Palestine

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A New Hope Emerges in Palestinian Resistance to Sheikh Jarrah Evictions
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 8, 2021
Abdul Rahman


Tens of thousands gathered at al-Aqsa mosque on May 8 despite repression from Israeli forces. Photo: IMEU

In spite of violent repression, popular support continues to grow for Palestinians facing eviction from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and has sparked a new wave of resistance in Palestine

Palestinians have once again shown that they refuse to suffer the occupation and colonization of their land in silence. The Sheikh Jarrah locality in the occupied East Jerusalem has recently become the focal point of this steadfast resistance. On Friday May 7, worshipers had gathered in al-Aqsa mosque and turned it into a solidarity meeting with the families that have been handed eviction notices in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods. The mosque was then stormed by Israeli security forces who attacked worshipers. 205 were injured and 88 were hospitalized and several dozen have been arrested, but this repression has only further ignited resistance.

The following day, undeterred by attempts to impede their transit to al-Aqsa mosque for Leilat Al Qadr, the holiest night of Ramadan, thousands walked by foot to Jerusalem from the West Bank and gathered outside al-Aqsa in huge numbers.

The storming of the mosque and subsequent mobilizations came after a successful movement to revoke restrictions imposed on a gathering near the Damascus gate by the Israeli state. This latest round of protests have revived the hopes of the Palestinian resistance movement.

Sheikh Jarrah like so many other Palestinian villages and neighborhoods in the occupied territories is facing Israeli state machinery which wants to replace it with yet another illegal Jewish settlement. Just like in other cases Israel is trying to make it a law-and-order issue. However, Palestinians have exposed the hollowness of such claims and establish the fact that it is yet another attempt to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland.

What is Sheikh Jarrah?

There are roughly 3,000 Palestinians living in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The neighborhood believed to be named after the doctor of Saladin who captured Jerusalem from the crusaders in the 12th century, is located a small distance away from the old city and was part of the East Jerusalem captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

Most of the Palestinian families settled in Sheikh Jarrah are part of more than 750,000 refugees who were forced to leave their homes in the historic Palestine in order to avoid violence by Israeli terrorist groups during the Nakba in 1948. These families were eventually settled in the neighborhood in 1956.

In the 1960s, Jordan, which was controlling the territory at the time, signed a deal with the United National Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) and agreed to transfer the land deeds in the name of the families and built permanent houses for them in return for them renouncing their refugee status. But, before the formalities were completed Jordan lost the control over the territory and Israel illegally annexed it. Israel carries out these evictions of Palestinians despite its own parliament passing a decree in 1968 accepting the refugees’ settlement with the United Nation Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA).

Legality of evictions

On May 2, Israeli district court ruled that six Palestinian families had to vacate their homes before May 6 and gave till August 1 to seven other families to do the same. Before this ruling, several other families had already been displaced from the locality of Sheikh Jarrah by court orders despite the fact that Israeli courts have no jurisdiction in the occupied territories. Many have pointed out that Israeli courts have shown willingness to ignore crucial pieces of evidence against the Jewish claims.

The history of litigation against Palestinian families started in 1972 when some extremist Jewish right-wing groups filed a case claiming that the land belonged to some Sephardic Jews during the Ottoman rule. Based on fabricated records and publicly claimed forgeries Israeli courts have ordered eviction of several Palestinians in the past. At least 42 Palestinians were evicted in 2002 and a couple of other families in 2008 and 2017 despite public outrage.

As per international law, as an occupying force, Israel cannot do anything to alter the status quo in the occupied territories. According to the same set of laws no Israeli court has a jurisdiction in such territories. Despite these well-known facts, Israeli courts have not only admitted litigations regarding land deeds, they have also aided in Israeli acts of building illegal settlements in and around East Jerusalem.

Growing resistance to Israeli apartheid

Israeli courts know that their jurisdiction in occupied territories is non-existent. Perhaps that is why on May 2 judgement along with the eviction order it made the provision of a “compromise” between Palestinian families facing eviction and settlers claiming the land. It is no surprise that Palestinian families, living at Sheikh Jarrah for generations, refused any compromise with the settlers. This refusal is a sign of renewed strength of the resistance movement in Palestine.

Israel has carried out several evictions of Palestinians from the other parts of the city as well. Palestinian neighborhoods of Silwan have regularly seen destruction of their houses by Israeli forces on the false pretexts such as the lack of a permit. In November last year, while the pandemic raged on, Israel evicted 87 Palestinians from Silwan’s Batan al-Hawa area. Israeli authorities often refuse or delay building permits to Palestinians in order to force them to leave the city. All of these are part of Israel’s policy of maintaining a “demographic balance” in the city.

Resistance to these evictions in East Jerusalem had not been able to gather the widespread support necessary to stop them, and as a result Jerusalem has moved closer to becoming a Jewish majority city. Israel has built scores of illegal settlements in this area where around 200,000 illegal Jewish settlers live under heavy military protection. Israel has also tried to restrict the movement of Palestinians in the city to gradually claim all public spaces including the religious structures, such as Al-Aqsa.

Once again, Palestinians have had enough. They are not only now trying to engage in a legal battle with documents from Jordan and Ottoman archives for Sheikh Jarrah residents, but they have also started to mobilize local and international protests exposing Israeli claims of it being a law and order issue. Last month at least 191 human rights groups wrote to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to request that the eviction at Sheikh Jarrah be included in its ongoing investigation of war crimes in the occupied territories.

The persistence of protesters against restrictions on their gathering after Ramadan prayers near Damascus gate made them successful despite widespread violence and vilification in Israeli and some international media. Sheikh Jarrah is yet another litmus test of their resolve. They are mobilizing international support and local protests amidst the settler and state violence and amidst the pandemic.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/05/ ... evictions/

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Palestinian CP, a statement issued by the Palestinian Communist Party on the latest developments in occupied Jerusalem
5/10/21 12:03 PM


The masses of our heroic people, here is the Zionist fascist occupation continuing its brutal attacks and its racist policy against our people in the occupied city of Jerusalem, "the eternal capital of the Palestinian states", and it is now focusing its attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque because of the religious and patriotic symbolism that this mosque carries among all of our people and the peoples of the Arab world. And the Islamic one, that the Zionist enemy continues its racist and fascist approach proves to our people and to all the free people of the world, that this enemy continues in its path and that the hated policy of negotiations has not brought our people anything but more settlement, demolishing homes and judaizing Jerusalem, and that resistance in all its forms is the only way to confront this entity and liberate Our land, restoration of all our legitimate rights, and the establishment of our independent Palestinian state on the entire national territory, with a united Jerusalem as its capital.



Our heroic masses, facing the barbaric and racist measures of the Zionist entity depends primarily on our sacrifices, our steadfastness and our resistance, and we must not rely on the so-called international community or the printing and puppet regimes, and this battle is a fateful battle for the city of Jerusalem, and all the efforts of our people must be united In this battle, it is necessary to transcend our factional and narrow differences, for the stage does not bear any political or partisan rivalries.



The masses of our struggling people, we in the Palestinian Communist Party call on you to support the holy people in their fateful battle by heading to Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in order to stand against the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of our people, and we also call on the masses of our people to escalate the resistance in all cities, villages and camps from To stop and thwart this fierce attack targeting our Jerusalem, just as all previous attacks were thwarted.

Long live the struggle of our Palestinian people

Long live Palestine free and proud

Glory and eternity to the martyrs

Speedy recovery of the wounded

Media Office of the Palestinian Communist Party

http://solidnet.org/article/Palestinian-CP--00048/

Google Translator

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Hundreds of Palestinians Injured in IOF and Settler Violence on Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem – ‘Zionism is Racism’

May 10, 2021 Saheli Chowdhury

May 10 (OrinocoTribune.com)— Hundreds of worshippers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem were injured during the Israeli crackdown on the holy site over the weekend, reported the Palestinian Red Crescent. According to the latest information provided by the Palestinian branch of the international medical aid organization, 305 Palestinians were injured in the violence caused by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and settlers. Of them, 228 remain hospitalized, and at least seven are in critical condition. The Israeli forces also targeted the Red Crescent crews and ambulances while they were trying to transfer the injured to hospitals.

The Palestinian community of east Jerusalem has endured a week of acute violence from Israeli authorities and settlers alike, in the midst of looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The tensions intensified since last Friday, May 7, celebrated as Al Quds Day in Palestine and various countries of the Arab world. According to Jerusalem-based Palestinian news outlet Quds News Network (QNN)—which has broadcast the attacks on the iconic monument in the Old City live from almost the first moment—on Friday night Israeli police units broke into the courtyards of the mosque where thousands of men, women and children were gathered for the evening prayer, and fired pellets, tear gas and stun grenades, injuring at least 53. Of these, 23 had to be transferred to hospitals while the rest were treated on the spot by paramedics, who reported that the injuries were mostly focused on the face and the heads. Fifteen people suffered ocular trauma, of whom three are feared to have lost vision completely. Israeli forces also fired grenades inside a clinic in the mosque compound, which was recorded live by a Palestinian media outlet.

“Opening fire inside a medical facility, attacking medics and wounded—this is war crime,” denounced Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Qaddoha. He also reported that journalists were shot at, assaulted, and prevented from carrying out their work, and at least six journalists were injured in the attacks.

Over Friday and Saturday, the police also arrested scores of worshippers, including a number of women. Images of women—beaten, handcuffed, with their face bloodied, being dragged through the streets by heavily armed police personnel, which were posted by Palestinian social media users on various social media networks, generated outrage within and outside Palestine.

According to local media, the aggression continued through the weekend, and escalated from Sunday morning as Israeli settlers, protected by police, stormed into the compound of the holy site with stones and weapons, entered the prayer halls and clashed with the Palestinian worshippers, including women and children, who had spent the weekend inside the compound. Images posted by QNN and Palestinian social media users on Monday morning, showing defaced lattice works on the windows, broken lamps and chairs, torn carpets, stones, and tear gas cannisters littering the floors of the prayer halls bore witness to the extent of the violence.


“This level of aggression is unprecedented,” said a woman who had been inside the Bab-al-Rahma prayer hall while it was assaulted with stun grenades and tear gas. “Attacks on us around Quds Day—attacks, arrests—are quite normal, actually; it happens every Ramadan. Still, we never imagined they would desecrate the Haram-al-Sharif in this way—they claim this place to be their holy site as well! Surely this is related to the situation with Sheikh Jarrah.”

The Israeli Supreme Court has postponed the hearing on the planned eviction of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah and ruled that the Palestinians families “will remain in their homes until a decision is made.” However, this has neither stopped the demonstrations against ethnic cleansing in the neighborhood nor has managed to contain settler aggression on the Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Over the weekend, police arrested a number of anti-eviction demonstrators from the site, reported The Palestine Chronicle.

As news of the weekend violence in Al-Aqsa broke, Palestinian residents and Palestine solidarity groups in various countries of Europe demonstrated in front of Israeli embassies and consulate buildings, while authorities of various countries including the United States, and bodies like the European Union and the UN expressed “concern” over the violence and demanded that “status quo” be maintained at the Palestinian holy site.

On Monday afternoon, Israeli occupation forces—possibly due to international pressure—withdrew from the mosque and established a perimeter outside, where they are still stationed. Groups of settlers had gathered near the Al Buraq wall on Monday morning, ready for a renewed assault on the mosque to celebrate “Jerusalem Day,” but they withdrew too in the face of resistance. According to the latest reports from The Palestine Chronicle live blog, hundreds of Palestinians continue to remain inside the Al-Aqsa compound.

Videos of a fire inside the holy place, while Israeli settlers chanted and danced outside, has cause world indignation. The Middle-East news website Mondoweiss put it this way: “Zionism is Racism.”


Multiple countries in the Middle East, including Qatar and Turkey, condemned the acts of aggression as “a severe violation of human rights and international accords.” The Permanent Representative of Palestine to the Arab League, Diab al-Louh, requested an urgent meeting of the League to discuss the issue, while Tunisia, a member of the UN Security Council, asked for a special session of the body regarding the situation in Palestine, a call that was backed by China. Jordan, the custodian of Islamic sites in Jerusalem, denounced “Israel’s continuation of its illegal practices and provocative steps” in the city. “Building and expanding settlements, confiscating lands, demolishing homes and expelling Palestinians from their homes are illegal practices that perpetuate the occupation and undermine the chances of achieving a just and comprehensive peace, which is a regional and international necessity,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi asserted in a statement.



Feature image: Fire near the historic and holy Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, after heavy attacks by Israeli occupation forces and settlers, Monday, May 10. Photo courtesy of RIA Nobosti.

Orinoco Tribune special by Saheli Chowdhury

https://orinocotribune.com/hundreds-of- ... is-racism/

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PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE IMPOSES DETERRENCE ON ISRAEL: WHAT COMES NEXT?
May 12 , 2021 , 7:23 pm .


Israel's Iron Dome system intercepts some missiles launched from the Gaza Strip, seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on May 11, 2021 (Photo: Nir Elias / Reuters)

Before this week, when Israel set out to emerge unscathed from the attacks on the Palestinian population in recent days, Benjamin Netanyahu's government never thought it could receive a high-profile and symmetrical response that would call into question its entire defensive military system.

Social networks are providing witnesses to the breaking of the myth of Anglo-Zionist military superiority in real time, while civilians in Gaza and Jerusalem continue to be massacred and oppressed with drones, ballistic missiles, and police and military forces.

SPROUT AND CLIMBING GROWTH

The latest events have been detonated in Jerusalem, also known as Al Quds in Arabic, during the closing (and later) of the month of Ramadan, sacred to Muslims, when the Sheik Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods were attacked by Israeli fascist groups and the police. Zionist; also the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third most important for Islam, submerged in smoke, fire and debris due to more than a dozen tear gas canisters and stun grenades thrown inside the compound, while the police and protesters clashed in the walled surrounding it.

While these places have been besieged by the occupation regime for decades, with accumulated tensions in between, the attacks on Palestinians escalated in a context of utmost importance to the Islamic world.



The religious context and the location of the events have given sufficient reasons for various Muslim sectors in the region, led by Iran, and even Christians , to demonstrate condemning the attack.

Indeed, Al Quds is considered a sacred land by Islam, but also by Jews and Christians, because from there emanate the sources of the Abrahamic branch from which the three monotheistic religions come. Among the Israeli settlers, extremist groups who want to completely take over the city to destroy the Esplanade of the Mosques (where Al Aqsa is located but also the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Chain) and supplant it by the Temple Mount, which according to the Hebrew tradition is where the last messianic temple is supposed to be erected. Hence the importance for Muslim Palestinians to preserve and respect this historic site of the ethnic, cultural and religious genocide that Israel is trying to impose.

The Palestinian response came directly from Gaza: the Ezzeldin Al Qassam Brigade, the military branch of the Hamas movement, gave the leaders of the Israeli occupation an ultimatum to leave Al Aqsa, a message that was unknown and responded to with a series of missile launches at targets. specific within Israel, including the capital Tel Aviv.

Two days have gone by, at the end of this note, in which the Palestinian resistance missiles have put the Iron Dome ballistic shield to the test, from an Israeli factory in conjunction with American, British and German weapons, which had been installed for 10 years. in April , assignment failed with the massive bombardment to which it is being subjected. Reports speak of up to 130 rockets fired from Gaza.

Elijah J. Magnier
@ejmalrai
·
May 11

#Gaza flooded the Israeli interception systems with dozens of rockets and missiles. This has never happened before: a huge challenge to #Israel. There are direct hits registered of missiles which managed to break the Iron Dome system.

Although Tel Aviv and other areas of the occupation have been previously injured by the Palestinian resistance, it had never happened to this magnitude, breaking the encirclement of Israel's anti-missile system ( Syria had achieved it in April ) and thus creating a framework under the which Gaza can no longer be bombarded (as it is at the time of writing) without the Israeli government suffering hitherto unprecedented consequences for its national security.

This deterrent logic is being supported by a Palestinian response as forceful as its capabilities allow. Armed groups such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine continue to mobilize and warned that the attacks on Tel Aviv and Israeli military and commercial facilities will continue to take their course if necessary as long as these others continue.

"Enemies must know that what we have presented is only a small part of what we possess. If the Zionist entity commits any stupidity against our people, it will pay its price," said Abu Jamal , military spokesman for the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing. of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Israel is terrorizing Gaza with severe shelling of commercial and residential buildings, murdering civilians (including nine children) and Palestinian militants, committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide under the Rome Statute and international law, violating all of them as it has it has been doing so for decades with the express endorsement of the United States and Europe.

Faced with a scenario of such violent tension, the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) called a meeting "behind closed doors" to discuss the events in the Al Aqsa mosque and Gaza.

Iran's diplomatic authorities are also meeting in Damascus , the capital of Syria, with other members of the Axis of Resistance, an alliance made up of the aforementioned countries plus Iraq, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthis) and Palestinian groups with the objective of to confront US imperialism and its Zionist-terrorist enclaves in the region. The Axis's commitment to the liberation of the Palestinian people can be clearly symbolized in the deployment of the Al Quds Force, the (holy) name of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Brigade commanded by the martyr general Qassem Soleimani , responsible for the provision of all training. , finance and logistical support to allies of the Islamic Republic.

To add to the context of the escalation, days before the first Zionist offensive on Al Quds, Hezbollah had announced a general mobilization in Lebanon, raising its readiness for war by 100% after Israel began a military drill that has three scenarios of a "great war" on the borders and within the Israeli occupation.

A NEW SETTING

Regarding escalation, we asked Elijah J. Magnier , a seasoned war reporter and contributor to Mission Truth and the Robinson Institute , about the looming scenario:

"It is not yet a general war between Gaza and Israel," says Magnier. "We have not seen Israel willing to commit ground forces to break into Gaza because it will surely not fulfill its objective of silencing the launch of rockets and missiles. of a battle, and the number of casualties in Israel defines the longevity of the war.To date, the Israeli death toll is considered acceptable by Israel, which retaliates every time an Israeli is killed by disproportionately bombing civil and commercial targets in Gaza.

For the journalist, the gradual intensification of attacks from Gaza has introduced "a new rule of engagement." Explain:

"We have seen how the resistance has warned Israel to release all prisoners detained in recent days while demonstrating in Jerusalem for the eviction of the Al Jarrah neighborhood court and the attack on the Al Aqsa mosque. ultimatum to Israel that its officials did not take seriously until it expired and Gaza began bombing Israeli settlements in Jerusalem. This was an unprecedented event. Israel began bombing Gaza which retaliated by bombing Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Ashkelon, bypassing the usual 20-40 kilometers and covering more than 100 kilometers. The resistance has introduced a new missile, the BADR-3, against Ashkelon that managed to avoid the sophisticated Israeli interception missiles. "

He comments that "this battle is intensifying because Israel started bombing residential areas and towers. The Palestinian resistance will face the same bombings and warned that it will hit equivalent targets in Tel Aviv with new missiles, which is likely to match this Israeli escalation."

By imposing the aforementioned new rule of engagement, and "whatever the course of this battle," Magnier continues, "the Palestinian resistance forces have won the war and imposed deterrence on Israel. The resistance in Gaza has shown determination and determination. Courage to protect not only Gaza, but its nationals anywhere in Palestine, despite the heavy casualties Israel is inflicting on the city's inhabitants. The resistance is uniting Palestinians who agreed to choose armed struggle instead. of the peaceful approach taken by President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank for years. "

The penetration of the Iron Dome defensive system by "the resistance has broken Israeli pride, Israel that considered itself at the head of a powerful army and turned into a superpower, as Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu put it." The myth of the military superiority of the United States and its allies is injured by international public opinion, which observes how, after so many decades, Israel can be severely wounded and without having yet used the best of long-range Palestinian weapons.

Regarding this, Diego Sequera, writer and columnist of this platform, argues that the attempts to control the narrative of the current panorama by the mainstream media are being overtaken by reality. This can be read as a symptom of the nervousness that reigns in the rulers of Israel as a result of the overrun of their defensive system when until recently they celebrated the fires in Al Aqsa.


In Magnier's view, "international intervention is on the way, which means that both parties are expected to de-escalate before the end of this week." That is why "no war is expected on the horizon. The gigantic military drill that Israel began last Sunday, May 9, involved tens of thousands of soldiers and was alarming for the Axis of Resistance. However, the home front Israel is now damaged, and the drill was suspended. Therefore, any possibility of war with Hezbollah is excluded. "

Finally, according to Magnier, the Axis of Resistance "is on full alert to intervene only if the Palestinian groups in Gaza, Hamas and the 'Islamic Jihad' call for an intervention."

The coordination of the entire Axis seems the most expeditious at the moment, even when it does not go into action on the ground. "The course of the battle suggests that a total war is not expected. Therefore, there will be no need for a general mobilization of the Axis of Resistance even if Yemen and Hezbollah express their willingness to intervene when the Palestinians request it," he concludes.

While Israeli Zionism, with US support, tries to wipe any trace of Palestine from the historical and geographical map, the resistance responds to the genocidal attacks at a time of high tension that could dissolve if Israeli fascism stops the belligerence.

We are talking about a territory that has been subjected to the most aggressive policies of imperialist Zionism to enforce the promise of British Chancellor Arthur Balfour to Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild "a national home for the Jewish people."

The Palestinian resistance has been growing over the decades, accumulating experience, alliances and forces to respond in the military way in which it is unleashed at the moment. Their leadership has varied over time and there are different groups, movements and parties in Gaza and other Palestinian regions and countries that support their cause.

The Camp David (1978) and Oslo (1993) agreements never served as a true political basis for the solution of the Palestinian question, delegitimized by the new Palestinian generations who want back the right to exist without concessions, in peaceful but not defenseless coexistence , and who are looking for another framework of agreement in which the Anglo-Zionist party accepts that it can no longer impose its prerogatives.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/la ... iene-ahora

Google Translator

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Escalation In Palestine - Hizbullah Is Ready To Join The Fight
The current war the occupiers of Palestine wage on the indigenous population has some unusual features.

While the conflict was, without doubt, started by the colonial occupiers the course of the recent escalation seems to be managed by the resistance side. It may well be part of a larger plan.

The Israeli army had for some time planned a large scale 30-days long maneuver to rehearse an attack on Hezbullah in Lebanon. Last week Hizbullah reacted to that:

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror organization has announced it is on high alert following the IDF’s launching of its largest-ever military exercise.
The IDF launched on Sunday its “Chariots of Fire” month-long exercise simulating war on several fronts, and primarily against Hezbollah in the north, including the massive firing of missiles and rockets from all arenas on the home front.

This is the largest and most comprehensive IDF maneuver in its history...

The maneuver had been announced for some time. Hizbullah has feared that the maneuver was a deception for a planned Israeli assault on Lebanon. It came at an interesting moment.

The International Day of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) was inaugurated by Imam Khomeini in 1979, the year of the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, to revive the Palestinian cause, and is celebrated on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan.
The last Friday of Ramadan was May 7. On May 5 the Secretary General of Hizbullah Hassan Nasrallah gave his yearly Al-Quds day speech:

[O]ur responsibility for Al-Quds Day is to provide all possible help to the Palestinian people, to the Palestinian Resistance; the Axis of Resistance must be even more united and attached to the cause, and it already is, it must increase its readiness (for the final war), it must strengthen itself further, because it is the Axis of Resistance that will shape the future of the Middle East.
If we follow the development of the current phase of the conflict in Palestine those words may getting a deeper meaning:

Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the three holiest sites in Islam, has long been an emblem of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.
Al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), the complex in Jerusalem’s Old City that houses the mosque - which includes the Dome of the Rock and other Islamic shrines - is arguably the most significant symbol of Palestinian sovereignty.

Jerusalem has been on edge for weeks over Israel's restrictions on Palestinian access to parts of the Old City during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and Israeli authorities' attempted eviction of several Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood to make way for Israeli settlers.

Al-Aqsa found itself at the centre of a long weekend of violence from Friday, that left hundreds of people injured and led to a series of deadly rocket exchanges between the Israel military and Hamas in Gaza.

By Tuesday night, Israeli security forces had raided the holy site four times in five days.

On Friday May 7, Al-Quds day, the first protests at Al-Aqsa against the stealing of the houses in Sheikh Jarrah happened. They were also against the year's 'Death to Arabs' Flag March by ultra-zionist settlers through east Jerusalem which had been planned for Sunday May 9.

The settler march was called off but the protests and the raids on Al-Aqsa continued. By Monday night Israel security forces had stormed Al-Aqsa three times. According to the Palestinian Red Cross 305 Palestinians were injured and 228 others hospitalized including four in a critical condition.

On Monday the Israel military called off its “Chariots of Fire” exercise in the north to concentrate on a possible escalation of violence in Jerusalem.

That was the point where the resistance in the Gaza strip joined the conflict by launching missiles on Israeli settlements.

The move was not necessary. Gaza voluntarily entered the conflict. Presumably the resistance leadership in Gaza believes that it has the capabilities and backing to sustain a new round of fighting. Since then some 2,000 missiles were fired against Israeli targets as far away from Gaza as Tel Aviv, some 230 kilometers north of Gaza. This is a much greater range than previous missiles fired from Gaza have had. Only some 10-20% of the missiles fired reach their target. Some are caught by Israel's missiles defense but many of the locally produced weapons are not precise enough or simply fail. Still - the psychological effect on the colonial population is severe.

Israel immediately began to wage an air war on Gaza. As in previous rounds of the conflict it targeted the media, the police and civil infrastructure. These strikes are war crimes. They were accompanied by an assassination campaign against presumed resistance leaders.

On Monday May 10 another front opened up as anti-Jewish protests happened in Lod. Shops were damaged and cars set on fire. The next two night anti-Arab pogroms and anti-Jewish rioting escalated:

Israel on Wednesday experienced its worst night of internal Jewish-Arab chaos for many years, amid the ongoing armed conflict with Gaza, as scenes of unrest, rioting, hate rallies and growing social chaos spread throughout numerous cities, some of which were once seen as symbols of coexistence.
Violent confrontations erupted in Lod, Acre, Jerusalem, Haifa, Bat Yam, Tiberias and many other locations, with people injured, some of them seriously, leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce he was looking at deploying the military inside towns to restore order.
...
Jewish mobs were seen roaming the streets of Tiberias and Haifa looking for Arabs to assault.

In Jerusalem, an Arab was stabbed by Jews and seriously injured at the Mahane Yehuda market.

“Death to Arabs” was heard in many locations of Jewish rallies.

Meanwhile, in Acre, a Jewish man was assaulted by Arab rioters and hit with rocks and iron bars, and was hospitalized in critical condition.

Arab rioting was reported in Jerusalem, Lod, Haifa, Tamra and elsewhere.

The Israeli military has called up reserves and moved forces down south to the boarder with Gaza. Today the Gaza resistance used for the first time suicide drones against Israeli missile defenses. Israeli troop concentrations around Gaza will have to fear that new weapon.

The Israeli government under still Prime Minister Netanyahoo is now threatening a ground invasion of Gaza. But ground assaults always cause casualties within the attacking forces, something the Israelis are usually keen to avoid. It will take more missiles fired from Gaza to goad Netanyahoo into launching such an attack.

Despite the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Gaza strip the resistance forces there seems to be well supplied. They may well have more capabilities than is currently assumed.

With unrest in Jerusalem, pogroms in Israeli cities, a potential third intifada in the occupied West Bank and a ground invasion of Gaza the Israeli army will be very busy. If it comes to that during the next few days the time could be right for Hizbullah, already on full alarm, to step in and to attack the occupation on the grounds that it is holding.

Nasrallah's speech last week can be understood as an announcement of such a step:

My last message will be for the Israelis themselves. I tell them this: you know well, in your heart of hearts, whether it is based on your religious texts or doctrines, on your books or your prophecies, and also based on what some of your leaders and experts say, and also some of your religious authorities, you know (very well) that this entity (Israel) has no future, that it is on the verge of extinction and that it has little time left to live, very little time. Therefore, in this battle you are wasting your energy, and your young people are wasting their youth and their blood, in vain and to no avail.
...
We believe in this near future (where Israel won’t exist anymore), we believe in it very firmly, and this faith is not based only on religious and ideological bases, but is based (above all) on the data, on the events which occur, especially on those of the last decades, the last years and on what will happen (soon) in this region.
It is possible that Netanyahoo had planned the original escalation in Jerusalem to stay in office:

After four elections Israel still has no new government. Prime Minister Netanyahoo is on trial for corruption. A larger war that can be spun into a victory could help him to avoid a judgment and gain votes for the likely soon coming next election.
It that was his plan he has achieved a first step towards it:

Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett has taken “off the table” the option of forming a government without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, due to the ongoing military conflict with Gaza terrorists, a political source says.
Bennett has renewed his negotiations with Likud due to the emergency situation, and teams from both parties met today, the source says on condition of anonymity.

But it is not Netanyahoo who can decide when the missiles from Gaza will stop flying. It is not Netanyahoo who can control the Palestinian youth. The escalation dominance is not in his hands but in the hands of the resistance. It is the resistance that decides when the conflict ends.

Ali @allushiii_new - 18:19 UTC · May 13, 2021
Bismillahhhh
3 rockets fired from Lebanon into Palestine

The Daily Star in Lebanon confirmed tonight's rocket strike. If Israel reacts to that provocation as it usually does a war in its north could soon become reality. It would not be a small one.

Ansar Allah, the Houthi led movement in Yemen, has offered to join a fight against the colonists. It is well know for its long range surprise capabilities and these may at one point be used in the fight.

While I am still not sure that all of this is part of a plan - from Hizbullah's speech, over unrest in Jerusalem, Gaza missiles, pogroms, to now missiles from Lebanon - it surely looks like a well rehearsed and coordinated (re-)action of the resistance front.

General Qasem Soleimani's plans are coming to fruition.

Posted by b on May 13, 2021 at 19:03 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/e ... .html#more

If this is indeed 'Soleimani's Revenge' as 'b' speculates it is well deserved. The analysis of who has the initiative is sound.

The false equivalency pushed by the corporate media tools of State is typically disgusting with zero mention of Israeli aggression at Al-Quds .

[blindpig]

Edward Said * May 15, 2021

Grey and sober Jerusalem


Palestinian mural honouring Edward Said

On November 1, 1947 – my twelfth birthday – I recall the puzzling vehemence with which my oldest Jerusalem cousins, Yousif and George, bewailed the day, the eve of the Balfour Declaration, as the “blackest day in history.” I had no idea what they were referring to but realized it must be something of overwhelming importance. Perhaps they and my parents, sitting around the table with my birthday cake, assumed that I shouldn't be informed about something as complex as our conflict with the Zionists and the British.

My parents, sisters, and I spent most of 1947 in Palestine, which we left for the very last time in December of that year. As a consequence I was enrolled at St. George's School in Jerusalem.

The signs of impending crisis were all around us, the city had been divided into zones maintained by British Army and police checkpoints, through which cars, pedestrians, and cyclists had to pass. The adults in my family all carried passes marked with the zone or zones for which they were valid. My father and Yousif had multizone passes (A, B, C, D); the rest were restricted to one or perhaps two zones. Until I turned twelve I did not need a pass and so had been allowed to wander about freely with my cousins Albert and Robert. Grey and sober Jerusalem was a city tense with the politics of the time as well as the religious competition between the various Christian communities, and between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. My aunt Nabiha once gave us a big scolding for going to the Regent, a Jewish cinema (“Why not stick to the Arabs? Isn't the Rex good enough?” she asked rather shrilly. “After all, they don't come to our cinemas!”) and even though we were sorely tempted to go back to the Regent we never did so again. Our daily conversation in school and home was uniformly in Arabic; unlike in Cairo, where English was encouraged, our family in Jerusalem “belonged” and our native language prevailed everywhere, even when talking about Hollywood films “Tarzan became “Tarazan” and Laurel and Hardy “al Buns wal rafi'” (“Fatso and the Thin Man”).

The teachers [at St George's where I went to school that year] were mostly British, although I had two, Michel Marmoura, an older contemporary of Albert's and son of the Anglican pastor, and Mr. Boyagian, a Jerusalem Armenian and a young boy during my father's time, who weren't. The one woman on the premises was Miss Fenton, who occasionally sat in for the regular English teacher. Black-haired, sandal-shod Miss Fenton, a slim figure in her white blouse and navy skirt, struck me as dashingly attractive. I had far too little interaction, too little occasion away from the rough-and-tumble boys' and masters' world I inhabited. And so she remained a romantic figure, someone whose graceful presence gave me private pleasure as she floated through the primary school's arcades, or as I glimpsed her through a window in the staff tearoom. Many years later, I discovered she was the aunt of the poet James Fenton. At the opposite extreme was Mr. Sugg, a seriously lame Englishman whose name when pronounced brought forth peals of sadistic laughter for his appearance and his stutter. One of the first British academic misfits I met, he was a man who seemed disconnected from the (perhaps too) complicated realities of the school he served and the students he tried on the whole unsuccessfully to teach. Neither the class nor I was attentive to, much less taken by, the droning lessons on geography that he offered; in his stiff collar and his beige suit, he was a creature from another world, full of Danubes, Thameses, Apennines, and Antarctic wastes, none of which made an impression on the indifferent and resolutely self-involved boys.

My class was divided equally between mainly Christians and Muslims, boarders and day students. Michel Marmoura, who taught mathematics, belonged to a world that was very soon to face dissolution and exile in the cataclysms of 1948. He was a gentle and acutely intelligent teacher who despite his nervousness at being a family friend of most of the students (and son of the cathedral dean who had baptized me) taught us the rudiments of fractions with considerable skill. I have seen him over the years in Madison, Wisconsin, and Princeton, and later in Toronto, where he now lives; the pathos of his shattered past has never left him. The rest of St. George's academic offering made no mark on me: it combined indifferent teaching, a volatile atmosphere, and, as I look back on it fifty years later, a general sense of purposeless routine trying to maintain itself as the country's identity was undergoing irrevocable change. Already too tall and developed to look my age, when I turned twelve and needed a pass just to go to school, nervous Tommies at the barbed-wire barricade peered into my satchel, and examined my zone pass suspiciously, their unfriendly foreign eyes looking me over as a possible source of trouble.

Though this pass restricted me to the area where my school was located, my aunt's family had a light-green Studebaker which Albert and Robert were allowed to drive, and so the three of us tooled around the little square just west of the house. Two blocks up the hill behind the house, a British army bugle corps would rehearse in the unyielding midday sun; on weekends I remember crouching behind the rocks to look at them, transfixed by their unintelligible shouting cries, their large black cleated boots pounding on the black asphalt, almost melting in the heat, and their weirdly savage bugle calls. Albert had a knack for English poetry, which he declaimed with a great deal of eye-rolling, a caricature of both the English teacher and the actor in full flight:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

I took it that we too were supposed to be noble soldiers plunging forward, with no thought in mind but our duty. Albert's voice rose still higher:

All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made.
Honour the light brigade.
Noble six hundred.

Until much later, I never knew anything about the Light Brigade, but gradually learned the poem, and as I declaimed it with my cousin I remember thinking that words could blot out all thought and feeling. “Theirs not to reason why” was an eerily apt forecast of an attitude I had not directly encountered but would recognize and be gripped by twenty years later as I watched the vast Egyptian crowds that cheered and clapped for Gamal Abdel Nasser in the Cairo heat.

My aunt Nabiha's family would be driven out of Jerusalem in stages, so that by early spring of 1948, only my oldest cousin, Yousif, remained; he had abandoned the Talbiyah house because the whole quarter had fallen to the Hagganah, and moved to a small apartment in Upper Baqa'a, an adjoining district in West Jerusalem. He left even that last foothold in March, also never to return. My distinct recollection of Talbiyah, Katamon, and Upper and Lower Baqa'a from my earliest days there until my last was that they seemed to be populated exclusively by Palestinians, most of whom my family knew and whose names still ring familiarly in my ears – Salameh, Dajani, Awad, Khidr, Badour, David, Jamal, Baramki, Shammas, Tannous, Qabein – all of whom became refugees. I saw none of the newly resident Jewish immigrants except elsewhere in West Jerusalem, so when I hear references today to West Jerusalem they always connote the Arab sections of my childhood haunts. It is still hard for me to accept the fact that the very quarters of the city in which I was born, lived, and felt at home were taken over by Polish, German, and American immigrants who conquered the city and have made it the unique symbol of their sovereignty, with no place for Palestinian life, which seems to have been confined to the eastern city, which I hardly knew. West Jerusalem has now become almost entirely Jewish, its former inhabitants expelled for all time by mid-1948.

The Jerusalem my family and I knew in those days was a good deal smaller, simpler, and superficially more orderly than Cairo. The British were the holders of the mandate, which they terminated suddenly in 1948 about six months after my own family had left Jerusalem for the last time. There were British soldiers everywhere – most of them had already disappeared from Cairo – and the general impression was of an extremely English place with neat houses, disciplined traffic, and a great deal of tea drinking, a place whose residents were, in the case of my family and its friends, English-educated Arabs; I had no idea what either the mandate or the Palestine government – whose name was featured on currency and stamps – really meant. Compared to Cairo, Jerusalem was a cooler place, without the grandeur and wealth – opulent houses, expensive shops, big cars, and large, noisy crowds – that surrounded us in Cairo. Jerusalem, moreover, seemed to have a more homogeneous population, made up mainly of Palestinians, although I do recall the briefest glimpses of Orthodox Jews and one visit to or very near Mea Sharim, where I felt a combination of curiosity and distance, without assimilating or understanding the startlingly different presence of the black-suited, hatted, and coated Orthodox Jews.

There was one very colourful character in those early Jerusalem years who fascinated me, even though I had no idea until much later who he really was. My father's unappeasable appetite for playing tawlah [backgammon] was often satisfied it seemed by an elderly, heavily moustachioed man who always wore a dark suit and tarbush, smoked cigarettes incessantly through an ivory holder, and with an alarming frequency coughed his way through the smoke that circled his head. He was Khalil Beidas, my father's cousin, and the senior Arabic teacher at St. George's; I never saw him at school, however, and did not know about his professional connection to it until four decades later, when my cousin Yousif told me that Beida had been his Arabic instructor. The other fact that I later acquired about Beidas was that he was the father of Yousif Beidas, a man who had once worked for the Palestine Educational Company, had been my father's best man, and after a short stint in the Arab Bank had come to Beirut as a refugee and in a matter of ten years or so had become Lebanon's premier tycoon. He was the owner of the Intra Bank, which had enormous holdings in airlines, shipyards, commercial properties (including a building in Rockefeller Centre), who exercised a powerful influence in Lebanon until he was ruined, and Intra collapsed in 1966. He died of cancer a few years later in Lucerne, destitute, nursed at the end by Aunt Nabiha, who had herself moved to Switzerland a short time earlier. Beidas' astounding rise and fall was considered by some to presage the terrible Lebanese-Palestinian disputes of the seventies, but it seemed to me to symbolize the broken trajectory imposed on so many of us by the events of 1948.

Yet what I discovered much later about Khalil Beidas was that far from just being an Arabic teacher, he had been educated first in Jerusalem's Russian Colony School (al-Mascowbia, now an Israeli interrogation and detention centre mainly for Palestinians), then in Russia itself as a ward of the Russian Orthodox church there. When he returned to Palestine early in the century he became a participant in the literary nadwa, or ongoing seminar, held in Nazareth at its al-Mascowbia, now that town's Israeli police station. When he returned to Jerusalem, full of ideas from the nineteenth-century Russian Christian cultural nationalists, from Dostoyevsky to Berdayev, he began to achieve recognition and even fame as a novelist and literary critic. During the twenties and thirties, he contributed to the construction of a Palestinian national identity, particularly in its encounter with the incoming Zionist settlers. It is a sign of how overprotected and ignorant I was as a boy of our political situation that I only thought of him as a quaint old man with a racking cigarette cough and – when he played tawlah with my father – a rollicking, very jovial manner, all of which, I discovered a few years later, did not survive the loss of his country. Unlike his children, he was spared the fate of refugee.

https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/gre ... -jerusalem

Context

[blindpig]

ARMED ISRAELI SETTLERS ARRIVING IN LYDD (LOD) WITH PROTECTION FROM ISRAELI FORCES, MAY 12, 2021. (PHOTO: TWITTER)

We are not seeing a "civil war" inside Israel, but rather the Israeli settler state declaring a war on its colonized “citizens,” and Palestinians fighting for their liberation.

This isn’t a civil war, it is settler-colonial brutality

by Lana Tatour (May 13, 2021)

Earlier this week, massive protests erupted in ’48 Palestinian towns and cities. ’48 Palestinians (known as “citizens” of Israel) had mobilized to protest the threat of expulsion facing Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, and in protest of Israel’s attack on al-Aqsa Mosque.

As Israel escalated its violence against the families in Sheikh Jarrah, worshipers in al-Aqsa mosque during the holy month of Ramadan and in Gaza, ’48 Palestinian protests escalated as well. Palestinians came out in their masses, from the Naqab to the Galilee, in what has become the most widespread protests among ’48 Palestinians in living memory: Rahat, Tal sl-Sabe’, Shkieb al-Salam, Shefa ‘American, Yaffa, Haifa, Akka, Nazareth Lydd, Umm al-Fahem, ‘Ain Mahel, Baka al-Gharbiye, Majd al-Kroum, ‘Arabe, al-Be’ene, al-Zarazir, Ramla, Kufr Kana, Jaljoulye, Kufr Manda, Jdaydet al-Makr, Reine, Mashhad, Kufr Kana, and the list goes on and on. Correspondingly, Palestinians have been met with brute Israeli force.

The protests became particularly violent as Israel escalated its oppression with each passing day. Israel became especially worried with the situation in ’48 Palestinian cities that have mixed Jewish and Palestinian populations. Lydd (Lod) became of special concern for the Israeli government. The recent violence in the city of Lydd has been described by many as “civil war,” including Israeli president Reuven Rivlin and the Mayor of Lydd, Yair Ravivo, who declared that a “civil war has broken out in Lod.” Headlines in the Guardian, Daily Mail, the BBC, and Reuters, to name just a few international media outlets, followed this narrative and framed it as a matter of civil unrest and unfolding civil war.

The civil war narrative is misleading and plays into Israel’s hands. What we are witnessing is not “clashes” or between two equal sides, but rather the Israeli settler state together with Zionist militias declaring a war on its colonized “citizens.”

But the civil war narrative is misleading and plays into Israel’s hands. It masks settler-colonial power relations, settler-colonial violence and Jewish supremacist violence. What we are witnessing are not “clashes,” or between two equal sides, but rather the Israeli settler state together with Zionist militias declaring a war on its colonized “citizens,” who need to protect their lives, homes, and families themselves.

Israel has never tolerated Palestinian mass protests. In Land Day 1976 Israeli police shot dead 6 Palestinians, and thirteen in the October 2000 events that erupted at the beginning of the second intifada. Accordingly, protests in the last few days have been met with extreme levels of police violence. Israeli forces are using stun grenades, gas canisters, skunk water and now also rubber bullets. Protesters are severely beaten, denied medical treatment, and hundreds, including minors, have been arrested and some denied legal representation. Palestinian towns and cities look like a war zone.

The prevailing narrative in Israel is one of loss of sovereignty. Netanyahu referred to it as anarchy. “Without the rule of law,” he said, “there is nothing.” The discourse, thus, became one of restoring order and regaining control. Border police, known for its brutality, were called from the West Bank to be deployed in Palestinian cities and towns. Lydd became the symbol for reclaiming Jewish sovereignty. For the first time since 1966, when ’48 Palestinians were still under military rule, Israel used emergency powers and a curfew was imposed on the city; six army units were deployed in it alone.


BENJAMIN NETANYAHU AND MINISTER OF PUBLIC SECURITY AMIR OHANA (CENTER RIGHT) SPEAK IN FRONT OF PHALANX OF ISRAELI FORCES IN LYDD (LOD), MAY 13, 2021 (PHOTO: TWITTER)

As Israel was deploying its military, civil settler militias organized in concert to defend “Jews”, “Jewish towns” and the “Jewish State.” A product of decades of deliberate dehumanization of Palestinian people, and aided by militarized police, they started to target Palestinian homes, people, and businesses. In Lydd, Musa Hassouna was shot dead by a Jewish settler. The shooter was later arrested but Amir Ohana, minister of police and one of Netanyahu closest allies, backed the shooter, saying that if it was up to him he would be released.

Ohana’s statement emboldened Jewish settlers to continue and attack Palestinians with impunity. Palestinian activists documented dozens of calls sent ou t by far-right Jewish settler groups urging supporters to invade Palestinian towns and attack Palestinians. The peak, so far, was Wednesday. Horrifying scenes of armed mobs roaming the streets shooting at Palestinian homes, vandalizing and destroying property, mosques and churches. They looked for Palestinians to lynch. In Bat Yam, a Palestinian man was lynched on live TV, and he is currently hospitalized with serious injuries. In Jerusalem, Jewish settlers stabbed a Palestinian man, who is also in serious condition.

At this point, Israeli media and politicians have moved on to describe the situation as civil unrest and civil war. The civil war narrative works in the favor of Israel and plays into the Pavlovian instinct of international media and the international community, as it presents the violence against Palestinians as a clash, where there is a symmetry between two parties who are inflicting violence.

The civil war discourse erases the colonial context in which violence against Palestinians takes place. It is designed to mask the reality on the ground: one of settler colonial brutality, state-sanctioned violence, and pogroms by Jewish supremacist groups backed by the state against Palestinians, the Indigenous people of the land. This week’s pogroms are presented as an unfortunate turn of events in an ongoing internal national conflict. This framing enables Israel to present its military interventions against ’48 Palestinian as an attempt to prevent civil unrest from escalating in the benefit of both groups.

The government, via its armed forces, becomes a neutral actor. From backing a Jewish mob, Ohana changed his tune to “Violence mixed with hatred should be condemned outright. We have no other country. We must live here together.” Even Bezalel Smotrich, Kahanist MK and architect of the notorious Flag March in Jerusalem, who’s party was publicly supported by Netanyahu during the last election, tweeted about the lynching of a Palestinian man, that he is “shocked and ashamed to the bottom of my soul. We are in difficult days, under attack, frustrated… but damn it, how can Jews be so cruel?! Terrible.” Only two weeks ago Smotrich tweeted that Palestinians should remember that their presence in Israel is only temporary. How easily the tune changes.

The pogrom we are now witnessing is not an aberration. The Israeli state is leading this violence either by employing its security forces, army and police, or by using its proxy civil militias. Terrifying footage shows Israeli police joining the pogroms, storming into Palestinians homes, intimidating, beating, and arresting them just for being Palestinian.

Israel never made peace with the existence of ’48 Palestinians and wants to see them vanish. As Yousef Munayyer comments, this is “an extremely dangerous moment which the Israeli state could exploit to carry out further ethnic cleansing.” ’48 Palestinians know that all too well. They, like all Palestinians, live this trauma and the anxiety of future expulsion.

Crucially, the civil war discourse risks fragmenting the Palestinian people and their resistance at a time where it is united. Israel applies the civil war framing only to ’48 Palestinians, not other Palestinians. In doing so, it aims to undo this powerful moment by trying to domesticate them again as Israeli citizens and as an internal issue of the Jewish state.

’48 Palestinians have been resisting as Palestinians, not Israeli citizens. Through framing it as civil war or sectarian violence, Israel wants to box in ’48 Palestinians and tame them as (inferior) Israeli citizens because after all, Palestinian citizenship in Israel is part of Israel’s regime of domination.

’48 Palestinians don’t see themselves as Israelis, but Palestinians. ‘48 Palestinians have been affirming they are Palestinians not just as a symbolic identity, but as a political project of liberation. The liberation of Palestine is their liberation. And if there is something that this uprising is showing us is that the Palestinian struggle for decolonization is stronger when the fragmentation of Palestinians is resisted and when Palestinians mobilize as one people.

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/05/this-isn ... brutality/

[blindpig]

Palestinian Missiles Herald New Page in History of Muslim World: Iraq’s Ameri
May 17, 2021

A senior politician with Iraq’s anti-Israel resistance movement says the missiles that fellow Palestinians are today raining down on the Israeli-occupied territories herald an end to the regime’s “invincibility” myth and a new chapter in the history of the Muslim world.

Hadi al-Ameri, secretary-general of Iraq’s Badr Organization, held separate phone talks on Friday with leaders of the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance movements, namely Ismail Haniyeh and Ziad al-Nakhaleh, to voice the Iraqi nation’s solidarity with Gaza, which has been the target of another bloody Israeli military campaign over the past five days.

In a statement issued by his office, Ameri hailed the Palestinian defense campaign against the Israeli military’s aggression, reiterating support for the Palestinian nation, Jerusalem al-Quds and the regional resistance movement against Israeli occupation.

“Today, the missiles of the resistance [movement] are writing a new history for the Islamic and Arabic world,” Ameri said. “Today, the lie about the invincibility of the Israeli army had been exposed.”

“Today, a new equation has emerged, and that is missile for missile. Thank God, the missiles of the resistance [movement] have flown over the entire occupied Palestinian territories,” said the Iraqi politician. “God willing, we will stand with you in this holy battle, which belongs to the entire Muslim Ummah.”

Gaza and the other Palestinian territories have been simmering with anger over Israel’s stepped-up land grab policies in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as well as the regime’s desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, the third holiest site in Islam.

The tensions spiraled into a broader conflict between Gaza and Israel on Monday, days after the regime in Tel Aviv launched a heady-handed crackdown on Palestinian worshippers at al-Aqsa Mosque during the final days of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Since Monday, the Israeli military has been launching large-scale airstrikes across Gaza, razing many homes and civilian infrastructure to the ground. The regime’s artillery and tanks have also been targeting the blockaded coastal enclave.

At least 119 Palestinians, including women and children, have so far been killed and as many as 600 others wounded in the attacks.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance fighters have been responding to Israel’s acts of aggression with massive barrages of rockets and missiles. They have also brought drones into the equation.

Much to Israel’s surprise, rocket launches have largely overwhelmed the regime’s so-called Iron Dome missile systems and hit several cities across the occupied territories, leaving eight people deal and dozens of others injured so far.

Meanwhile, the regime in Tel Aviv has been under criticism worldwide, with many supporters of the Palestinian cause in Muslim countries and elsewhere holding rallies in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

‘Resistance front has entire occupied lands within reach’
In an interview with Iran’s Tasnim news agency, Hashem al-Mousavi, a senior commander with the Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba resistance group, said the Iraqis stand with on the same front with the Palestinian nation and its resistance movement, and that the battle against Israel’s occupation amounts to defending the Muslim world’s dignity and identity.

He said the rules of engagement have today changed in favor of Palestine, and it is no longer the enemy who decides to initiate or end the battle.

Mousavi described neighboring Iran as the birthplace of the regional resistance axis and said the Islamic Republic’s support for Palestine has a clear message for the Israeli enemy and its allies.

The message, he added, is that if Israel and its allies ever think about waging war on the resistance axis, they will not live on since the regime, which has failed to confront the Palestinians, would not be able to face the entire Islamic resistance.

“The resistance movement has the entire occupied territories within range,” the Iraqi commander warned.

Meshal: Ground invasion would entrap Israeli forces
Meanwhile, Khaled Meshal, a founding member of Hamas and its former leader, warned Israel, during an interview with RT Arabic, against going for another ground invasion of Gaza, saying the Israeli military has already tested such an operation and knows well that it would backfire and entrap the regime’s own forces.

Answering a question about the resistance movement’s military equipment, Meshal, who currently leads the Hamas arm abroad, said, “The weapons are made in Gaza, and Hamas receives no arms from abroad.”

Commenting on a potential truce, he said the part that has initiated the conflict should first cease fire, adding that the Zionist regime must first leave the al-Aqsa Mosque, force the settlers out of the complex, stop raids on Gaza, and refrain from expelling four Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Elsewhere, Meshal thanked Iran for standing by the Palestinian nation and praised Hamas-Tehran relations as “excellent.”

Featured image: A plume of smoke rises above a field in Sderot in the southern parts of the Israeli-occupied territories, from rockets fired from Gaza, on May 13, 2021. (Photo by AFP)

(PressTV)

https://orinocotribune.com/palestinian- ... aqs-ameri/

[blindpig]

Permanent Nakba
May 18, 2021
By Yanis Iqbal – May 15, 2021

May 15, 2021, marks the 73rd anniversary of Nakba (catastrophe). 1948, the year Israel was created, was also the year of the dispossession and expulsion of three-quarters of a million Palestinians and the destruction of more than 500 hundred villages and localities. Israel’s founding violently fragmented the Palestinian people and pushed them into multiple zones of space and classification: those who remained in their homeland, refugees driven to join the original inhabitants of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank (who fell under Israeli military occupation in 1967), and those evicted beyond the borders of historic Palestine, to live either in refugee camps in neighboring Arab states or across the world.

Today, the Nakba is continuing in various forms:

• In Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Bustan, a campaign of ethnic cleansing has been initiated to expel more than 2,000 Palestinians from their homes, to expropriate their property. As residents rose up to defend their lives, livelihoods, and homes, the Israeli state responded with brutality, attacking the Palestinian people in the streets and in their places of worship.
• As Palestinians faced evictions and Ramadan came to a close, tensions mounted, and the Israeli government chose this moment to block Palestinians from entering the al-Aqsa Mosque on one of their most sacred religious days. At the mosque, stun grenades, tear gas and live ammunition injured unarmed Palestinian worshippers. This was both a physical and spiritual assault on Jerusalem’s Palestinian inhabitants. Violence erupted further on Jerusalem Day, a nationalistic celebration of the Israeli capture of the city in 1967.
• In Lydd, Jewish settlers drawn from all over Israel and the occupied West Bank have descended on the streets armed with guns, poles and stones, chanting “Death to Arabs”. These murderous lynch mobs are protected and – when needed – even supplemented by the Israeli civilian police force. During the Nakba, Israeli soldiers entering Lydd massacred 426 Palestinians on the first day of the assault. The following day they marched house to house and drove out tens of thousands of Palestinians out of the city and towards the West Bank. Journalists from the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Herald Tribune described the killing. “Practically everything in their way died. Riddled corpses lay by the roadside,” wrote one. The other reported seeing “the corpses of Arab men, women and even children strewn about in the wake of the ruthlessly brilliant charge.” Spiro Munayaer, who lived in Lydd at the time, remembered, “The streets were filled with people going to indeterminate destinations.”
• In Gaza, Israel’s terrorist bombardments have killed more than 100 Palestinian civilians. This is the fifth major aerial bombardment of Gaza since former prime minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005. Dov Weissglass, Sharon’s chief of staff, laid out the rationale behind the disengagement: it would relieve international pressure on Israel, in turn “freezing…the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.” In this and earlier bombardments of Gaza – in 2006, 2008-9, 2012 and 2014 – Israel has declared a murderous intention to persist in shelling the enclave until it has achieved “complete quiet”.

The endless repetition of actions resembling Nakba is an inherent function of Israel insofar that settler-colonial movements such as Zionism are informed by what Patrick Wolfe has defined as “the elimination of the Native.” House demolitions, land confiscations, forced removals of Palestinian communities on both sides of the Green Line, no recognition of informal Palestinian settlements and planning restrictions in formal settlements, denial of residence rights to Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens – these policies share a common imperative: to restrict and reduce the size, spread and capacity of the Palestinian population. It is absolutely necessary that we vehemently oppose this annihilationist-annexationist agenda of Israel and demand the liberation of Palestine.

https://orinocotribune.com/permanent-nakba/

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The World Stands with Palestine
May 18, 2021
By Peoples Dispatch – May 13, 2021

Amid the bombing siege of the Gaza Strip and the brutal repression of worshipers in al-Aqsa Mosque, protests against Israeli aggression and in solidarity of the Palestinian struggle have been organized globally

The Israeli apartheid regime has once again shown to the world its commitment to barbarity through the relentless attack on all forms of Palestinian resistance. The barrage of bombing in Gaza has taken the lives of over 80 people and injured hundreds. This is part of a larger assault on Palestinians and their rights for weeks starting with the placing of barriers at Damascus Gate and the attempt to expel Palestinian families who have been living in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem for generations.

Amid protests in defense of Sheikh Jarrah and against the Zionist policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide, Israeli forces invaded the al-Aqsa mosque compound and violently attacked and arrested worshipers, injuring over 300.

The subsequent bombing of Gaza that began on Monday saw the targeting of residential towers housing hundreds of Palestinians and other civilian infrastructure. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that attacks will intensify.

At the same time, Palestinians living inside Historic Palestine have been mobilizing to reject Israel’s actions and they too have been met with racist violence. Lynch mobs have been terrorizing Palestinians in the cities of Bat Yam, Jaffa, Akka, Haifa, Lyd and elsewhere.


The bombing in Gaza, the violent incursion into al-Aqsa, and the threat to displace more families from the city of Jerusalem has sparked a strong response from groups and organizations from across the world that have historically considered solidarity with the Palestinian cause to be at the heart of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggle.

Organizations from Ireland to Iraq have organized mobilizations and released declarations in support of the Palestinian people and condemning Israeli aggression. Protests will continue throughout the week especially given that Saturday is when Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day, marking the violent establishment of the state of Israel.

Arab-Maghreb Region
In the last four years, one of the key shifts in the Arab-Maghreb region regarding the Palestinian cause has been the announcement of normalization deals with Israel by several key states like Morocco, UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan in exchange for diplomatic, political and economic “gains”. These deals were achieved through aggressive US lobbying, recognizing that the support of neighboring countries to the Palestinian cause and the isolation of Israel has been a major roadblock to consolidating US-Israeli hegemony. However, these deals received widespread rejection from the people in these countries who continue to champion the Palestinian struggle as their own.

In recent days, people’s movements and organizations in the region have been organizing a series of impressive mobilizations in support of the Palestinian people and condemning the criminal actions of the Zionist state.

An important statement was released on Tuesday May 11 by a group of left parties and organizations in the region including: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian People’s Party, Lebanese Communist Party, the Kuwaiti Progressive Movement, Egyptian Socialist Party, Egyptian Communist Party, National Progressive Unionist Rally Party – Egypt, Popular Will Party – Syria, the United Syrian Communist Party, Democratic Way Party – Morocco, the leftist Arab meeting, Iraqi Communist Party, Jordanian Communist Party, The Jordanian Popular Unity Party, Jordanian People’s Democratic Party, United National Democratic Party – Tunisia, and the Sudanese Communist Party.

In the statement, they expressed their support to the Palestinian people and condemned the US-Zionist “deal of the century” which has attempted to advance the full occupation of Jerusalem with support of a number of Arab regimes. They call on Arab popular forces to double down on their support of the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people and reject Zionist policies of “ethnic cleansing, home demolitions, land theft and sacrilege.” They also call on them to confront the recent shifts of normalization and complicity of the Arab reactionary regimes and their interference in Palestinian affairs in favor of the occupation, among other calls.

Accompanying the statements, organizations have also been on the streets to show their support.

In Morocco, in defiance of the reactionary regime, mobilizations were organized in Casablanca, Rabat, and Tangierand faced violent repression.


Progressive forces in Morocco organized protests in major cities in the country. Here hundreds participate in a protest in Tangiers.

In Tunisia, the Workers’ Party, along with other progressive forces in the country, released a statement in support of the Palestinian cause and organized a rally in the capital.


The Workers’ Party of Tunisia participated in a solidarity rally with Palestine. Photo: Workers’ Party of Tunisia

In Kuwait, progressive forces took to the streets as well.



In Sudan, members of the Sudanese Communist Party held a solidarity rally.


Palestine solidarity rally in Sudan.

Latin America and the Caribbean

People’s movements and organizations, as well as revolutionary governments in the region, have been quick to express their support for the Palestinian people in light of growing aggression and attacks.

The Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil released a statement on May 11 wherein they pointed out that “It is not a war, as there is only one army, that of Israel! It is a massacre, which has been perpetrated against the Palestinian people for more than 70 years!” The movement called for an end to “Israel’s extermination policy” and demanded that Israel be tried for crimes against humanity. The MST express solidarity “with the Palestinian People’s struggle for a Free Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital!”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote that “Cuba emphatically condemns the indiscriminate bombings of Israel against the Palestinian population n in Gaza and condemns the permanent support of the US in these crimes.”

The Foreign Ministry of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela released a strong statement condemning “the new violent actions committed by Israel against the Palestinian people.” The statement declared that, “Venezuela reaffirms its historical and principled position in defense of the sovereignty, independence and self-determination of the Palestinian people, while expressing its support for the government of the Palestinian National Authority and its solidarity with the victims and their loved ones, following the cruel attacks carried out by the military and police forces of Israel, which have taken the lives of innocent civilians, including those of several minors.” It also called on the world to “demand an end to this new phase of Zionist violence against the Palestinian people.”

Beyond statements, both socialist Cuba and Venezuela have historically provided concrete support to the Palestinian cause and people, such as opening their doors to hundreds of Palestinian students so that they can train in medicine and return to the region to help serve the people.

Africa

The people across the African continent have also been historic allies of the Palestinian cause and many have also taken to the streets and social media to manifest their solidarity this week.

The shack dwellers movement of South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo, released a statement declaring that “The Blood of the Palestinians is our Blood.” They highlighted the similarities in experiences of oppression and violence by colonial occupiers stating “As everyone knows, a shared experience of colonial dispossession and oppression – and of apartheid – means that most South Africans have a deep understanding and concern for the suffering and struggle of the Palestinian people…Because of our past and our present we have a deep sense of solidarity for the Palestinian people who continue to suffer under an extremely brutal colonial occupation. Their pain is our pain. We know what it means to live not knowing whether your home and that of your children will be destroyed. We know what it means to live without the protection of the law, and under a state that considers you outside of the law. We know what it means to have innocent people in jail, people whose only crime was to stand up for justice.”

Organizations such as the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP), the Communist Party of Kenya and others also expressed solidarity.

In Johannesburg, a protest was organized by BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) outside the Israeli Trade Center in South Africa in Solidarity with the people of Palestine.

United States
While politicians in the US continue to back Israel despite its genocidal actions against Palestinians, the tide is definitely changing in terms of the population. On May 11 and 12, massive protests were organized in cities across the United States such as New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, and more.



Statements have also been released to demand that the US government drastically change its policy of providing billions of dollars of military aid to Israel as well as unquestioned political support. Sharp criticism has been directed at mainstream news organizations in the US which continue to favor Israel and dehumanize Palestinians.

Europe

A number of left parties and progressive movements across Europe also condemned Israel’s attacks on Gaza and on the Palestinian people such as the European Left Party, Ireland’s Sinn Fein, and others.

Sinn Féin
@sinnfeinireland
·
May 12
The international community must hold the Israeli apartheid regime to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people. The Irish Government must use its seat on the UN Security Council to ensure human rights are protected –
@johnbradysf
Flag of Ireland Flag of Palestinian Territories #FreePalestine #GazaUnderAttack
[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1392509877189111808[/youtube]

Featured image: Several thousand took to the streets in New York City on Tuesday May 10 in solidarity with Palestine. Photo: Breakthrough Nnews

(Peoples Dispatch)

https://orinocotribune.com/the-world-st ... palestine/

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Whoever Endures the Longest in Palestine Will Have the Last Word
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 18, 2021
Elijah J. Magnier


Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israeli residents to “endure” Palestinian responses to war (Photo: Mahmud Hams / AFP)

The extraordinary confrontations between the Palestinians and Israel are evidence of paradoxes that will not be resolved anytime soon. The Israeli approach to what is going on seems formal and misleading. Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said, “Hamas has not properly assessed the severity of our response, as the Gaza Strip is facing an enormous intensity of attack that has not been witnessed to this day.” Tel Aviv revealed that it had bombed over 1,500 targets and destroyed dozens of buildings in the besieged Gaza City.

However, Israel never realized that the Palestinian resistance groups had introduced new long-range missiles and significantly increased firepower with a rhythm of more than 150 rockets fired daily and simultaneously. The Palestinians registered more than 100 buildings hit in Israel, and Gaza introduced a new equation by bombing from the first day Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This is a fundamental change in the rules of engagement, of bombing gradual stages and avoid bombing Tel Aviv, to which the “Axis of the Resistance” is accustomed. For the first time, new missiles were launched, under the name “Al-Qasim” (named after the Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani responsible for supplying the Palestinians with weapons) which has a warhead of 400 kg and “Ayyash” (named after “Yahya Ayyash ») with a range of 250 kilometres.

Khaled Meshaal, representative of “Hamas” abroad, did not hesitate to say that “the resistance has benefited from Iran, its missiles and its expertise, and the organizations in Gaza have benefited from the smuggling of weapons and military technology.”

The Israeli operation “Guardian of the Walls” failed to introduce a new deterrence equation in the face of the Palestinian “Sword of Jerusalem”. As in all wars, Israel succeeded in destroying facilities, agricultural land, civilian buildings, banks, public roads and buildings for local and foreign media. This indicates that the Palestinian resistance has succeeded in reducing the Israeli bank of highly sensitive targets, as used to be the case in past wars. The Israeli inability to determine the location of rocket launchers and the whereabouts of senior military commanders means that civilian institutions are now Israel’s target of choice.

Israel has not fundamentally changed anything in its destructive policy adopted in past decades against Gaza or Lebanon: targeting infrastructure and residential areas are Israel’s preferred targets, hoping to turn the population against local resistance. Gaza introduced a new element in the fight by increasing the intensity of its firepower against different Israeli cities it had never attacked before, starting from the heart of Tel Aviv to the southern city of Eilat.

After each battle between Israel and the Axis of Resistance, each side examines the performance during the fighting to conclude the appropriate lessons in order to improve its performance and fill in blind spots, in preparation for the next battle. It is still too early to conclude whether it will be the intensity of the rockets launched or the quality of the missiles that will prove decisive.

This next generation wants to take back all the usurped land: it will no longer accept the Israeli hand in Palestine.

As in all past wars, Israeli officials vow to return Gaza to the “Stone Age”, highlighting the power of its artillery and, above all, the air force provided by the US military industry. There is no doubt that Israel is unrivaled in the Middle East in terms of its military strength. However, apart from the introduction of the new F-35 jets in this battle, Israel inflicted significant human and material losses on its opponent, as it has always done. Since there is no international accountability and Israel disregards all international law, unlimited US support encourages Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to disregard the rules of war, targeting children (60 dead so far), women (39 dead) and many other civilians. However, Israel failed to achieve its goal of limiting rocket and missile fire.

To the surprise of Israeli planners, local Palestinian solidarity in Gaza supported the resistance groups. Palestinians have been living in besieged Gaza City with limited means and lacking many basic necessities for years. They have developed a resistance to the grievance, exemplified in the local saying: “I am drowning and I am afraid to get wet”.

Israel claims to have intercepted 90% of the total of 3,000 rockets and missiles from Gaza launched against different Israeli cities. This means that at least a few hundred missiles managed to escape the network of Israeli interceptor systems. These rockets are forcing thousands of Israelis into their shelters and preventing daily life from continuing as normal, unlike in previous wars against Gaza.

The Palestinian resistance managed to launch about 150 rockets a day, which landed in different places: near Haifa in the north, Ramon airport in the south, and different settlements around Gaza such as Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba (Negev), Gush Dan (Tel Aviv) and Jerusalem. Israeli intelligence failed to anticipate the ability of the Palestinians to attack different Israeli cities simultaneously.

It seems that the era of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that signed the Oslo Accords is over.

Also significant is the uprising of the 1948 Arabs who have Israeli citizenship. During the bombing of Gaza, they affirmed the unity of the resistance in the besieged city. It seems that the era of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that signed the Oslo Accords is over and that the next generation wants to take back all the usurped land: it will no longer accept the Israeli hand in Palestine.

The besieged city of Gaza has become a sort of concentration camp. Isolated from the sea and from the land (only the Rafah crossing is open, according to Egyptian will), and it has no airport. Consequently, all weapons reach the city through its secret tunnels. However, this war – there is no doubt that it will be devastating for Gaza – has endangered the Israeli entity with the resurgence of the solidarity of the Palestinian people, manifested for the first time since 1948.

Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israeli residents to “hang in there”. Israeli leaders did not commit to a specific time to end the war, they understand that this is a long-term one. This was evidenced by the U.S. position at the United Nations when the U.S. ambassador vetoed a request for a cease-fire in the Security Council. As a result, the last word will go to the side that survives the longest, in a war that will continue to rage between the belligerents for a few more days.

This article was originally published on Elijah J. Magnier’s blog on May 18, 2021, translated by Eli C. Casas.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/05/ ... last-word/

[blindpig]

U.S. F-35s bombing Gaza
May 20, 2021 Manlio Dinucci



The United States, which has four ammunition warehouse bases in Israel, also provides it with a large arsenal. Israel, which already has one of the most powerful Air forces in the world, is now testing F-35s in combat against the Palestinians.

Rome, Italy, May 20 — Israeli Forces spokesman Zilberman announced the start of the bombing of Gaza, specifying that “80 fighters are taking part in the operation, including the advanced F-35s” (The Times of Israel, May 11, 2021). It is officially the baptism of fire for the U.S. Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation fighter, whose production Italy also participates in as a second-level partner.

Israel has already received twenty-seven F-35s from the U.S., and last February decided to buy no longer fifty F-35s but seventy-five. To this end the government has decreed a further allocation of 9 billion dollars: 7 were granted by a U.S. to Israel free military “aid” of 28 billion, 2 were granted as a loan by the U.S. Citibank.

While Israeli F-35 pilots were being trained by the U.S. Air Force in Arizona and Israel, the U.S. Army Engineers built in Israel special hardened hangars for the F-35s, suitable for both fighters’ maximum protection on the ground, and their rapid take-off on attack. At the same time, the Israeli military industries (Israel Aerospace and Elbit Systems) in close coordination with Lockheed Martin enhance the fighter renamed “Adir” (Powerful): above all its ability to penetrate enemy defenses and its range of action which was nearly doubled.

These capabilities are certainly not necessary to attack Gaza. Why then are the most advanced fifth-generation fighters used against Palestinians? Because it serves to test F-35s fighters and their pilots in real war action using Gaza homes as targets on a firing range. It does not matter if in the target houses there are entire families.

The F-35s, added to the hundreds of fighter-bombers already supplied by the U.S. to Israel. are designed for nuclear attack particularly with the new B61-12 bomb. The United States will shortly deploy these nuclear bombs in Italy and other European countries, and will also provide them to Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East with an arsenal estimated at 100-400 nuclear weapons. If Israel doubles the range of F-35 fighters and is about to receive eight Boeing Pegasus tankers from the U.S. for refueling the F-35s in flight, it is because it is preparing to launch an attack, even nuclear, against Iran.

The Israeli nuclear forces are integrated into the NATO electronic system within the “Individual cooperation program” framework with Israel. Although not a member of the Alliance, Israel is integrated with a permanent mission in the NATO headquarters in Brussels. In the same framework, Germany supplied Israel with six Dolphin submarines. modified for launching nuclear missiles (as Der Spiegel documented in 2012).

Italy’s military cooperation with Israel has become a law of the Republic (Law No. 94 of May 17, 2005). This law establishes comprehensive cooperation, both between armed forces and military industries, including activities that remain secret because they are subject to the “Security Agreement” between the two parties.

Israel has supplied Italy with the Opsat-3000 satellite, which transmits very high-resolution images for military operations in distant war theaters. The satellite is connected to three centers in Italy and, at the same time, to a fourth center in Israel, as a proof of the increasingly close strategic collaboration between the two countries.

Italy supplied Israel with thirty Leonardo Aermacchi fighters for pilot training. Now it can provide Israel with a new version of the M-346 FA (Fighter Attack), which — Leonardo Industry specified — serves at the same time for training and for “ground attack missions with 500-pound drop ammunition, and precision-guided ammunitions capable of increasing the number of targets to hit at the same time “. The new version of the fighter — Leonardo Industry underlined — is particularly suitable for “missions in urban areas,” where heavy fighters “are often used in low-paying missions with high operating costs”. The ideal for the next Israeli bombings of Gaza, which can be carried out with “a cost per flight hour that is reduced by up to 80%”, and will be very “cost-effective,” that is, they will kill many more Palestinians.

Source: Voltairenet

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2021/ ... bing-gaza/

So, 'the most advanced fighter in the world' is getting it's baptism in combat by strafing civilians...How very Amerikan. How will it fare against advanced Russian missile defenses or the new Chinese fighters? Bet those prospects got the generals shitting in their pants.

The US military has evolved into a dedicated counter-insurgency/ 'small wars' function. Being a Hegemon it could not be otherwise. But it seems those days are coming to an end. Dangerous times, an exceptionally nasty cornered rat.

[blindpig]

ISRAEL TEACHES TO HATE
THE "SWORD OF JERUSALEM" ENDS UP BECOMING THE "GUARDIAN OF PALESTINE"
Elijah J. Magnier

May 23 , 2021 , 8:37 am .


Debris strewn in Gaza streets after Israeli airstrikes (Photo: Getty Images)

The battle for Gaza has ended, for the moment, after an unconditional ceasefire declared unilaterally by Israel and approved by the resistance of the Palestinian group. At 02:00 am local time this morning of Friday, May 21, and after intense negotiations in which the United States, Egypt and Qatar participated, the Israeli army put an end to the indiscriminate massacre for which Palestinian families were "eliminated. whole on purpose "and that destroyed infrastructure and homes in Gaza. Furthermore, Israel agreed to stop expelling the inhabitants of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem. Palestinian resistance groups accepted the ceasefire, but promised to keep the missiles at the ready in case Israel broke the agreement.

The most important result of this battle comes from Syria, resulting in President Bashar al-Assad reopening its doors to Hamas, who contributed to the massacre of Syrian citizens and the Syrian army when many of its members sided with the Takfiris during the last ten years of war.

The Israeli bombardments on the civilian population and infrastructure in Gaza have reached a level of war crime that the world has not condemned so far. It is not the first time that Israel has carried out wars and battles against Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. Hating and killing Arabs is part of their political doctrine. The world expressed its anger at the Takfiri terror organization "Islamic State" (ISIS-Daesh) and Saudi Arabia for their radical teachings. This teaching follows the radical doctrine of Sheikh Ibyn Taymiyyeh and Sheikh Mohamad Abdel 'Wahhab and promotes the death or enslavement of other Muslim sects and non-Muslim religions as a whole.

The West views extremist Islamic teaching programs as hate speech, an incitement to kill other human beings, and must be fundamentally eliminated or modified. But what does Israel teach its children? It is not better. The world must know about the Israeli school program and its toxic content.

To illustrate its radicalism, an Israeli film was shown in which the following dialogue took place:

Teacher: Where is Solomon's temple located?

Students: In the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we will build it there in the coming years.

Teacher: What will happen to the Al-Aqsa Mosque?

Students: It will collapse, explode and disappear.

Teacher: If you met an Arab boy, what would you feel?

Students: Desires to kill him.

Teacher: What do you think will happen in Jerusalem in ten years?

Students: The entire population will be of the Jewish religion.

The teacher: And what will be the fate of the Arabs there?

Students: They will become our slaves, or there will be a battle in which all the Arabs will be killed.

This is what is taught in primary classes in Israel. It is an education for murder, hatred, the enslavement of Arabs and the destruction of the holy Al-Aqsa mosque, which is now in the eye of the hurricane.

Excavations under Al-Aqsa began after the 1967 war, when Harat Al-Maghariba (the 770-year-old Moroccan neighborhood), adjacent to the Al-Buraq Wall, was demolished from the western side of the mosque to serve entry for Zionist soldiers and settlers to their squares. Since then, Israel has not stopped searching for a "Temple of Solomon", an excuse to seize one of the most important religious sites for Muslims.

Israel has managed to undermine the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Major cracks have occurred in the southern Al-Aqsa wall due to continued excavations under the Al-Buraq wall. Israel is accused of injecting chemicals into the walls of the mosque to cause corrosion. The damage in Al-Aqsa began after the opening in 2006 of a new hall for Jewish worshipers in Al-Buraq square, under the Islamic courts building, to connect the Herodian road that runs from the bottom of the wall from Al-Buraq to the suburb of Silwan, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The recent Gaza war is due to Palestinian militants being aware of the Zionist officials' intention to Judaize Jerusalem and to expel all Arab residents from the city. Israel began its campaign in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to forcibly displace Arabs from their lands and settle a Zionist population in their place. The Palestinian resistance groups (mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad) in Gaza decided to give Israel an ultimatum to prevent it from deporting Arabs and Muslims from Jerusalem. Former US President Donald Trump illegally offered the city as a gift to his friend Netanyahu. Thus, Israel's goal was (and still is) to seize Jerusalem, heading in later years towards the West Bank.

Israel will not cease its objectives, but will have to postpone its plans to occupy Jerusalem for one more term. Consequently, Gaza's decision to link the ceasefire agreement - despite the heavy human and material losses - with the protection of the Palestinian inhabitants of Jerusalem is a decision that arises from the will to defend the holy city and the Arab population.

The Palestinian population of Gaza appears willing to accept the losses suffered in this battle and in future ones, a price that the Palestinians consider worthy for defending what remains of Palestine. Israel would like to isolate Gaza City and leave it to the Palestinians because it is overflowing with population (1.7 million inhabitants in 368 km 2 ). Israel does not want to carry the burden of controlling Gaza and taking care of its residents, a plan that can take dozens of years and cause huge losses.

The Gaza war, which broke out about ten days ago, is the first in a series of future conflicts in which all Israeli cities will come under the rain of Palestinian missiles. Israel is developing its military capabilities. So is the resistance, targeting the far north and south, forcing Israeli residents and their political and military leaders to go to bomb shelters.

Gaza has achieved its objectives and consequently the "Sword of Jerusalem" will continue to impose itself on Israel after the end of this war, until the time of the next battle arrives.

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

https://misionverdad.com/traducciones/l ... -palestina

Google Translator

I should like some verification on that film dialog, not that I doubt those being the Zionist's over-all intentions but because something so specific and repugnant need be.

Exactly what the Nazis in Ukraine are doing to kids too. Where does education end and 'brain-washing' begin? I dunno, I grew up in the USA and cannot tell the difference...