Aaron Maté : Danger for Journalists in Israel
Thursday, October 17, 2024
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
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...)
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.
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
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
Let’s go Israel! Bomb Iran! Politicians cheer for war
Canadian officials are encouraging Israeli violence in Iran. Once again, they are supporting the neoconservatives who view the genocide in Gaza, weakening of Hezbollah and Iran’s response to Israeli provocations as a bid to remake the Middle East just like in the build-up to the last US invasion of Iraq. As former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett crowed, “Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East.”
Last week Bill Blair said it would be “appropriate” for Israel to bomb Iranian oil facilities. “When we talk about (Israel’s) ability to defend (itself), certainly that would include missile launch sites, military installations, airfields from which these attacks are being launched,” Canada’s defence minister said. Asked whether that included attacking Iranian oil facilities, Blair said he thought that would be “appropriate.”
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre incited the apartheid state to go further. He stated, “I think the idea of allowing a genocidal, theocratic, unstable dictatorship that is desperate to avoid being overthrown by its own people to develop nuclear weapons is about the most dangerous and irresponsible thing that the world could ever allow,” Poilievre said. “If Israel were to stop that genocidal, theocratic, unstable government from acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.”
If Israel carried out Poilievre and Blair’s positions it would likely elicit a significant reaction from Iran. In turn, Israel would probably escalate and the two countries could descend into a war that may directly involve the US, which just announced it is sending 100 troops to Israel to operate a sophisticated anti-missile system. (more...)
Let’s go Israel! Bomb Iran! Politicians cheer for war
Related:
Biggest terrorists seek to put anti-terrorists on terror list
Politicians, Canadian media enable Israel’s genocidal lies
Resistance Pact Signs Israel’s Death Warrant
On October 7th, it was announced Iran’s parliament is drafting a defence and security pact, which will formally bind the Resistance “and their supporting countries” together in a common, collaborative military structure to counter external threats, “particularly from the US and Israel.” Unremarked upon in the West, this is a seismic move, representing the most monumental nail hammered into Israel’s coffin since Palestinian freedom fighters struck deep inside the Zionist entity’s putrid heart a year prior. The proclamation’s timing was absolutely no coincidence.
All the pact’s signatories - be they governments or Resistance movements - will provide “comprehensive” economic, military and political assistance to one another, should they come under attack from the Zionist entity, or its allies. Significantly, a dedicated joint military headquarters, to “facilitate coordination” between members of the Resistance, will also be established. This will serve as a “central command for managing military operations and crisis response, reinforcing operational capabilities through planned joint military exercises.”
The pact “aims not only to enhance military cooperation,” but also “bolster infrastructure development” for the Resistance - “collaboration in building military bases and training centres is expected to improve readiness against potential threats.” If implemented, Islamic Republic lawmakers believe “this alliance could significantly shift the balance of power in the region, presenting a formidable counterweight to Western influence seeking to wreak havoc in West Asia to Israel’s benefit.”
Of course, recent events have made clear that West Asia’s “balance of power” has already decisively shifted in favour of the Resistance. The scale and severity of Iran’s unprecedented October 1st strike on the Zionist entity amply indicated Tehran not only didn’t expect retaliation of any serious kind to be forthcoming from Israel or its Western puppetmasters, but had calculated that in the event Tel Aviv was sufficiently foolhardy to declare all-out war in response, the Resistance would inevitably prevail.
In the wake of that devastating assault, this journalist postulated Tehran had thrown down a gauntlet to its regional and international adversaries, safe in the knowledge any resultant conflict would mean the Zionist entity’s final end, and the Empire’s concomitant retreat from West Asia more widely. The rapid emergence of a formal Resistance military alliance since tends to confirm that we are in check mate territory. Now, it is up to Israel to make the next move. Which could well be its very last. (more...)
Resistance Pact Signs Israel’s Death Warrant
Holy Redemption: Stealing Palestinian Land
“If we need to kill them all, we will”
TRT World’s investigative documentary, Holy Redemption, unveils violent fanaticism of armed illegal Jewish settlers who aim to uproot Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.
The documentary was made as our team infiltrated “Israel’s Daesh” who are “ready for the big slaughter” of Palestinians.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Israel’s War Machine Can Be Stopped. Here’s How
Profits have plummeted at an Israeli arms firm targeted by Palestine Action.
Israel’s largest arms firm Elbit Systems is finally losing money at its drone engine factory near Birmingham, England.
This follows years of campaigning by Palestine Action, a group I co-founded in 2020.
Back then, Elbit’s subsidiary UAV Engines was making millions of pounds in profit with an £11m turnover.
That was until we showed up. Palestine Action has staged over 20 protests at the firm’s factory in Shenstone, blockading the gates, occupying the roof and smashing up equipment.
We did this because Elbit makes 85% of Israel’s drone fleet terrorising Gaza, including the Hermes armed drones from which even British aid workers are not safe.
And although UAV Engines claim that it produces components solely for the British army, trade licence data shows it exports drone parts to Israel.
For decades this business, which Elbit turned from a motorbike manufacturer to an arms firm in the mid-1990s, has been consistently profitable.
But its latest accounts show the company is now in the red. From a £2.5m operating profit in 2019 before we launched, UAV Engines had a £460,000 loss by the end of 2023. (more...)
Israel’s War Machine Can Be Stopped. Here’s How
Trudeau’s Oct. 7 Statement Perpetuates Violence by Erasing Palestinian Lives
The Prime Minister’s statement was obscene for what he left out, says Iman Najjar Annab, co-founder of the group Toronto Palestinian Families.
As I read and re-read Justin Trudeau’s statement on Oct. 7 of this year, my throat tightened. A silent scream of hurt and despair rose in my chest as disbelief washed over me. I thought of all the work that we Palestinian Canadians and our allies have done — putting our livelihoods on the line for speaking out, putting our bodies in the streets while being brutalized by police, week after week for a year, to make our voices heard above the relentless din of pro-genocide hegemony.
Justin Trudeau’s statement on the first anniversary of an ongoing genocide — and in the 76th year of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land — dehumanizes Palestinian Canadian families and is a glaring example of moral dystopia that values some lives over others based on their identities.
In his statement, Trudeau refers to the victims of Hamas’ October 7 attack as innocent people, yet he refuses to acknowledge the innocence of Palestinian victims of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
Trudeau claims to speak to the pain of “all Israelis and Jewish people” while entirely ignoring the deep pain felt by Palestinian Canadians and anyone else whose empathy is not exclusionary. His words send a clear message: Jewish Israeli suffering is prioritized (non-Jewish Israelis are not acknowledged) and they are depicted as the true victims, while the lives, suffering and trauma of Palestinians don’t matter as much, if at all.
The omission of Palestinian children and civilians whom Israel has killed in staggering numbers — over 16,000 children and 41,765 civilians as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry and possibly closer to 200,000 as per an estimate in the Lancet — is not an oversight but a cruel erasure of our humanity. There was no solemn recognition, no names recited, no plea for the world to “mourn” them, while eight Israeli-Canadians or Israelis with close ties to Canada who were killed on Oct. 7 were named and mourned individually by Trudeau.
Instead, Palestinian killings are brushed aside as collateral in the vague reference to “civilian casualties” and a “path of war and violence” supposedly led by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran — sweeping Israel’s sustained campaign of colonial genocide under the rug. (more...)
Trudeau’s Oct. 7 Statement Perpetuates Violence by Erasing Palestinian Lives
How Israel Uses and Abuses the Media
Max Blumenthal : How Israel Uses and Abuses the Media
Related:
‘They pointed guns at his head’: A foreign journalist arrested by Israeli army speaks out
Combat Antisemitism
This edition of the program about the people behind the so-called ‘Combat Anti-Semitism’ movement, who are Zionist affiliates from all over the world.
Beyond The United Nations
In this conversation, International human rights lawyer, Craig Mokhiber, who was the former UN Director of the NY Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, discusses his resignation and critiques the UN's failure to stop the genocide in Palestine. He highlights the political pressures that prevent the UN from acting on human rights violations, the role of Israeli lobbying groups, and the complicity of Western media in perpetuating a false narrative. Mokhiber emphasises the growing impunity of Israel and the moral failure of the West, while also expressing hope in the rising movements for justice and accountability.
Monday, October 14, 2024
The high price of protesting for Palestine
El Jones and Martin Lukacs discuss the worst and weirdest examples of the crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement in Canada over the past year—and how to understand why it has been so severe and widespread.
Should all Canadians subsidize anti-Palestinian media flak group?
Recently a formal complaint was submitted to the Canadian Revenue Agency requesting an audit of Honest Reporting Canada's charitable status. Michael Deforge of Writers Against the War on Gaza joined Talking Foreign Policy to discuss the anti-Palestinian lobby group's racism and efforts to intimidate journalists exposing Israeli violence.
Canada's $7.5-million Nazi Monument
Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese discusses the politics behind the long-delayed, wildly over-budget Victims of Communism Memorial.
Canada’s troubled Victims of Communism Memorial is back in the news.
It turns out that more than 330 of the 553 names slated to be inscribed on the Ottawa monument, which was first proposed by then-secretary of state for multiculturalism Jason Kenney in 2008, belong to outright Nazis and Nazi collaborators.
That’s three out of every five names
Alan Dershowitz THREATENS Protestors: ‘We Will Bankrupt You & Take Away Your Boomboxes’
Katie and TrueAnon podcast co-host Brace Belden discuss how Alan Dershowitz' "hurt a Jew, we sue you" campaign.
Yemen Exposes CIA’s Dark Agenda: Espionage, Homosexuality Blackmail, and Israel Normalization
In this groundbreaking investigation, MintPress News uncovers the covert operations of the largest CIA spy cell ever exposed in Yemen. Through exclusive access to top-secret documents, detainee confessions, and intelligence reports, we reveal how U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies manipulated Yemeni society using religious divisions, sexual blackmail, and propaganda.
The investigation details how the CIA and Mossad operated a vast spy network known as Force 400, aiming to promote homosexuality and normalize ties with Israel under the guise of humanitarian programs. These covert actions targeted Yemen’s strategic military defenses, leading to civilian casualties and exacerbating the country’s political unrest.
Watch as we dive deep into how U.S. and Israeli operatives used psychological warfare and coercion to achieve their geopolitical objectives, and explore the wider implications of these covert campaigns.
Related:
Inside Force 400: Spies and Sabotage in America’s Covert War on Yemen
Leaked: How MI6 Exploits Palestinian Refugees
Leaked files expose the intensive interest taken in Palestinians by British intelligence operatives, and Foreign Office-funded and directed cutouts, over many years. Collectively, the material leaves little room for doubt that the British government has long sought to covertly surveil, infiltrate, and manipulate Palestinians within and without their homeland for malign ends, while exploiting their suffering to serve London’s geopolitical objectives.
Throughout the Syrian proxy conflict, British intelligence ran expansive psychological warfare programs, targeting the local population and Western citizens. The objective was to destabilise Bashar Assad’s government and convince domestic and foreign audiences, including overseas governments and international bodies, that the Western-backed Free Syrian Army was a moderate, legitimate alternative and flood media globally with pro-opposition propaganda. A corrupt constellation of private contractors staffed by British military veterans and “former” spies delivered these clandestine campaigns.
Innovative Communications & Strategies (InCoStrat) was a particularly prolific participant in this effort. The firm was founded by Paul Tilley, Britain’s former Ministry of Defence head of communications for West Asia, and Emma Winberg, a longtime MI6 officer, who subsequently married now-deceased White Helmets founder James Lemesurier. The leaked documents reveal that in Syria, she was tasked with the “management and development” of a local “network of interlocutors, key leaders and local coordinators”:
“[This network is] able to assist in the development of messages and influence through word of mouth, in difficult to reach areas. The knowledge gained through these interactions will generate the contextual understanding that provides the foundation for our communication campaigns, our ability to assess their effect and to provide detailed atmospheric reports that inform HMG of the developing situation in Syria.”
Winberg is described as Britain’s “lead on engagement with the Syrian armed opposition in Istanbul” while serving as a Foreign Office “Political-Military Officer” in Turkey from 2013 onwards. She cultivated “an extensive range of contacts in north and eastern Syria,” and was reportedly “trusted and respected by moderate opposition leadership figures.” This may account for why InCoStrat avowedly “maintained a perfect record of safety and security for its staff” in the country, even while the company secretly operated in “areas under ISIS control.”
Winberg harvested so much crucial intelligence in this role, her resultant insights represented a “core contribution” to British, European and US understanding and assessment of armed groups in Syria. Intriguingly, she was transferred to Istanbul directly from the British consulate in Jerusalem, a vital regional base of operations for MI6. While there, she reported on “violent extremist organisations” active in Gaza, “including during Operation Cloud Pillar” in November 2012, for which she was “commended internally.”
Cloud Pillar saw Israeli Occupation Forces massacre almost 200 Palestinian civilians after assassinating high-ranking Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari. This was in keeping with MI6’s strategy to “degrade the capabilities” of “rejectionists” of the pro-Zionist Palestine Authority. Winberg’s close-range view of these events made her a compelling candidate for overseeing London’s contribution to the proxy war from the perspective of her employers in British intelligence. Moreover, she was not alone among InCoStrat operatives in secretly surveilling Palestinian resistance firsthand. (more...)
Leaked: How MI6 Exploits Palestinian Refugees
Sunday, October 13, 2024
Gaza Is a Laboratory for Future Warfare
Paris Marx is joined by Spencer Ackerman to discuss the past year of Israel's actions in Palestine and the innovations in war technology being used to carry out what the ICJ has deemed a "plausible" genocide in Gaza.
Spencer Ackerman is a Pulitzer-prize winning author of Reign of Terror. He’s a contributor at Zeteo and publishes the Forever Wars newsletter. He’s also writing a new series of Iron Man comics that come out very soon.
The No Arms in the Arts Book List
37 authors in possible contention for the $100,000 Giller prize withdrew their novels over the ties that the prize’s sponsors have to the Israeli military and occupation.
Thirty-seven authors with novels eligible for the $100,000 Giller Prize withdrew their books from the competition this year.
“As authors, we cannot abide our work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians,” reads a letter signed by the authors, part of the CanLit Responds campaign.
“As long as the Giller Foundation continues to receive funding from ANY sponsors who are directly invested in Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it will still be complicit in genocide.”
The lead sponsor, Scotiabank, remains a major investor in Israeli weapons-maker Elbit Systems, though it has reduced its stake under public pressure.
Bookstore giant Indigo, another sponsor, is owned by Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman who also run a charity, HESEG, that donates millions to scholarships for former Israeli lone soldiers.
And Giller sponsor the Azrieli Foundation draws much of its money from the Sonol chain of gas stations in the occupied West Bank.
Former nominees have come out in support of the campaign, along with three past winners: David Bergen (2005 winner for The Time in Between), Omar El Akkad (2021, Such Strange Paradise) and Sarah Bernstein (2023, Study for Obedience). (more...)
The No Arms in the Arts Book List
The Giller Prize and the ‘Indigo 11’
How Canada’s most prestigious literary prize is weaponizing its wealth and power against pro-Palestinian speech
Since October 7, 2023, the Toronto Police Service has made 92 arrests of demonstrators and organizers protesting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Police have acted against the many protests, sit-ins, occupations, visual interventions, picket lines and boycotts that have mobilized activists across a broad range of sectors. What is striking, however, is that 16 of those arrests (over 17 percent of the total number) have been focused on one sector in particular: the Canadian literary world.
On November 13, 2023, a broadcast of the Giller Prize gala was interrupted by protestors calling attention to lead sponsor Scotiabank’s investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. At the time, Scotiabank had $500 million invested in Elbit, making them the company’s largest foreign shareholder. Three people were arrested for their alleged involvement in the disruption that evening, and were criminally charged. A fourth arrest was made months later, and a fifth just over a week ago.
In the days that followed the gala, an open letter with more than 2,100 signatories from Canada’s literary community was penned demanding the charges against the protestors be dropped. The No Arms in the Arts campaign launched the following March, in dissent against the links between cultural institutions like the Giller and the companies fuelling and supporting the genocide, with an emphasis on Scotiabank. After months of obfuscation from the Giller Foundation, which funds and presents the annual award, nearly 40 authors pledged to boycott the prize altogether. Authors pulled their 2024 Giller-eligible fiction releases from consideration, and past winners and nominees refused to participate in any publicity around the prize going forward. According to the campaign, the boycott will end when the foundation drops all sponsors who are materially supporting the oppression of Palestinians. This includes Scotiabank, but also the Azrieli Foundation, the charitable wing of an Israeli real estate empire with past and present economic ties to illegal West Bank settlements, and Indigo Books.
The “Indigo 11” was the term given to individuals who, in the early hours of November 22, 2023, woke up to the Toronto Police violently raiding their homes. Some had their belongings tossed and their doors knocked off their hinges. Parents were handcuffed in front of their children. Their alleged crime was the postering of windows at an Indigo location in downtown Toronto. The flyers depicted Indigo CEO Heather Reisman’s face, and accused her of being complicit in the siege on Gaza. The charges—mischief, criminal harassment and conspiracy—were described by the police as “hate-motivated.” (more...)
The Giller Prize and the ‘Indigo 11’
Operation True Promise II
This episode of Palestine Declassified discusses Iran's response, i.e. Operation True Promise II, to repeated atrocities and provocations of the Israeli regime, which have horrified people in every corner of the world.
Iran Attacks Israel’s SECRET Nuclear Weapons Arsenal
Jordanian-Palestinian Journalist Sam Husseini talks about Israel, Iran, Israel’s nuclear weapons which nobody, including the squad, acknowledges, why he disagrees with John Mearsheimer, the Hannibal Directive, the Sampson Option and the real possibility of mass slaughter.
“A Republic if we can Phoenix it” - Bret Weinstein’s Tavistock Cure to Save the “Demented” West by Burning the Village to Save the Village
And How Eric Weinstein is in charge of lighting that Fire through a Manufactured Migration Crisis
“When children absorb the content of their culture, it isn’t just facts and skills, the most important things we pass between generations are myths; stories that are so powerfully important they are encoded in a special sacred layer. And in our case, the myth we need comes to us from the Greeks, the founders of the ancient West. The one from which the modern West ultimately emerged.
It is the story of the Phoenix.
A mystical bird that instead of making chicks lights its nest ablaze and raises anew from the ashes. Watching the modern West burn, I believe it is no accident that this story points us to a hidden solution, a remedy for which we just so happen to have the ingredients.
…
In 1787 Ben Franklin was asked if the constitutional convention had produced a monarchy or a republic and Franklin famously replied “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Today…What we must deliver is a Republic if we can Phoenix it.
… And so in closing I ask you to think about the job we must do to Phoenix our Republic…It is for such moments that the Hopi Elders tell us - we are the ones we have been waiting for.”
- Bret Weinstein’s closing of his speech at the Rescue the Republic event Sept. 29, 2024
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
- quote from an American Major during the Vietnam War, reported by journalist Peter Arnett
The shocking statement “A Republic if we can Phoenix it” was how Bret Weinstein decided to end his speech during the “Rescue the Republic” event in Washington DC this past Sept. 29, 2024 – followed by an unblinking audience who clapped and cheered loudly with clearly no understanding whatsoever of what Bret was in fact calling for.
Bret was prescribing a cure for the West’s “demented” “senility” - where death and destruction were the “hidden solution” and that we “just happen to have the ingredients” for. The ingredients for a crisis that is to see the West burn. And we have Bret’s brother Eric who has played a leading role in manufacturing the migrant crisis hitting the United States as we speak to thank for those very “ingredients”. But more on that later.
Let us first start with the relevance of Bret’s emphasis on the Phoenix as our myth, our story, that we now need to embrace in order to “save the Republic.” ...
The symbol of the Phoenix within the United States should already be well-known, in fact, it should be infamous. It was the symbol chosen by the CIA to represent Operation Phoenix that was executed during the Vietnam War.
This is how the phrase “burn the village to save the village” became known around the world. After all, the program was named after the Phoenix for that very reason. According to the myth, the Phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes after it dies in a blaze of fiery flames before being born again.
Weinstein adds that it can only create anew by lighting its nest on fire – for which he is clearly calling for the West to light itself on fire in order to “save itself.”
That is, the Phoenix can only achieve Birth through Destruction and thus, so must we, if we accept this as our creation myth. (more...)
Saturday, October 12, 2024
Britain’s Secret Defence Plan With Israel
The UK military devised a project to improve Israel’s capacity to confront Iran and Hezbollah, leaked files indicate.
The UK secretly developed a defence plan with Israel, Declassified can reveal.
According to leaked documents, the British project was codenamed HEZUK and designed to counter the “destabilising regional activity of Iran and Hizballah”.
This would be done by strengthening UK-Israel intelligence collaboration and increasing military cooperation, with the effect of deepening bilateral security integration.
Joint work on hypersonic missiles and autonomous warfare were also apparently considered during Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister.
The information comes from a presentation prepared by Britain’s defence attaché to Tel Aviv in 2020 for a visiting delegation from the UK’s Higher Command and Staff Course.
The slides indicate that Project HEZUK was inaugurated in 2019-20, while the Israeli military was gunning down peaceful protesters in Gaza during the Great March of Return.
Over 200 Palestinians – including 46 children – were killed as they tried to return to their ancestral homes, and over 36,000 were injured.
The UK government referenced HEZUK once again in March 2020 when two officers from the British army’s 77th brigade were planning to visit Israel for “capability development” on “information operations”.
A visitor request issued by the British embassy in Tel Aviv noted how the visit was “pertinent to… a programme or agreement” named “MOD project HEZUK”.
The defence plan was apparently still active as recently as last year, when British major general James Roddis visited Tel Aviv under “HEZUK” auspices. (more...)
Britain’s Secret Defence Plan With Israel
Al-Aqsa Flood
In this episode, Palestine Declassified looks at the consequences for the Zionist entity after its genocidal war against the Palestinians and Lebanese, which has turned the whole world population against it. After the al-Aqsa Flood Operation by Hamas, it looks increasingly like the beginning of the end for the Zionist project in Palestine.
Israeli Society in GENOCIDE FEVER, Backing Colonial Israel is the US’ No. 1 Policy
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Dr. Diana Buttu, Former Legal Advisor and Negotiator for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. She discusses what it has been like witnessing the Israeli reaction to the October 7th Anniversary from Ramallah and Israelis lack of recognition of anything they have done to Palestinians over the last year of genocide, Israel’s de facto designation of anyone opposing Israeli military rule as a ‘combatant’, whether Americans will recognise that the aid for Israel could pay for natural disaster responses and public services that they don’t have, the crackdown on pro-Palestine activists and free speech in the US’ university campuses, Israel’s glorification of the genocide against Palestinians in pop culture, the Israeli press’ role exposing the lies about October 7th while simultaneously cheering on genocide and Israel’s escalations, Western media’s role as stenographers parroting Israel’s propaganda rather than questioning Israeli atrocities, the harrowing accounts of torture and maltreatment she has heard from Palestinians who have been held hostage by the Israeli army, the ICC’s failure to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli officials and her conclusion that it is just a court to go after Vladimir Putin and African leaders, the need for accountability against Israeli soldiers who have committed these war crimes, Israel’s growing confidence about pursuing regime change across the region while simultaneously being surprised at the level of resistance after one year since the genocide started, why it makes no difference to Palestinians if Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is elected in November, the US’ number one policy being to keep the Israeli colonial entity in place, how long it will take for the sickness of supremacist Israeli Zionism to be removed, and much more.
What’s Britain Doing in Lebanon?
As Israel bombards Beirut, we take a look at Britain’s military role in Lebanon.
In his first public speech as chief of MI6 in 2021, Sir Richard Moore said his intelligence agency was “actively focused on Iran”.
This was part of what he described as a “dramatic change in the security landscape” in which there was “a growing threat from state actors”.
But alongside Iran, Russia and China as the UK’s demons, he also identified Iran-backed Hezbollah as “a state within a state, contributing directly to state weakness and political turmoil in Lebanon”.
Countering Hezbollah has long preoccupied British planners. The UK has for years pumped money into the Lebanese military to build it up as an alternative national security force to its Iran-backed rival.
Labour ministers, who backed Israel’s assault on Gaza, are now urgently calling for a ceasefire amid the invasion of Lebanon, which could spark a still wider conflagration.
The UK government dispatched 700 troops to Cyprus, ostensibly to prepare for an evacuation of around 10,000 British nationals in Lebanon, with the SAS apparently already on the ground.
Yet Britain’s military was in Lebanon years before Israel’s invasion. So what’s it been doing there, and why? (more...)
What’s Britain Doing in Lebanon?
Friday, October 11, 2024
Introduction to Psychopaths and Ponerology
Doctor Andrew Lobaczewski, a Polish psychiatrist, wrote the ground-breaking book Political Ponerology, exposing the psychopathic personality that is so common in the political, institutional and media spheres. In his book he breaks down some of the techniques used by psychopaths, such as ‘reversive blockades’ (big lies), ‘projection’ (ascribing one’s own negative qualities, actions, or intentions to others), ‘paralogisms’ (logical-sounding but wrong statements), ‘paramoralisms’ (inversions of common morality meant to appeal to our innate moral sensibilities), ‘eliciting maladaptive responses’, and using ‘pathological egotism’ to terrorize and coerce. These all share something in common: they are designed to deceive and to influence others to do something they otherwise wouldn’t do.
The Hidden Dangers Of The Rainbow w/ Constance Cumbey
Courtenay Turner & special guest-host John Klyczek are joined by the legendary author of The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow & Planned Deception, Constance Cumbey for a trip down memory lane, unveiling how she came to discover the deceptive veil of the New Age movement.
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