostly carrying Iranian oil out of concern that petroleum profits are funding extremism in the Middle East, U.S. and regional officials say, in a new front in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Since late 2019, Israel has used weaponry including water mines to strike Iranian vessels or those carrying Iranian cargo as they navigate toward Syria in the Red Sea and in other areas of the region. Iran has continued its oil trade with Syria, shipping millions of barrels and contravening U.S. sanctions against Iran and international sanctions against Syria.

Some of the naval attacks also have targeted Iranian efforts to move other cargo including weaponry through the region, according to U.S. officials.

The attacks on the tankers carrying Iranian oil haven’t been previously disclosed. Iranian officials have reported some of the attacks earlier and have said they suspect Israeli involvement.

The 'exclusive' leak to the WSJ, by U.S. officials(!), is designed to damage the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahoo.

It explains a number of recent incidents which Israel had claimed to be 'Iranian aggressions' but which were caused by Israel itself or were in obvious retaliation for Israeli deeds.

In mid February oil which had leaked from an unknown tanker damaged the beaches of Palestine:

Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice on Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country's worst ecological disasters.
Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel's coast last week after a heavy storm.
...
The Environmental Protection Ministry and activists estimate that at least 1,000 tons of tar, a product of an oil spill from a ship in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, have already washed up on shore. The ministry is trying to determine who is responsible. It declined commenting on details of the investigation because it was ongoing.

What made this event curious was the unusual Israeli attempt to censor reporting on it:

In a surprise move, a Haifa court on Monday imposed a seven-day gag order on the ongoing investigation into the massive oil spill that devastated Israel’s Mediterranean coast over the weekend, according to Hebrew media reports.
The order prohibits the publication of any details of the investigation, including the name of the ship, company or individuals involved, as well as the ship’s point of origin, destination and cargo, until Sunday.
...
Before the gag order was put in place, Israeli media speculated that the ship belonged to a nearby friendly country, to which it has possibly already returned.

That Israel put out a gag order makes it likely that the incident was related to the now reported Israeli operation against an Iranian vessels on its way to Syria.

Israel investigated a Greece ship for the oil spill but later found it to be innocent. Meanwhile the Prime Minister Hassan Diab of Lebanon, which was also hit by the spill, blamed an Israeli ship for causing it. Israel later claimed that a Libyan owned ship had caused the oil spill.

Finally the Israelis settled on blaming Iran:

Over 90% of Israel's 195 kilometre (120-mile) Mediterranean coastline was covered in more than 1,000 tons of black tar, the result of the mysterious oil spill in international waters.
Israel's environmental protection minister Gila Gamliel said a Libyan-owned tanker transporting oil from Iran to Syria was responsible for spilling tons of crude into the eastern Mediterranean.

Ministry officials said it is believed the ship dumped its oil in the eastern Mediterranean, around 70 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast of Israel, in early February.

Gamliel called the incident a deliberate act of "environmental terror" and blamed Iran.

Gamliel, a junior minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, provided no evidence to support that theory.

In late February an Israeli owned vessel was attacked with limpet mines while sailing in the Gulf of Oman:

The network said that Israel increasingly believes a naval force from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind the attack. Channel 12 news raised the possibility that the explosion was the work of a commando team in a fast boat that attached explosives to the ship.
As a result of the explosion, Israeli ships were instructed to increase alertness and change their typical conduct in an attempt to evade potential problems, Channel 12 said. The exact instructions were not revealed for security reasons.

The MV Helios Ray, a vehicle carrier, was traveling from the Saudi port of Dammam to Singapore when the blast occurred on Thursday.

The crew was unharmed in the blast, but the vessel sustained two holes on its port side and two on its starboard side just above the waterline, according to American defense officials.

To summarize: Israel attacked Iranian fuel supplies going by sea to Syria thereby causing an oil spill on its own beaches. It also exposed itself to additional retaliation measures against Israeli owned ships by Iran, which naturally officially denied any involvement.

U.S. officials then leak the whole scheme to the WSJ to stop Netanyahoo from continuing the self-defeating campaign.

Posted by b on March 12, 2021 at 9:17 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/o ... .html#more
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 24, 2021 12:08 pm

(Yes, it's Lebanon, but it's always about Palestine at the end of the day.)

LEBANON, ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE
Elijah J. Magnier

23 Mar 2021 , 10:07 am .

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Hezbollah militants and political supporters wave their flags in caravan (Photo: Aziz Taher / Reuters)

It is not surprising to hear Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and his Army Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi knocking on the door of the Elysee, the residence of the President of the French Republic, criticizing Hezbollah and, of course, Iran. There is no doubt that Israel will never willingly accept the presence of such a powerful force on its borders, equipped with hundreds of strategic precision missiles that can cover the entire geographical area of ​​Palestine. Hezbollah also has tens of thousands of modified high-precision rockets at a shorter range.

Israel failed to win the assault on Hezbollah in 2006, when the organization had less experience and fewer precision missiles. Considering the new capabilities, any new confrontation will be very costly for Israel, and the outcome is difficult to foresee. Thus, after the failure of the division of Syria in 2011 and Iraq in 2014, and the failure to subdue Iran through harsh US "sanctions" since the birth of the Islamic Republic, its prospects of defeating Iran. Hezbollah are now scarcer than ever.

The United States and Israel tried to support the " Lebanese revolution " and invested more than $ 10 billion to stop Hezbollah, but to no avail. Seeing that Hezbollah could not be defeated in this way, two options remained: to foment sectarian conflict, or to starve the population, while blaming Hezbollah, its armed sections and internal security forces. Can the United States and Israel succeed in their strategy? What are Hezbollah's plans and options?

The wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen provided Hezbollah - one of the main participants in the conflicts - with an unparalleled war experience. Hezbollah fought alongside a classic army and that of a superpower, the Syrian and the Russian, respectively. As a result, they have used tanks, self-made missiles, armed drones and sabotage operations behind enemy lines, to name just a few of the lessons learned.

Furthermore, when President Joe Biden took office, he declared Russia an "opponent" and China a "serious competitor" , triggering an unusual rapprochement between these two countries and between the enemies of the US administration in the Middle East, mainly Iran and Hezbollah. .

A Chinese Communist Party delegation has visited Lebanon and met with Hezbollah leaders, offering them $ 12 billion worth of projects to rebuild infrastructure for electricity, communication, transportation and other domestic needs. Separately, Russia invited a delegation led by Hezbollah deputy Haj Mohamad Raad to Moscow, where they met with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other officials.

It is essential to note that Hezbollah has 131 deployment points in Syria. Iran has 115 and Russia 95, excluding the Hmaymeem military airport and the Tartus military naval base (under Russian control). That is, the coordination and strategic relationship between Hezbollah and Russia was inevitable, especially since the US intelligence services recognize and admit Hezbollah as a regional power, and even accuse it of interfering in the US presidential elections.

However, Lebanon's catastrophic economic situation has hit most Lebanese hard, and Hezbollah has not escaped it. The "sanctions" imposed by the United States on Iran (since 1979), which peaked in 2020, have been maintained by President Biden, preventing Iran from being generous to its allies, but without seeing its regular financial support altered. Iran regards its allies as part of its national security. Although the welfare of the allies is essential, all surpluses were removed and the financial supply was reduced to the minimum necessary level.

For Hezbollah, the salaries are the same and are paid regularly. However, only between 20% and 25% receive their salaries in US dollars, whose value went from 1,500 to 13,000 Lebanese lira per dollar. A large portion of Hezbollah members receive no salary or are paid in local currency. Hezbollah leaders have created an internal charity fund called "Muwasat" (consolation funds). Members of Hezbollah paid in dollars will have the freedom to support other unpaid members in US currency and other families in need.

The deterioration of the economic situation in Lebanon is due to various factors . Decades of corruption since the 1990s were instrumental in dollarizing Lebanese imports, thus discouraging local production. In recent years, the US war against the Damascus government and the US and EU "sanctions" on neighboring Syria ( Caesar Law) affected the Lebanese economy. Domestically, the withdrawal of dollars from the Lebanese market carried out by the mismanagement of the governor of the Lebanese Central Bank - controlled by the United States - and the influence of the United States on the oil-rich Gulf countries, preventing them from financially support Lebanon, were the final auctions to the Lebanese economy. All these elements came together in a nation, causing the beginning of famines, shortages of medicines and food, and the deterioration of the local currency, creating very high inflation, making it almost impossible for a large part of the population to survive.

Food and medicine do not have to be the trigger for a military confrontation. Iran could supply Lebanon with relatively necessary medicines, food (something it is already doing), and Iraq has pledged to supply Lebanon with fuel for its electricity and transportation. However, the security issue is the most critical, considering that many groups belonging to the US side are closing the main streets of several cities, cutting the connection between the Shiites of the capital and the suburbs, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. The roadblock is what is called the disruption of the resistance "supply path", an unforgivable and very dangerous act, since Hezbollah may consider it an act of war.

The shadow of May 7, 2008 (the date Hezbollah seized swaths of Beirut from the US-backed government) is still hovering over the country. The pro-US government decided to shut down Hezbollah's communications system, an act that at the time was considered a declaration of war on Hezbollah. The objective was to paralyze the organization's closed-loop and fiber-optic communication system, essential in the fight to maintain command and control in charge of guiding the battle. During the 2006 war, Hezbollah's strike orders were coordinated and did not cease even when Israel tried unsuccessfully to destroy it. The alternative was offered by the government of former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, an anti-Hezbollah and pro-American politician, accused of corruption but saved by the late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri,

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Percent Ethnic Population Density of Lebanon

According to Lebanese sources, in recent weeks, demonstrations in support of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, due to food shortages and the sharp devaluation of the lira, closed the Saadnayel road that links the Shiites between the valley of the Bekaa and the capital Beirut. The Alay highway was also closed by the supporter of pro-American Druze leader Walid Jumblat, also preventing Shiites from reaching the Beirut suburbs. The Yiya highway leading to southern Lebanon was closed by the Druze and Hariri supporters. All these movements were coordinated, which leads us to the conclusion that it was an action that served to prepare the country for a more comprehensive coordinated action, and also to test Hezbollah's reaction.

The leadership of the Lebanese army contributed to making matters worse, when the chief commander, General Josef Aoun, rejected several orders from President Michel Aoun to open the roads and allow the protesters on the shoulder. General Josef Aoun is running for president and seems to believe (wrongly) that the support of the United States is enough to satisfy his political ambitions.

More than six months ago there was a similar situation of closure of all the roads used by the "Axis of Resistance" towards the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. After repeated but unsuccessful warnings, Hezbollah summoned more than 1,000 men from the mobilization forces living in the areas where the protesters closed the roads to prepare to clear them by force. At the last minute, the Lebanese army, whose leadership was informed, intervened and cleared the road of protesters, manipulated by pro-American political parties.

The same scenario is about to repeat itself: the resistance supply line will not be allowed to close. The "Axis of Resistance" regards this as an act of war and as an act of direct support for Israel. It is estimated that it takes 24 to 48 hours to clear all roads, regardless of how many people are on the street and how well armed they are.

They will not allow Lebanon to live in peace as long as its leaders are unwilling to cede part of its oil and gas-rich maritime borders to Israel , and as long as Hezbollah is not disarmed to please Israel. The United States is pushing Lebanon into bankruptcy, cornering the country in a situation where it cannot receive support from Iraq, China, or Russia, but the United States is not willing to compensate either. National voices - mainly pro-US and pro-Israeli Lebanese forces - call for disarming Hezbollah and describe Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as "the head of the snake" (via video distributed on social media).

Hezbollah will not surrender its weapons and will try to avoid civil war, but will stand up if necessary. Hezbollah has its consolidated population group, is part of society and will continue its military preparation for any possible scenario of internal war or on its borders. It has moved most of its operations underground, where cities are built to meet future challenges against Israel and the United States.

US forces will continue to work with Israel to stop Hezbollah. The commander of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), General Kenneth McKenzie, has visited Lebanon several times in the past year . His last visit took place last week and was his most important, with six helicopters provided by the Lebanese army, exploring the Ghazzee-Mazraat Deir al Ashayer area together with a team of intelligence officers and surveying experts. General McKenzie visited the head of the Lebanese army, General Joseph Aoun, but did not meet with the president or any other political leader or member of the government.

Sources believe that the United States is exploring the strategic area that dominates the borders between Lebanon and Syria, which is only tens of kilometers from the Syrian capital, Damascus, and which could serve as a base for the Lebanese army (as a front, under the control from the United States). It is also the area that links the Bekaa Valley with southern Lebanon and is very close to Mount Hermon, where Hezbollah is believed to have many scattered bases for its strategic missiles.

The US embassy in Beirut announced that the senior USCENTCOM commander was "inaugurating a water pump, funded by USAID" that had already been in use for two years, supplying water to a half-empty town. It is unclear whether inaugurating a US-funded water pump is part of General McKenzie's remit, although USCENTCOM is one of two war commands whose headquarters are not physically located in its area of ​​responsibility, but in Florida.

There is no viable future solution in sight for Lebanon, a country walking on the brink. The Gulf countries, the United States and Israel have decided to break up Lebanon and bring down President Michel Aoun and his ally Hezbollah. Yet will these countries together tip the balance in their favor? They have failed in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Israel failed in the 2006 war, and the $ 10 billion invested to counter Hezbollah ended up sparking neither a revolution nor a civil war. Hezbollah has imposed a deterrent balance domestically and with Israel.

Hezbollah is not willing to sit on top of the state, but to live in a country where politicians are not afraid to anger the United States. The Lebanese government and pro-American politicians are afraid to ask for the support of their neighbors in the East. They are subject to the designs of the new US president and his administration, which maintain the strategy of the old Trump administration. Inaction and threats from the United States are pushing Lebanon into the abyss.

This article was originally published on Elijah J. Magnier's blog on March 23, 2021 , the translation was done by Eli C. Casas.

https://misionverdad.com/traducciones/l ... precipicio

Hezbollah is The Stuff and Nasrallah is The Man.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:47 pm

UN experts warn of increasing attacks on Palestinians by extremist settlers

The group of three experts also expressed grave concern at the heightened rate of settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories by the state of Israel

April 15, 2021 by Peoples Dispatch

Image
Saeed Awad lays motionless after being attacked by settlers as Israeli army soldiers carry him on a stretcher. Photo: Courtesy: B'Tselem/Al Jazeera

United Nations experts on human rights have warned that attacks on Palestinians by extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem have increased in the first three months of 2021. The group of three experts also expressed grave concern at the heightened rate of settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories by the state of Israel. This leads to the forced displacement of thousands of Palestinians and the demolitions of their homes.

In a statement published on Wednesday, April 14, on the website of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the experts said, “Already, during the first three months of 2021, more than 210 settler violent incidents were recorded, with one Palestinian fatality. We call upon the Israeli military and police to investigate and prosecute these violent acts with vigor and resolve.” In 2020, “the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 771 incidents of settler violence causing injury to 133 Palestinians and damaging 9,646 trees and 184 vehicles mostly in the areas of Hebron, Jerusalem, Nablus and Ramallah.”

According to the statement, the attacks are especially alarming because of the sense of impunity that the settlers reportedly enjoy from the Israeli military, which the experts say “deeply worries them.” They added that “in many cases, the Israeli military has been present, or nearby, and has not taken sufficient steps to protect the Palestinians from this violence. This amounts to a discriminatory two-tier approach to military protection and policing in the West Bank.” The experts cite one particular example this year of an attack on March 13 in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in which 10 Israeli settlers, some armed, attacked the Palestinian family of Saeed Awad, his wife and their eight children which resulted in injuries to the skull, jaws, legs to the couple and caused extreme mental and emotional trauma to the children. The family was on its way to some property it owned to ensure it had not been encroached upon by settlers.

As per article 27 of the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power, under all circumstances, must protect the population under its occupation as well as ensure that the protected population “shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats…” Human rights groups such as the Israeli NGO Yesh Din have revealed that even in cases in which Palestinians file cases against such settler crimes, there is rarely an justice. Between 2005 and 2019, 92% of the investigations were closed by the Israeli military without issuing any indictments against any of the culprits, noting that “this number is abysmal when compared to the number and nature of crimes committed by Israeli settlers and it testifies more than anything to the institutional and systematic impunity that prevails in the occupied Palestinian territory,” the OHCHR statement said.

The statement, detailing the settler attacks, went on to say that “they primarily target the livelihoods of rural Palestinians, vandalizing livestock, agricultural lands, trees and homes. Besides the presence and expansion of Israeli settlements, which are intended to establish illegal claims for Israeli sovereignty, settler violence is meant to make the daily lives of Palestinians untenable,” adding that the vast majority of these attacks are ideologically motivated and particularly violent, with the attackers not even sparing “pregnant women, young children and older persons.”

On the urgent issue of sustained and accelerated, illegal settlement expansion, the three experts called upon the international community to “impose meaningful costs on Israel’s protracted occupation, and to demand that the occupying power halt its settlement enterprise immediately.” Currently, close to half a million Israelis live in the 250-odd illegal settlements in the West Bank.

The experts cited the example of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, where close to 70 families are under threat of eviction. The experts denounced the orders issued to several families by the Israeli military to vacate their homes by May 2 as being egregious violations of international law which prohibits forced population transfers of the occupied population by the occupying power. The Israeli judiciary has also been guilty of complicity in these kinds of violations of international law. For example, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ordered the forced eviction of 12 Palestinian families, and gave away ownership of their homes to Israeli settlers, while at the same time imposing a 70,000 shekels ($20,000) fine on the Palestinians to cover the legal expenses of the settlers. Human rights and settlement-tracking groups have regularly highlighted the massive settlement expansion projects being announced by the state of Israel. The Israeli NGO Peace Now stated that the construction of 2433 new housing units in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank began in 2020, with an additional 12,159 housing units in 55 settlements advancing through the various stages of the approval/review process for construction in the future.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/04/15/ ... -settlers/
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:41 pm

ISRAEL IS CALLING FOR WAR: IRAN ACCELERATES PATH TO ADVANCED NUCLEAR CAPABILITY
Elijah J. Magnier

17 Apr 2021 , 1:12 pm .

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with an inspection delegation of a nuclear facility (Photo: Reuters)

It is clear that recent Israeli attacks on various Iranian targets have one clear goal: to benefit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a critical election moment. Israel is struggling to achieve a united government, after four failed attempts. Furthermore, Israel is signaling to the world how upset it is by the rapprochement between the United States and Iran, which is giving Tehran an advantage and by the fact that Washington agrees to negotiate on Iran's terms with the JCPOA signatories in Vienna . The US administration, led by President Joe Biden, denied involvement in the Israeli sabotage act, failing to capitalize on the Israeli attack to pressure Iran to agree to direct negotiation.

Apparently, the United States is not yet aware that Iran is standing firm in its position and has established its negotiating conditions and directives. It is up to the West to accept it or prepare for a full nuclear capability, which would allow them to have a nuclear bomb as long as they wanted. Iran has retaliated, announcing its intention to increase uranium enrichment to 60% , greatly improving its bargaining position in Vienna.

Since Joe Biden took office, Israel has carried out several attacks to provoke Iran. Tel Aviv claims it has bombed " Iranian targets " in Syria. In addition, he has carried out a mine strike against the Iranian ship Saviz in the Red Sea and is responsible for the sabotage at the Natanz nuclear facility.

The US administration denied its involvement - but not its ignorance of the attack before it occurred - in the Israeli act of sabotage in Natanz. European sources believe that the American denial is positive. However, it could be that Biden and his team are trying to capitalize on the Israeli attack, thinking that Iran could change its mind and agree to include other regional issues in the negotiation or, at least, that Iran agree to a direct negotiation with the Americans. Western diplomats believe (wrongly) that Iran could ask the countries involved in the Vienna nuclear negotiation to pressure Israel to stop its sabotage attacks.

A diplomatic source stated:

He has gone around the board and decided to increase his enrichment to 60%, approaching 90% (military grade). Iran has now gained the upper hand, and President Biden has no choice but to act in a month or two. "

US officials have repeatedly asked their European counterparts to try to convince Iran to agree to direct negotiation with a US envoy. Iran remained firm in its position, rejecting any meeting unless the 1,650 US sanctions are lifted and banks, countries and institutions are allowed to negotiate with Iran and unfreeze its financial assets, without fear of US repercussions.

The aim of Western leaders to open a haggling deal with Iran indicates how little the Iranian position is understood. Iranian negotiators are undoubtedly skilled. In addition, there is a clear decision expressed by the Khamenei leader who clearly communicated to Minister Zarif: "Go negotiate only on the nuclear file, nothing more." Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has already tried to persuade Zarif to negotiate on other issues that concerned Americans, to no avail. Former President Donald Trump waited for a couple of years, next to his phone, for the call from Iran that never came.

The US sanctions on Iran were - and continue to be - very painful for the country's economy. However, these sanctions forced Iran to be more self-sufficient than ever. When the several hundred billion dollars of Iranian wealth held in many countries around the world are released, they will boost Iran's economy and consolidate its position as a regional power in the Middle East, which already has strategic ramifications and a close relationship with Iran. China and Russia .

Both the United States and Israel are aware of the consequences that the return of Iranian assets plus accumulated interest would have (although this point remains debatable). This is one of the main reasons why the Israeli prime minister behaves like the "thug of the Middle East", serving the purposes of the US administration in one way or another.

Iranian sources believe that

"Biden could also be using Netanyahu's acts of sabotage and war provocations to show American warmongers that Iran is unwilling to go to war despite all Israeli provocations. However, the US administration is fully aware of this. that Iran has become a regional power despite being subjected to the toughest sanctions in history and having succeeded in stopping US plans to destabilize Syria, divide Iraq, dominate Yemen and paralyze Lebanon. So far, Israel has failed to drag Iran to a war, since it would be dictated by the Israeli prime minister, at the time and place that he had chosen. "

Nonetheless, Iran has not hesitated to show its teeth when its ships have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Red Sea. The recent attack on the Israeli ship off the UAE took place while the US naval force was in the same region. Although Iran denied responsibility, officials believe that the tension between the United States and Russia around Ukraine will not allow Biden to start a new war with Iran to force it to give in and decrease its uranium enrichment. The decision to go for 60% came from Khamenei himself, and it will not be reversed despite Western pressure, unless the United States lifts all sanctions against Iran.

Europe has joined Israel in putting pressure on Iran, imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on various Iranians, claiming human rights violations. The EU sanctions are a symbol : they are directed against Hossein Salami, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij. Both commanders will never travel to the West or have bank accounts in foreign banks. Iran responded by suspending comprehensive talks with the EU on human rights, terrorism, drug trafficking and refugees. The EU decision is highly politicized and responds to the dictates of the United States, especially in terms of imposing sanctions. against Iran, Russia, China, Libya, Sudan or Eritrea, but ignores, for example, the long list of atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

It is difficult not to make a link between the EU sanctions on Iran, the Israeli sabotage attacks and the Vienna negotiations. The US administration appears to be testing different tools and avenues to pressure Iran which, despite its need for revenge, stands firm, prioritizing nuclear talks and the lifting of sanctions. That does not mean that the promise of revenge has been forgotten. Rather, Iran is aware that Israel will continue to target more Iranian targets if deterrence is not quickly imposed. It is a good time to keep in mind that Iran has different ways of responding, directly or through its allies, in various settings. Iran is not necessarily limited to responding when and in the same way and place that Israel wants or expects. Indeed, the latest news reports of an unknown attack on an Israeli ship, clearly indicating that the " give and take " deterrent has been put in place , embarrassing Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Last month, an Israeli ship was hit by a small missile, probably fired from a drone, while sailing between India and Oman. In February, an Israeli-owned freighter, the MV Helios Ray, was damaged off the Gulf of Oman. Iran denied responsibility for such attacks.

At the national level, the Israeli prime minister is fighting for his political future, accused of taking bribes and misusing his position to further his personal political interests. Netanyahu also faces another government dilemma, failing to win a 61-seat majority to form a government for the fourth time in a divided parliament. On the outside, Netanyahu panics as the US administration returns to the nuclear deal with Iran. Without a doubt, you must miss Donald Trump, who supported Israel without question and gave Netanyahu everything he wanted. Israel would not like Iran to have full nuclear military capability and would like to remain the only one with such power in the region .

Israel has the support and complacency of the intelligence, military and media services of most countries in the world, mainly the West and most of the Gulf countries. It has facilities that no other country in the world has, and all its sabotage operations - unlike those it carries out against Iran - are covered up and hidden.

Yet Israel realized that its more than 1,000 claimed attacks against Iranian targets, the failed partition of Syria and Iraq, and the war against Yemen were unattainable targets. All of these failures are mainly due to Iran's support for its allies, which prevented not only Israel, but also the international community (the West and the Gulf countries), from gaining the upper hand against the largest coalition assembled in the Middle East during these last decades.

Iran has no advantage in Syria to retaliate against the continued Israeli violation of Syrian sovereignty. However, in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Red Sea, Iran feels "at home". In recent decades, Iran has not been provoked into a confrontation, until the time when the United States assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani while he was on a diplomatic mission in Baghdad, Iraq. Tehran continued its path towards consolidating its alliances in the Middle East and Latin America (Venezuela). Furthermore, Iran has self-manufactured most of the military weaponry it needs, especially drones and its precision missiles, and has effectively supplied what its allies needed to protect themselves from Israeli and American rule.

Iran has responded to US sanctions and Israeli sabotage attacks, as well as the assassination of the Iranian scientist, by stepping up its uranium enrichment and building more centrifuges. It has started enriching uranium more quickly: With its latest IR-9 advanced nuclear centrifuge, it has reached the 20% purity level and announced that it is starting enrichment at the 60% level and is heading towards 90% if no agreement is reached.

Yet Iran kept the door open for Biden to restore confidence and rebuild the bridge that Donald Trump had extinguished. The ball is now in the court of the US administration: return to the JCPOA without conditions or see how Iran reaches full nuclear production and capacity. If the latter is America's option, it should be prepared to face a much stronger Iran when the atomic process reaches, as it is possible, the point of no return.

This article was originally published on Elijah J. Magnier's blog on April 16, 2021 , the translation was done by Eli C. Casas.

https://misionverdad.com/traducciones/i ... ad-nuclear
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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