Australian Students Refer University to ICC

 

University of Melbourn student group Unimelb for Palestine referred the university to the International Criminal Court for its alleged complicity in the war on Gaza.

On 20 October 2023, a prospective University of Melbourne student, Mahmoud Alnaouq, was killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza. Alnaouq won a scholarship to study at an Australian university, and the University of Melbourne was his top choice.

Over the last year, students say they have collected evidence of the university's partnerships with weapons companies that are supplying Israel, and they say their concerns of the university’s alleged complicity in Israel’s war crimes have been ignored.

“We hope that universities around the world can follow this example and hold their universities accountable.”

“It is about fighting for a future”: U of T students hold vigil to mourn fallen in Gaza

 

U of T community members speak out in solidarity with Palestinians

On October 7, members of the U of T community gathered on the steps of Sidney Smith Hall to honour and commemorate the innocent lives lost during Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. 

As of writing, more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza and over 1,200 people in Israel have been killed since October 7. Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon have killed over 2,000 people.

UofT Occupy for Palestine (O4P) — the student group that held the 63-day encampment at King’s College Circle — and Tkarón:to Students in Solidarity with Palestine organized the gathering.

This vigil marks the first event in a series of solidarity movements for Palestine and Lebanon. Organized by O4P, the series is collectively referred to as the “Week of Rage.”

The vigil was moderated by Sara Rasikh — a second-year masters at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education and O4P spokesperson — featured stories read by members of the crowd, statements from U of T students, an organized prayer, and a candlelight demonstration.  (more...)

“It is about fighting for a future”: U of T students hold vigil to mourn fallen in Gaza

Genocidal Jewish chaplains

 

In today's show, we'll be delving into the misapplication of government funding, by the British education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, who's listed as a member of the Labour Friends of Israel.

Her response to Israel's year-long genocide in Gaza, was to announce a £7m procurement process for antisemitism training in schools, colleges and universities because, she claims, there's been a huge increase in antisemitic incidents.

But the statistics on which she's relying, are provided by the Community Security Trust, which has links to Israel's overseas spy agency, Mossad.

In our first report, Latifa Abouchakra looks at one of the beneficiaries of Bridget Phillipson's largesse. Our second report reveals the University Jewish Chaplaincy's links to illegal settlements and the Zionist occupation forces.

The addition of Samidoun to Canada’s ‘terror’ list reflects a long history of anti-Palestinian racism in service of U.S. interests

 

On Tuesday the Liberal government listed Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a terror entity. Made in conjunction with Washington, the move criminalizes the Vancouver-based grassroots solidarity group. It’s now illegal to finance or materially assist Samidoun.

After Israel labeled Samidoun a terror organization in 2021, Zionist groups and the National Post began pushing Ottawa to follow suit. But the Liberals wavered under pushback from the BC Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Union of Postal Workers and dozens of other civil society organizations. After October 7 the Conservatives launched a full court press to list Samidoun that seems to have tipped the scales.

Listing Samidoun is a direct attack against those opposing genocide. An August parliamentary petition calling on the government to list the organization began, “Samidoun Prisoners Solidarity Network (Samidoun) is viewed as one of the main groups behind anti-Israeli protest rallies that have been staged across Canada.” Immediately after its listing Zionists started denouncing individuals and organizations that have worked with Samidoun or its two principal organizers Charlotte Kates and Khaled Barakat. For its part, Samidoun criticized its listing as “meant to introduce a norm in which organizations may be designated as ‘terrorist’ for organizing demonstrations, lectures, publishing posters and engaging in entirely public and political work that challenges imperialist states’ complicity in Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

Notwithstanding the menacing “terror” label, no one claims Samidoun has engaged in any violence. Criticism of the group focused on its supports for Palestinian armed resistance and that someone burned a Canadian flag at a protest they co-organized October 7. But that isn’t illegal, let alone grounds to ban an organization.  (more...)

The addition of Samidoun to Canada’s ‘terror’ list reflects a long history of anti-Palestinian racism in service of U.S. interests

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Ethnic cleansing is happening in Palestine — as it happened in Canada

 

We should worry about the parallels between the two countries

The longstanding crisis in Palestine and Israel gained worldwide attention on October 7, and has since been protested globally. While we, as Canadians, may feel a geographic disconnect from Palestine, I see the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to be similar to that of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s history.

Indigenous peoples in Canada existed before the first European invasion in 1497. Over time, the Christian and European languages arrived and displaced and permanently altered the Indigenous ways of life and cultural traditions. 

In contrast, over centuries, all three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Islam, and Christianity — have declared spiritual connections to regions in the Middle East which encompasses modern-day Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and southern portions of Lebanon and Syria. Many historians have detailed Palestine’s varying religious demographics with the rise and fall of different kingdoms from 1300 BCE to today. 

After World War I, the UK stepped into Palestine with the 1917 Balfour Declaration and took control of the region from the then-presiding Ottoman Empire. The declaration established Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people and allowed their immigration into the region. Although the UK promised independence from the Ottomans for the Arabs in that area, the declaration meant Palestine would be under British rule.  (more...)

Ethnic cleansing is happening in Palestine — as it happened in Canada

Top Polish Media Laments Their Country Being Excluded From The Ukrainian End Game

 

Idealist policymakers didn’t realize that they were being exploited by Ukraine, Germany, and the US, and there’s little they can do to rectify this even if they finally learn their lesson.

Polish journalist Witold Jurasz published a commentary on Onet, which is his country’s largest online media platform, titled “What's in the secret annexes of Zelensky's plan? Poland just dropped out of the game”. He’s one of his country’s leading journalists and broke the story last month about the argument that Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski had with Zelensky over military aid and the Volhynia Genocide dispute during his latest trip to Kiev. That toxified their ties and set the stage for what was to follow.

Jurasz drew attention to how Zelensky didn’t include Poland in the list of countries that were given the secret annex to his “Victory Plan” according to what the Ukrainian leader revealed during his speech about this to the Rada last week. It was only shared with the US, the UK, France, Italy, and Germany. Jurasz also mentioned how Zelensky offered the G7 special investment opportunities, and seeing as how Poland isn’t an individual member of that bloc, he also noted that it’d been excluded from that too.

This top journalist, who used to serve as his country’s chargé d'affaires in Belarus and is thus considered to still be very well connected to the Polish Foreign Ministry (from which he was presumably told about last month’s scandal in Kiev), then shared some harsh commentary about all of this.  (more...)

Top Polish Media Laments Their Country Being Excluded From The Ukrainian End Game

U of T spent $4.1 million on the encampment

 

Scott Mabury — U of T’s vice-president operations and real estate partnerships & vice-provost academic operations — told the Business Board that the student protesters’ 63-day encampment on King’s College Circle had cost the university $4.1 million. The protesters demanded that U of T disclose its investments, stop investing in companies providing weapons and services to the Israeli military, and cut ties with Israeli universities.

Direct costs such as hiring lawyers to secure an injunction permitting U of T to remove the encampment and paying for increased security and repairs made up $3.8 million of the sum. The remaining $300,000 was the revenue that the university didn’t receive, either from parking at King’s College Circle Garage or cancelled events. Mabury said that the $4.1 million sum encompasses most of the costs, although U of T might have to pay a few more legal bills. 

The university declined to respond to The Varsity’s question about how much U of T spent on lawyer fees.

In U of T’s submission to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on May 29, U of T’s Chief Operating Officer of Property Services & Sustainability, Ron Saporta wrote that as of May 22, the encampment cost the university more than $300,000 in property damage, security costs, health and safety, and reorganizing events. 

According to Campus Safety Community Liaison & Support Team Assistant Director Ryan Dow, approximately two-thirds of the cost resulted from paying for increased security. Justice Markus Koehnen cited the “unrecoverable costs” to the university in his ruling in favour of the university.  (more...)

U of T spent $4.1 million on the encampment

The Ugly Truth of Eric Weinstein and 'The Intellectual Dark Web'

 

What is Eric Weinstein's role behind the mass migration policies of the UN? What else is lurking behind this strange thing dubbed 'the Intellectual Dark web'?

We are all Samidoun!

 

The attack on Samidoun is an attack on the entire anti-imperialist movement, and marks the beginning of a wave of broader criminalization and repression of pro-resistance speech.

16 October 2024 – Solidarity statement by Unity of Fields:

On 15 October 2024, the US baselessly designated the Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoner Solidarity Network (Samidoun) as a Specially Designated National (SDN) by summarily adding it to the Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned organizations and individuals. At the same time, Canada designated Samidoun as a “terrorist entity” under Canada’s Criminal Code. Samidoun, a longtime target of state repression and liberal zionist counterinsurgency from within the movement, is a principled and unyielding international voice for thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. We categorically reject this illegitimate “terrorist” designation, and we call for international progressive forces to stand with Samidoun.

Imperialists have always weaponized “terrorist” labels to delegitimize liberation movements, but the designation of Samidoun, an unarmed solidarity movement, is a qualitative escalation. Whether it is Cuba being designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” Stop Cop City protestors facing domestic terrorism charges, or material support to terrorism (MST) charges being weaponized against anti-zionists, these terror lists and designations must be totally rejected and abolished. The US, Canada, and the zionist entity are the real “terrorists,” the genocidal settler states built on mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, at this very moment burning Palestinians alive in hospital tents, and slandering as “terrorists” those who dare to resist them. 

As the US-backed zionist genocide intensifies in Palestine and Lebanon, the counterinsurgency intensifying against the anti-imperialist movement is no surprise. Make no mistake, fascism is already here. This attack on Samidoun is an attack on the entire anti-imperialist movement, and marks the beginning of a wave of broader criminalization and repression of pro-resistance speech, weaponizing laws like MST and RICO to break solidarity.  (more...)

We are all Samidoun!

Related:

Samidoun’s coordinator speaks out on the U.S. and Canada’s targeting of the group

First They Came for the Journalists and the Academics! Sun Now Setting on Democracy as We Know It.

 

This week, on the Global Research News Hour, concerns are starting to be raised about more and more journalists, activists and even scholars who are having their lives disrupted in the wake of detentions, arrests, and even outright suppression of rights as the cancer of anti-terrorism laws grows to the point of targeting almost anyone who voices concerns as we have on the show about the NATO instigated Ukraine War, opposition to the genocidal campaign waged by Israel and more. This show features an array of guests with dissenting views on foreign policy in Canada and abroad facing such measures and some analysis of what can be done to reverse this trend. Conversations with journalists Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley, and with academics Tamara Lorincz, Radhika Desai and Kevin Mackay.

Global Research News Hour · First They Came for the Journalists and the Academics! Sun Now Setting on Democracy as We Know It.

Liberals Play Politics as Gaza Burns

 

The Trudeau government’s tepid response to another massacre may feel like a sick joke, but it’s not. It’s our government.

Do you remember that picture of Alan Kurdi lying dead on a beach?

It’s hard to forget. 

Alan was two years old when his family fled the war in Syria. They boarded a raft in the Mediterranean Sea and set off for Europe before capsizing off the coast of Turkey. 

His family survived. He didn’t.

By the time his body washed ashore, Alan lay face down in the sand. That’s when photojournalist Nilufer Demir snapped a picture of the boy. Moments earlier, he was a toddler clinging to his mother. Now the tide swept against his cold skin.

I still can’t look at that picture without tears forming in my eyes. The photograph — taken on Sept. 2, 2015 — took on added meaning in Canada, where Kurdi’s parents had applied and were rejected for refugee status.

Deeply unpopular after nine years in power, Alan’s death painted Stephen Harper into a corner. On the one hand, a majority of Canadians were clamouring for the prime minister to do something — anything — to ease the suffering of the Kurdi family and thousands like them. On the other, the idea of accepting refugees was deeply unpopular with Harper’s conservative base.

With the party losing ground ahead of the 2015 federal election, Harper made a political decision: prioritize a military response to the crisis over a humanitarian one. Harper would address the “heartbreaking situation” and say that Alan’s death made him think of losing his own son. 

But given the scale of the tragedy, his words rang hollow. 

Faced with a leader unable to meet this moment in history, Canadians turned to Justin Trudeau. The young Liberal promised to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada, exceeding the expectations of a country beaten down by years of austerity and scandals.

In the end, Trudeau blew out the Conservatives and his government went beyond the Liberal leader’s election promise, accepting over 28,000 refugees across the country. At home and abroad, Trudeau symbolized the promise of Canada, that imperfect democracy striving to live up to the words in its Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Nine years later, Trudeau’s sheen has worn off. Polls have the Liberals down 20 points to the Conservatives, the Prime Minister seems to limp from one scandal to the next and, just as Harper was nine years ago, Trudeau is feckless in the face of a historical crisis.  (more...)

Liberals Play Politics as Gaza Burns

Who is the Real Danger to Canadians-our own government?

 

Justin Trudeau & Pierre Poillievre are promoting wars in Ukraine and the Middle East because according to them Putin, Iran and others are a danger to Canadians.

But the only governments that have ever threatened my freedoms and livelihoods are the Trudeau Liberal Government in Ottawa that was supported by the Conservatives and the NDP. The other was the Ford Conservative government in Toronto supported by the liberals and NDP.

The Uniparty creates false fears such as wars and pandemics to disguise the real dangers to Canadians- Our own government

Canadian officials encourage violence on Iran

 

Canadian officials are calling on Israel to attack Iran. President of the Iranian Canadian Congress Saideh Khadir joined me to discuss Canada's aggressive position towards the West Asian country and Ottawa's role in supporting the 1953 US/UK overthrow of elected Prime Minister Mossadegh Mossadegh and support for the Shah throughout the 1970s.

The Davenport Aid Brigade

 

David interviews Sonya Stepanova of the Davenport Aid Brigade about her work of the past five months providing tens of thousands of dollars in funds and aid directly to Palestinians in Egypt and Gaza.

Green Majority Radio · The Davenport Aid Brigade (939)

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From Nazis to Khalistanis, how Canada has been a safe haven for criminals, terrorists and extremists under Justin Trudeau govt

 

Back in 2018, the Trudeau government expelled four Russian diplomats and denied entry to three more after Russia exposed the Nazi connection of the then Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Amidst the outrage over Chinese interference in the last two elections and governance, the Trudeau government has resorted to deflection by mindlessly blaming India for the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar even as there is zero evidence of any Indian involvement. Canada was quick to ask Indian diplomats to leave as India strongly dismissed the “preposterous” allegations levelled against Indian diplomats and recalled the Indian High Commissioner. While the Trudeau government’s sympathy for a Khalistani terrorist may be shocking for some, Canada has a history of backing even Nazis.

Back in 2018, the Trudeau government expelled four Russian diplomats and denied entry to three more after Russia exposed the Nazi connection of the then Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. As Globe and Mail and other Canadian media publications reported that Chrystia Freeland knew for almost two decades that her maternal grandfather was a Nazi collaborator, Freeland accused Russia of spreading ‘disinformation’ and an attempt to ‘destabilise’ Canadian democracy.

“American officials have publicly said, and even Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn’t come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada,” Freeland told the media back then.

While Freeland’s office denied that Chomiak ever collaborated with Nazi Germany, however, there is ample evidence proving that the Liberal Party leader’s grandfather was indeed a Nazi collaborator and it was not in any form a ‘Russian propaganda’ even though Trudeau government punished Russian diplomats for the Nazi history of Freeland’s family.  (more...)

From Nazis to Khalistanis, how Canada has been a safe haven for criminals, terrorists and extremists under Justin Trudeau govt

Canada’s latest Nazi scandal: ‘Victims of Communism Memorial’ filled with fascist names

 

THE Canadian federal government has ensnared itself in yet another embarrassing Nazi scandal. The Department of Canadian Heritage was just informed that over half of the 550 names engraved on its Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa are Nazis or have links to fascist groups.

The Ottawa Citizen newspaper obtained a copy of a report commissioned by the government, which found that at least 330 of the supposed “victims” were members of fascist organisations or were collaborators with Hitler’s Germany during World War II.

Many were perpetrators of war crimes in the USSR, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and other countries occupied by the Nazis.

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism originated with the former Conservative Party government of prime minister Stephen Harper. In 2007, the then-minister of multiculturalism Jason Kenney visited Masaryktown, a private park in Toronto belonging to members of the Czech and Slovak community, where he saw a piece of anti-communist art depicting a man crucified on a hammer and sickle.

Likely dreaming about locking in the votes of some of the eight million Canadians who trace their origins to countries that have been governed by communist parties, Kenney proposed building a similar public monument in the capital city.  (more...)

Canada’s latest Nazi scandal: ‘Victims of Communism Memorial’ filled with fascist names

Feds won't commit to cutting alleged Nazi collaborators' names from Victims of Communism memorial

 

Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s office said a review of the memorial is "ongoing" to ensure it will be "compatible with Canadian values on democracy and human rights.‘’

The Liberal government won’t make a firm commitment to keep the names of alleged Nazi collaborators and fascists off the Victims of Communism memorial to be unveiled in downtown Ottawa.

But Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s office told the Ottawa Citizen that it will make sure the memorial’s commemorative elements will remain compatible with Canadian values.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a holocaust education organization, wrote St-Onge on Oct. 10 to request the federal government make a firm and public commitment that the names of more than 300 individuals with suspected ties to the Nazis or fascist groups aren’t put on the memorial. The organization has yet to receive a response.

The memorial, which is located near the corner of Wellington and Bay streets, is supposed to honour those who suffered under communism.

But concerns have been raised over the years by Jewish organizations and historians that names of eastern Europeans who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust have been put forward in an attempt to whitewash their past.  (more...)

Feds won't commit to cutting alleged Nazi collaborators' names from Victims of Communism memorial

OUN-K? The Kuzan Faction

 

The curious case of a Banderite think tank

In the spring of 2021, after the initial buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine’s borders, a small group of Ukrainian nationalists established a think tank that started to work with the Ukrainian armed forces. Since then, the “Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center” (USCC) has partnered with the European Congress of Ukrainians, an important structure in the Toronto-based Ukrainian World Congress, and the National Academy of the Security Service of Ukraine, which is more or less the equivalent of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

According to the website of the Security and Cooperation Center, its core team took shape in 2014, during the so-called “Revolution of Dignity.” But the leadership of this “independent analytical center” actually originated in the OUN-B—the “Banderite” faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which still exists—and its “Turn off Russian” campaign that advocated for the elimination of Russian influence in Ukrainian media. Zelensky’s crackdown in early 2021, that aimed to accomplish this, reportedly triggered Putin’s decision to amass troops in the coming weeks.

That’s roughly when the “Turn off Russian” team established the USCC, which now claims, “We helped to shut down the TV channels owned by Medvedchuk.” They might have parted ways with the Banderites since 2019, but they could also be laying the groundwork for regime change in the OUN-B. Whatever the case may be, it’s worth keeping an eye on this group. A representative of the USCC even appears to coordinate the fundraising arm of an elite neo-Nazi unit directed by the Ukrainian military intelligence agency.

The USCC got started with a video that it made with the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine to support draft law 5557 “On the Fundamentals of National Resistance.” Soon the Center interviewed the commanders of the Special Operations Forces (Hryhoriy Halahan) and the Territorial Defense Forces (Anatoliy Barhylevych) about this important legislation. “We are talking about the historical past,” said Halahan, whom Zelensky dismissed a year later. “How can we do what we did in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army,” he asked, referring to the 1940s paramilitary arm of OUN-B.  (more...)

OUN-K? The Kuzan Faction

Azov Lobby Goes to Brussels

 

A couple days ago, representatives of the notorious Azov Brigade in the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) “held numerous meetings at the NATO headquarters” in Brussels. Among other NATO officials, the Azov delegation met with Marie-Doha Besancenot, the Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy. They also participated in an event at the European Policy Centre, a think tank partially funded by the EU. Yesterday they met with the “Group of Friends of Ukraine in the European Parliament,” and Marta Wytrykowska, deputy head of the Ukraine division at the Diplomatic Service of the European Union.

“Jedi,” whose real name is Serhii Rotchuk, or Serhii Grushin, led the delegation. He was one of the Azovites invited to play golf at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington earlier this year. “Jedi” is one of the leaders of the NGU Azov brigade’s medical service. He emphasized that Azov trains according to NATO standards. In his oldest Instagram post, from 2019, he is wearing a “Rock Against Communism” shirt produced by a National Socialist Black Metal brand affiliated with the hardcore neo-Nazi group “Wotanjugend,” which originated in Russia. Last year, he expressed interest in a book by Léon Degrelle, the Nazi collaborator who led the far-right Rexist Party in Belgium.

The more surprising Azov representative was Nestor Barchuk, who seemed out of place as an alleged “fighter.” Other reports have clarified that he is Azov’s “coordinator of international relations,” or perhaps more likely, “the brigade’s legal advisor.” Barchuk is the international relations manager of the DEJURE Foundation, a “leading NGO in judicial reform” with numerous international backers, including the EU, Council of Europe, U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, the Netherlands, and Germany. Since 2021, Barchuk has written at least four articles (three with his boss, Mykhailo Zhernakov) for the Atlantic Council, an influential Washington think tank that counts NATO among its financial supporters.

“Russian propaganda was successful,” Barchuk told the European Policy Centre, referring to “those narratives of Russian propaganda that we are Nazi, and we are far-right.” Sitting next to him, “Jedi” reached for a glass of water, and looked like he might burst out laughing.  (more...)

Azov Lobby Goes to Brussels

Danger for Journalists in Israel

 

Aaron Maté  :  Danger for Journalists in Israel

Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations

 

One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it

Over the past year, Israel has launched attacks on multiple countries and occupied territories: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.

Yet countries and territories aside, Israel has also targeted one specific organization with a series of unprecedented rhetorical and violent attacks.

Yes, the United Nations. We have all witnessed Israel, effectively, declare war on the UN.

Consider the record of recent weeks and months:

• Israel’s prime minister, while standing on stage at the UN general assembly, denounced the body as “contemptible”, a “house of darkness” and a “swamp of antisemitic bile”.
• Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the UN shredded a copy of the UN charter with a miniature paper shredder while also standing at the podium of the general assembly, and later said the UN headquarters in New York “should be closed and wiped off the face of the Earth”.
• Israel’s foreign minister falsely accused the UN secretary general of not having condemned Iran’s attacks on Israel, declared him “persona non grata in Israel” and announced that he had “banned him from entering the country”.
• The Israeli government actively obstructed a UN-mandated commission of inquiry trying to collect evidence on the 7 October attacks.
• Israel’s parliament is in the process of designating a longstanding UN agency, Unrwa, as a “terrorist organization”.
• The Israeli military has bombed UN schools, warehouses and refugee camps in Gaza for 12 consecutive months, and killed a record 228 UN employees in the process. “By far the highest number of our personnel killed in a single conflict or natural disaster since the creation of the United Nations,” to quote the UN secretary general.
• The Israeli military is now also attacking UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. According to the UN, “five UN ‘Blue Helmets’ serving with UNIFIL in Lebanon have been injured as Israeli forces inflicted damage on UN positions close to the ‘Blue Line’.”

How is any of this OK? Acceptable? Legal?

Perhaps the biggest question of all: how is Israel still allowed to remain a member of the UN?  (more...)

Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations

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Israel’s Bond Sale to Americans – How to Stop the Big Steal

 

Just days before Iran and Arab forces launched their October 1 operation to expose Israel’s military vulnerabilities, four Palestinian Americans launched the most serious threat to Israel’s survival in the economic war that is under way in parallel.

On September 24 they filed an 89-page brief in a Florida state court to declare illegal US financing of Israel’s war against Palestine through the purchase of Israeli government bonds with American taxpayer money.  Their target is $700 million worth of Israel bonds purchased by the Palm Beach County treasury of Florida on the order of a single man, the county’s chief financial officer Joseph Abruzzo.  

Starting in September 2023, one month before Hamas launched its break-out from Gaza, Abruzzo signed a purchase of $40 million in Israel bonds. Then from October 10 through  March 2024 Abruzzo used county taxpayer funds to buy $660 million worth of securities the Israeli government was issuing to cover its warfighting costs.

Altogether, the Israeli plan is to raise at least $58 billion in new debt this year,  with an increasing proportion of this debt to be covered from the US where Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are placing the bonds with small-town officials like Abruzzo.   

In Abruzzo’s case, the court papers relate, “Palm Beach County is currently the world’s largest investor in Israel Bonds due to the Defendant’s [Abruzzo] $700 million dollar investment in Israel bonds. These $700 million dollars, sourced from Palm Beach County taxpayers’ property taxes, are being poured into a foreign economy that has an increased risk of default. Defendant purchased $700 million dollars of Israel Bonds amidst a housing crisis in Palm Beach County, an education crisis, and a funding shortfall of $732 million dollars in Palm Beach County’s budget that is leading to several capital-improvement projects such as athletic centers, parks, animal shelters, and bridges to be either delayed or cancelled. At the time the $732 million dollar shortfall in Palm Beach County’s budget was announced, Defendant had already invested $160 million dollars in Israel Bonds.”

After his own budget deficit and treasury debt were announced, Abruzzo “invested an additional $540 million dollars in Israel Bonds.”

In his public justification,  Abruzzo told the Miami press on October 10, 2023: “I am proud to show solidarity with the people of Israel and make Palm Beach County the first county in the nation to increase its investment in Israel Bonds following their declaration of war against Hamas.”  Six months later, Abruzzo attacked critics of Israel in the Democratic party as it began the presidential election campaign. “Do I hear, especially from the far-left wing of my Democratic party, concerns about investing in Israel? Yes. Are the public leaders in D.C. of the Democratic Party condemning support for Israel? Yes. . . But I would say to them, we’re not going to be deterred. They need to back off and we need to stand united with our greatest ally, Israel.”  (more...)

Israel’s  Bond Sale to Americans – How to Stop the Big Steal

Revealed: the Israeli Spies Writing America’s News

 

One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak.” So reads the title of a recent Axios article describing the Israeli prime minister riding on an unbeatable wave of triumphs. These stunning military “successes,” its author Barak Ravid notes, include the bombing of Yemen, the assassinations of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and the pager attack against Lebanon.

The same author recently went viral for an article that claimed that Israeli attacks against Hezbollah are “not intended to lead to war but are an attempt to reach ‘de-escalation through escalation.'” Users on social media mocked Ravid for this bizarre, Orwellian reasoning. But what almost everybody missed is that Barak Ravid is an Israeli spy – or at least he was until recently. Ravid is a former analyst with Israeli spying agency Unit 8200, and as recently as last year, was still a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces group.

Unit 8200 is Israel’s largest and perhaps most controversial spying organization. It has been responsible for many high-profile espionage and terror operations, including the recent pager attack that injured thousands of Lebanese civilians. As this investigation will reveal, Ravid is far from the only Israeli ex-spook working at top U.S. media outlets, working hard to manufacture Western support for his country’s actions.

Ravid has quickly become one of the most influential individuals in the Capitol Hill press corps. In April, he won the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage”—one of the highest awards in American journalism. Judges were impressed by what they described as his “deep, almost intimate levels of sourcing in the U.S. and abroad” and picked out six articles as exemplary pieces of journalism.

Most of these stories consisted of simply printing anonymous White House or Israeli government sources, making them look good, and distancing President Biden from the horrors of the Israeli attack on Palestine. As such, there was functionally no difference between these and White House press releases. For example, one story the judges picked out was titled “Scoop: Biden tells Bibi 3-day fighting pause could help secure release of some hostages,” and presented the 46th President of the United States as a dedicated humanitarian hellbent on reducing suffering. Another described how “frustrated” Biden was becoming with Netanyahu and the Israeli government.  (more...)

Revealed: the Israeli Spies Writing America’s News

this is amazing. Barak Ravid, who is considered by the Western media class to be the greatest most objective neutral "journalist" on the ongoing Gaza genocide even though he served in Israeli military intelligence and constantly launders Israeli propaganda, is now openly… pic.twitter.com/lYldfmVqaC

— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) September 6, 2024

I resigned from Canada’s largest broadcasting corporation over its complicity in Israel’s genocide

 

I resigned from CBC after voicing my concerns over their coverage of Palestine. I have since seen how the CBC's policy on impartiality helped manufacture consent for genocide.

Words can empower, arm, and evoke sentiments that stimulate new ideas, worldviews, and policies. Being the only Muslim in the newsroom, I feared the language the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was using to talk about Palestinians and resistance could ignite similar emotions that justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq and mass killings of innocent civilians in 2001. 

Days after October 7, 2023, I sat across from a CBC executive who appeared uneasy yet curious about my concerns over CBC’s coverage of Hamas’ attack on Israel. I was appalled by CBC’s lack of historical context between Israel and Palestine and the language used to defend Israel’s massacre of Palestinians.

The executive appeared empathetic but then quoted CBC’s stance on impartiality and the importance of “balanced coverage”. But, I argued, when crimes against humanity are being committed, there is no such thing as both sides to a story. There is only the truth.

After sharing my concerns with the executive, I was strategically dismissed from daily pitch meetings for a few weeks. But as the war amplified and I returned to my seat at the table, I continuously brought up to my peers and editors that labeling genocide as the “Israel-Hamas war” falsely portrays that both Palestinians and Israelis are on even-playing fields. This narrative ignores that for 76 years, Palestinians have been forcibly ousted from their homes, confined to the barbed wires of the Gaza Strip, and have been under constant surveillance of Israeli settlers.  (more...)

I resigned from Canada’s largest broadcasting corporation over its complicity in Israel’s genocide

The Present State of Israel vs. the Israel of the Bible: Understanding the Difference.: “The Present State of Israel Is Not the Israel of God”

 

The modern State of Israel, established in 1948 in the land of Palestine, is often erroneously equated with the Israel of the Bible, to whom God made significant promises. Many Christians, due to a misinterpretation of biblical prophecy and misunderstanding of historical facts, continue to view the current State of Israel as a continuation of biblical Israel, believing it to be the fulfillment of divine promises. However, this perspective is based on a flawed exegesis and a misunderstanding of the political motivations behind the establishment of the modern Israeli state. It is crucial to differentiate between the biblical Israel, a covenant people of God, and the modern state, which was created through political maneuvers and carries a Zionist agenda that is largely secular.

The modern State of Israel was established through the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a document that signaled British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This was not an act of divine fulfillment, but a political deal made between the British government and influential figures like Baron Rothschild. The Balfour Declaration was part of a broader strategy during World War I, when Britain sought support from the Zionist movement—a political movement that aimed to establish a national homeland for Jews. Zionism, however, was not a religious movement. It was driven primarily by political and nationalist motives.

Zionism sought to gather Jews from around the world to form a state in Palestine, but it was not a movement grounded in the religious or moral mandates of the Bible. In fact, many leading Zionists were secular or even atheists. They envisioned a Jewish state not as the fulfillment of God’s covenant with the Israelites, but as a solution to the Jewish diaspora’s challenges, particularly after centuries of persecution and, most devastatingly, the Holocaust.  (more...)

The Present State of Israel vs. the Israel of the Bible: Understanding the Difference.: “The Present State of Israel Is Not the Israel of God”

US reporter held by Israel

 

The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on the Israeli police's persecution of US journalist Jeremy Loffredo, who is currently being held in the country.

Unraveling Empire

 

Today's topics include Zelensky's so-called victory plan, new North Korean military technology that turns its soldiers invisible, and the collapse of France's imperial projects in Africa.

Reporting On Samidoun Ignores Plight Of Palestinian Detainees

 

Palestinians detained by Israel have faced inhumane conditions, including rape and torture, with many dying in prison.

Yesterday, both Canada and the United States designated Samidoun as a terrorist entity.  

Samidoun, also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, had been under fire from the Israel lobby and its allies among elected officials for years, but pressure ramped up after Oct. 7, 2023, as the group organized protests against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Both governments allege that Samidoun has “close links” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been listed as a designated terrorist entity in Canada and the U.S. since 2003 and 2001, respectively.

Earlier today, Samidoun released a statement denying that they have any “material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union,” and arguing that they are being “targeted because of our political and vocal support for the Palestinian prisoners movement and the Palestinian people’s right to resistance.”

Samidoun’s designation as a terrorist entity received a great deal of media coverage, most of it simply repackaging the press releases issued by the two governments. These news articles missed quite a bit, but something in particular stuck out to me.

I reviewed original reporting from the Canadian Press, CBC News, Global News, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, Reuters, the Toronto Sun, and the Vancouver Sun, and found that none of them offered any background into the issue Samidoun was founded in 2011 to address: the plight of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

This is an egregious omission that is especially indefensible given the detailed reports released in the past few months on the inhumane conditions Palestinians face in Israeli jails from B'Tselem, the United Nations Human Rights Office and the United Nations’ International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.

Given that the mainstream media unanimously ignored these credible investigations in their articles on Samidoun — which says it aids Palestinian prisoners by raising awareness and organizing campaigns for political change — I want to offer a brief overview of what the reports found. I encourage you to then read them in full.  (more...)

Reporting On Samidoun Ignores Plight Of Palestinian Detainees