Zionist

Facebook Is Collaborating With the Israeli Government to Determine What Should Be Censored

Last week a major censorship controversy erupted when Facebook began deleting all posts containing the iconic photograph of the Vietnamese “Napalm Girl” on the ground that it violated the company’s ban on “child nudity.” Facebook even deleted a post from the prime minister of Norway, who posted the photograph in protest of the censorship. As outrage spread, Facebook ultimately reversed itself — acknowledging “the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time” — but this episode illustrated many of the dangers I’ve previously highlighted in having private tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google become the arbiters of what we can and cannot see.

Having just resolved that censorship effort, Facebook seems to be vigorously courting another. The Associated Press reports today from Jerusalem that “the Israeli government and Facebook have agreed to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network.” These meetings are taking place “as the government pushes ahead with legislative steps meant to force social networks to rein in content that Israel says incites violence.” In other words, Israel is about to legislatively force Facebook to censor content deemed by Israeli officials to be improper, and Facebook appears eager to appease those threats by working directly with the Israeli government to determine what content should be censored. (more…)

Remember the Golan Heights

During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Syrian forces had surprised Israel and were fast approaching the edge of the steep Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 war. It seemed as if Syrian armour and infantry would retake Golan, then pour down into Israeli Galilee.

Soviet recon satellites observed Israel moving its nuclear-armed, 500 kilometre-range Jericho missiles out of protective caves and onto their launch pads. At the same time, Israel was seen loading nuclear bombs on their US-supplied F-4 fighter-bombers at Tel Nof airbase.

Believing Israel was about to use nuclear weapons against Syria and Egypt, Moscow put huge pressure on both to rein in their advancing forces. Damascus, already in range of Israeli artillery on Golan, ordered its armoured forces on Golan to halt, allowing Israel to mount powerful counter-attacks and retake the strategic heights.

In 1981, Israel formally annexed the 580 square mile portion of Golan that it occupied. This illegal annexation was condemned by the United Nations, the United States and Europe’ powers. But Israel held on to Golan and implanted 50,000 there in some 41 subsidised settlements.

The world has pretty much forgotten how close it came to nuclear war in 1973 over Golan. The heights became a primary nuclear trigger point along with Kashmir, Germany’s Fulda Gap, and the DMZ, Korea’s inner border.

Golan recently resurfaced in the news when Israel’s rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, that his nation would never return Golan to Syria. In a speech soon after, Netanyahu vowed Israel would hold on to Golan for “all eternity.” He also admitted for the first time that Israel had made “dozens” of cross-border attacks on Syria.

The long basalt plateau is indeed a valuable prize. It extends from snow-capped, 2,814 metre Mount Hermon in the north to the Sea of Galilee and Yarmouk River in the south. Golan supplies 15 percent of Israel’s scarce water and may contain gas or petroleum deposits.

Israeli artillery on Golan can hit Syria’s capitol Damascus; Israeli electronic sensors blanket Damascus and cover all Syrian military movement below. Having walked much of the Golan on both Syrian and Israeli-held sides, I can attest to its remarkable military importance and thick defences.

After the 1967 war, Israel ethnically cleansed Golan, levelling the capital, Kuneitra, with bulldozers and expelled almost all Golan’s 130,000 Druze and Arab inhabitants. Jewish settlers were brought in to replace them. The US shielded Israel from UN action and world-wide protests.

Before 2011, Israel hinted that it would return Golan to Syria as part of a comprehensive peace agreement – provided Damascus ceased supporting Palestinian claims to their lost lands. But once the Syrian civil war conveniently began, there was no more talk of Golan.

In fact, it’s pretty much clear that Israel has been quietly fuelling the Syrian conflict by discreet arms and logistics support to so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels and lobbying for the war in Washington and with the US media. Netanyahu has even said – with a straight face – that Israel cannot return Golan or even negotiate, until calm returns to Syria and Iraq.

Netanyahu is clearly following the grand strategy of the founder of his rightwing Likud Party, Zeev Jabotinsky, a militant Russian Zionist. Jabotinsky asserted that the Arab states were an artificial, fragile mosaic of inimical Arab tribes.

Hit them hard enough, claimed Jabotinsky, and they will shatter into small pieces, leaving Israel master of the Levant (central Arab world). The destruction of Iraq and Syria have confirmed Jabotinsky’s theory.

Accordingly, Israel is delighted to see Syria, a primary foe, lying in ruins as a result of a US, British, French, Turkish and Saudi-instigated civil war. Damascus is in no shape to demand the return of Golan, and the rest of the world does not care.

The destruction of Syria as a unitary state offers the expansionist Likud government many opportunities to extend influence into Syria – as was the case in Lebanon during its bloody 1975-1990 civil war. Or even carve off more Syrian territory “to protect Israel’s security”.

The words of Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, still resonate: the state of Israel is a work in progress and its borders should not be fixed or even defined. Notably the borders with Syria and Jordan.

Source: http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2016/1729/14-remember-the-golan-heights.html

Image Source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-Al-Qaida-and-Iranian-terror-are-on-the-border-but-war-headlines-are-a-stretch-412341

Israel Bombs Gaza in Third Day of Violence

Israeli airstrikes have hit a Hamas facility on the third day of violence in the Gaza Strip, as the movement warns it is not seeking war, but will fight incursions.

A Hamas facility was struck by Israeli missiles on Friday, as violence continued for the third day in the Gaza Strip.

Two sets of air raids bombarded the besieged enclave, with missiles landing in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza and the second in Khuzaa, in the south of the territory, Palestinian witnesses confirmed.

An Israeli military statement suggested the “Hamas terror infrastructure” was struck in response to “ongoing attacks” against its forces.

But Hamas claimed it was not seeking war with Israel, however it was merely defending Palestinian territory from the intrusion of Israeli troops.

“We are not calling for a new war, but we will not under any circumstance accept these incursions,” Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Gaza leader said on Friday, adding that Israeli forces had entered “150 to 199 metres (yards)” into the Gaza Strip “under the pretext of searching for tunnels”.

“We sent multiple messages that the resistance will not allow the Israelioccupation army to impose new rules within the borders of the Gaza Strip,” he added.

No casualties were reported on Friday, however a woman was killed just a day earlier when Israeli tanks shelled her home in Gaza.

Late on Thursday afternoon, tank shelling killed Zeina al-Amour, 54. A 21-year-old was also wounded in artillery shelling in the area.

The shelling came after a night in which Israeli air raids on Gaza wounded four people, three of them children, medical and security officials said.

The violence erupted on Wednesday when Israeli forces and heavy military vehicles encroached into the Gaza Strip, prompting Palestinian factions to open fire to push them back.

Israel says its soldiers were searching for tunnels used by Hamas, while Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas figure, said the incursion is an attempt to cement a new border, more than 150 metres from the existing line.

Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement on Wednesday condemning the military incursion inside the Gaza Strip.

“The enemy should not invoke any reason whatsoever for its actions and leave the Gaza Strip immediately,” the statement read.

The Qassam Brigades added that Israeli military action marked a breach of the 2014 ceasefire agreed after Israel’s offensive on the enclave two years ago.

Hamas sources told The New Arab that Egyptian and international mediations have led to a deal under which the Israeli army would withdraw from areas on the eastern Gaza border in exchange for a renewed ceasefire.

However, Israeli General Yoav Mordechai denied reports about a ceasefire agreement between the sides.

“The army intends to maintain its activities against Hamas as it continues to breach Israeli sovereignty and build tunnels,” he said in a statement.

Gaza has been devastated by three Israeli wars on the embattled territory since 2008, with virtually no reconstruction amid an Israeli blockade on all imports that could have a “military purposes”.

The last major Israeli onslaught on Gaza was the 51-day war in the summer of 2014, which killed more than 2,251 Palestinians and 73 Israelis, according to the United Nations.

Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-bombards-gaza-in-third-day-of-violence/5523994

Image Source: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2016/5/6/israel-bombards-gaza-in-third-day-of-violence

The Remains of Hundreds of Palestinians found in Tel Aviv

Six mass graves features the remains of dozens of Palestinians killed during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948, when the Jewish state was founded have been uncovered in the Jaffa district of Tel Aviv.

An official at the Muslim cemetery there told AFP that the grisly find happened on Wednesday when ground subsided as builders carried out renovation work.

In 1948 Jaffa was a Palestinian town but there was an exodus of most of its Arab population when it fell to the fledgling Israeli army and right-wing Jewish militias.

Researcher and historian Mahmoud Obeid, a Jaffa resident, told As-Safri newspaper: ‘We discovered six mass graves, two of which we dug up. Our estimate is that they contain around 200 bodies, with an unknown additional number in the other graves.

‘The remains belong to people of different ages, including women, children and the elderly, some of which bear signs of violence.’

A local fisherman Atar Zeinab, 80, said that as a teenager during the final months of fighting in 1948 he helped to collect the Arab dead in the area south of Jaffa.

They were then brought for a quick burial in the cemetery, the area’s main graveyard.

‘I carried to the cemetery 60 bodies during a period of three or four months,’ he told AFP. ‘We used to find the people in the street and most of the time we didn’t know who they were.’

He said that the danger of being hit by flying bullets or grenade fragments was such that bodies were dumped one on top of the other in existing family crypts in the cemetery, contrary to Muslim custom.

‘We carried them early in the morning or in the night. We put women, children and men in the same place… nobody prayed for these people.

In 1950 Jaffa was incorporated into Tel Aviv, and was renamed Tel Aviv-Jaffa. It now a mixed Arab and Jewish population.

Around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in the Israeli-Arab war of 1948.

 

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334205/Mass-grave-uncovered-containing-dozens-Palestinians-killed-1948-war-founded-Israel.html

Image Source: Same as source

Trudeau’s shameful BDS stand gives carte blanche to Israel

Here’s a Middle East multiple choice question for you (warning: one of these will get you condemned by the government of Justin Trudeau).

Would you rather that the Palestinian people 1) once again take up armed struggle in order to end Israeli occupation of their land or 2) pursue a non-violent strategy of Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) until such time as Israel recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people?

Advocating a return to the use of violence against Israel may or may not get you condemned by the prime minister. But it is definitely not OK to advocate for the non-violent BDS campaign. This was made clear by the government’s support of a Conservative resolution opposing the campaign “which promotes the demonization and de-legitimization of the State of Israel,” and called upon the government “to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”

This is a sickening violation of Canadians’ basic rights enshrined by Justin’s father 35 years ago. As the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair (who once described himself as an “ardent supporter of Israel”) said, the resolution “makes it a thought crime to express an opinion.” The NDP and the Bloc, joined by three Liberals, voted against the resolution.

Lockstep with the Israel lobby

That the Liberal government is so in alignment with Israel lobby groups raises a number of questions: Just who actually makes Canadian policy towards Israel? Did Trudeau think this through at all – such as, is this in Canada’s interests? But perhaps more to the point, is it even in Israel’s interests? Does the Trudeau government have some brilliant ideas about how to get Israel to the bargaining table? Or does it believe the current situation doesn’t need resolving? It smacks of political cowardice. It’s as if Stephen Harper still rules the day on this critical foreign policy issue. Indeed the resolution reflects Harper’s declaration that criticism of Israel’s government is the “new anti-Semitism.”

We are left to wonder whether the Trudeau government can imagine any action by Israel that would cause it to “condemn” its government rather than its critics. And to wonder whether it seeks to further polarize the region or help cooler heads prevail. Giving carte blanche to the actions of Israel’s increasingly extremist government simply reinforces its determination to never negotiate and to keep pushing the envelope, whether it’s building new settlements or slaughtering civilians in Gaza. Against that prospect, how many parliamentarians have even the slightest clue what the Palestinians are seeking through the BDS campaign? Do they know its origins?

As stated by movement leaders, Israel must:

End its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall; Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
This latter demand is hotly rejected by Israel even though Jews from literally anywhere in the world have, through the 1950 Law of Return (to Israel and now the occupied territories) the same right.

The roots of BDS

The BDS campaign (which boycotts only goods made in the occupied territory) was inspired by the successful boycott and sanctions campaign that finally brought an end to South African apartheid – a campaign, incidentally, given a major boost by none other than then prime minister Brian Mulroney. The BDS campaign was launched in 2005 by 170 Palestinian civil society groups representing virtually every sector of Palestinian society “including all political parties, unions, refugee networks, NGOs, and organizations representing Palestinians living under occupation, in Israel, and in exile.” The decision was rooted firmly in a commitment to non-violence and in international law regarding the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

Israel’s occupation is routinely compared to apartheid by Israelis – and not just critics of the government. Michael Ben-Yair, Israel’s attorney general from 1993 to 1996, wrote:

We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories …. We developed two judicial systems: one – progressive, liberal in Israel. The other – cruel, injurious in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture.

Other senior Israeli political figures agreed. Shulamit Aloni, education minister under Yitzhak Rabin, and former prime minister Ehud Barak both made the comparison. Ehud Olmert, another former PM, declared: “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights…the State of Israel is finished.” With the two-state solution on life-support – and no pressure on Israel from the West to revive it – the situation so feared by Olmert is arguably already here.

In fact, the BDS campaign may be Israel’s best hope to avoid Ehud Olmert’s nightmare. Perhaps that is why Israel’s extremist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is so determined to fight BDS. In a 2014 speech to the powerful pro-Israeli U.S. lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he referred to the BDS campaign 18 times, calling on American Zionists to “fight back” against BDS advocates.

Waning support for Israel

The BDS campaign might not worry Netanyahu so much if it weren’t for the fact that Israel now ranks near the bottom of the pile when it comes to world opinion. A BBC poll in 2013 interviewed more than 26,000 people in 25 countries and found only 21 per cent of participants had a positive view of Israel, while 52 per cent viewed the country unfavourably. Only Iran, Pakistan and North Korea fared worse. In just the last year, the percentage of Americans viewing Israel favourably dropped dramatically from 70 per cent to 59 per cent while positive attitudes towards Palestinians jumped from 17 per cent to 24 per cent.

Justin Trudeau and his government could not be more mistaken if they believe they are doing Israel a favour by supporting the repugnant Conservative thought crime resolution. Every time a Western government turns a blind eye to Israeli apartheid it reinforces that system by signalling to Netanyahu that he can do whatever he pleases.

By steadfastly denying the apartheid reality in Israel, successive Canadian governments in fact betray the long-term of interests of that country – not to mention, of course, those of millions of Palestinians.

Support BDS – Condemn Israeli Apartheid!

The Communist Party of Canada condemns the February 22 vote in Parliament, in which the Liberals and Conservatives joined forces to pass a shameful motion denouncing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel’s apartheid policies. The motion also condemns anyone in Canada who supports or promotes BDS. The Communist Party reaffirms its longstanding and unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine, its condemnation of Israeli apartheid, and its support for the BDS campaign in Canada and internationally.

The BDS campaign began in 2005, in response to a call from 171 Palestinian groups for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. A similar campaign emerged in the 1980s, as a way to isolate and pressure apartheid South Africa. Both campaigns cited violations of United Nations’ resolutions and international law as part of their legal and moral justification.

The objectives of the BDS campaign are straightforward, just and entirely based on international law:

• Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the separation Wall;
• Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
• Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

Just as Parliament’s motion condemns BDS activists, people who acted in solidarity with opponents of the racist South African regime were denounced as “terrorist supporters” by right-wing politicians. Parliament’s vote is a disgraceful attempt to silence the growing BDS movement through slander and political intimidation. It is an act of desperation that will fail, just the racist attempts to derail the struggle against South African apartheid failed.

The fact that most Liberal MPs supported this Tory motion proves that the Trudeau government cannot be judged on the basis of its progressive campaign promises. The working class and people of Canada must hold the Liberals to account as they “govern from the right.”

This includes international issues such as the expanding war in Iraq and Syria, the sale of weaponized vehicles to Saudi Arabia, and support for regimes in Ukraine and Israel which trample on human rights. It is encouraging that the NDP and Bloc Quebecois caucuses voted against the motion, on the basis that it violates the rights to free speech and expression. However, it is shameful that NDP MPs also attacked the BDS movement during the Commons debate, revealing yet again that party’s racist opposition to criticism of apartheid Israel.

The Communist Party rejects the right-wing charge that the BDS campaign is a form of antisemitism. Opposition to Israeli apartheid is focused firmly and solely on the policies of the Israeli government, not on the ethnicity or nationality of those who perpetrate those policies. The Communist Party condemns antisemitism, racism, national chauvinism and all forms of oppression. It is our ongoing commitments to ending oppression and achieving national equality that guide our solidarity with Palestine and our support for the BDS campaign.

The strongest response is to build the BDS campaign across Canada. We congratulate the students at McGill University who also voted on February 22, to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel’s apartheid policies. The February 22 vote was preceded by heavy criticism and opposition from peace, human rights, labour and progressive activists across the country. These groups organized several campaigns that included petitions, letter writing, online actions, and joint statements. In Quebec, a coalition including BDS Quebec, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the FTQ (QFL) and CSN (CNTU) unions publicly called for the Liberal government to reject the Tory motion.

These and other acts of solidarity, in defiance of Parliament’s racist motion, are the basis for a more powerful BDS movement, capable of winning more victories in Canada and internationally.

Palestine will be free!

Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
March 1, 2016

Source: http://communist-party.ca/statement/2073#more-2073
Image Source: http://southsidepride.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/palestine_land_map.jpg

Black Lives Don’t Matter in Israel

If you want to observe a racist lynch mob, go to Israel, the “world’s worst apartheid state.” After being shot by police, an innocent Eritrean immigrant was pursued by an Israeli mob that “kicked him, threw chairs and benches at his head and shouted ‘son of a whore,’ ‘break his head’ and more to the point, ‘Kill him!’” But of course, no one will be punished, and the U.S. Black Misleadership Class will say nothing.

“Israel’s untouchability is bought and paid for by its American supporters.”

The United States does not have a monopoly on the lynch law murder of black people. Israel, both America’s client state and master, is awash in racist state-sponsored violence. Palestinians are usually the intended targets, but Africans are inevitably caught in this terrorism too. The mob murder of Mulu Habtom Zerhom reveals everything that the world needs to know about Israeli apartheid and the settler mentality which it exemplifies.

Zerhom was an Eritrean asylum seeker living in Israel, confined to one of the camps used to hold Africans. He was at a bus station where a Bedouin man shot an Israeli soldier. Zerhom was trying to flee but was himself shot by the police. Video footage shows him lying bleeding and incapacitated as a mob of Israelis kicked him, threw chairs and benches at his head and shouted “son of a whore,” “break his head” and more to the point, “Kill him!”

News reports say that Zerhom was mistaken for a terrorist but the truth is simpler. Like his American counterparts the policeman lies about Zerhom attacking him. Another video shows Zerhom on all fours, trying to get away from the chaos. The killer cop knows the routine about shooting black people. Just claim to feel endangered and all is right with the world. He may have thought that Zerhom killed the soldier or he may have instinctively reacted the way so many white people do when they see a black face.

Israel is the world’s worst apartheid state. The Palestinian population is physically separated from the Jewish settler community, they are subjected to arbitrary arrest, abuse and outright murder. When they attempt to resist their oppression they are met with a brutal response. Actually they don’t have to resist, they only have to exist and they can be burned to death in their homes or shot by police who plant evidence on their dead bodies.

The Palestinian people are victims of Israeli violence on a daily basis. They risk police brutality, theft of their land, the destruction of their homes and of course murder. While the IDF and Israeli police perfect the art of brutalizing occupied people, their American counterparts arrive like pilgrims, learning how better to subjugate their own population.

“The killer cop knows the routine about shooting black people.”

Israel would not exist at all without America’s direct intervention in 1948. Its continued existence is the result of American acquiescence and genuflection to what is technically a client state. But in a strange role reversal politicians from presidents down to local city council members regularly travel to Israel in hopes of receiving political patronage from Zionists in this country.

This hold on the political system is so complete, so entrenched, that no one dares to fight against it. Members of congress who buck this system immediately pay a price and face well-funded opponents. Americans who want to advocate against the continued financial and military support of this monstrous system are left with nowhere to turn. Israel’s untouchability is bought and paid for by its American supporters. Zarhom was killed on camera but not one politician in New York or Washington has spoken a word of protest.

Prime minister Netanyahu blandly warned against citizens taking the law into their own hands, but no one has been arrested for a crime committed on camera. It shouldn’t be too hard to find people clearly photographed especially when two of them gave interviews to the media. One identified himself as Dudu and claimed to feel remorse. “If I would have known he wasn’t a terrorist, believe me, I would have protected him like I protect myself. I didn’t sleep well at night. I feel disgusted.” Another man named Meir Saka admitted to being an accessory to the crime. “I was guarding over him with a chair to make sure he wouldn’t move . . . and then I heard gunshots and I realized he wasn’t even a terrorist. There was this atmosphere; everyone who came in, it didn’t matter who was there, boom, kicked him.” In other words, “My bad.”

The black misleaders say nothing about Israel. Israel may bomb Gaza into oblivion, kill children playing football on a beach, or use them as human shields. The obvious violations of human rights never merited condemnation. There is no reason to believe these same lackeys will speak up for Zerhom either.

In 2014 much media coverage was given to basketball team owner Donald Sterling when his racist remarks were revealed to the public. Hardly anyone remembers what he said about Israel. “You go to Israel, the blacks are treated just like dogs.” Sterling hit the nail squarely on the head with that statement. Israel is an American occupier state in miniature with an indigenous population and immigrants who are treated like criminals. The two countries have more in common than the Zionist boosters want to admit.

Source: Global Research

Rightist Extremists Torch Revered Christian Site in Northern Israel

From the Communist Party of Israel

An arson attack caused extensive damage to the interior and exterior of the Church of Loaves and Fishes on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel on Thursday, June 18. The church, which Christians believe is where Jesus performed the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fishes, is situated on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and is a traditional site of Christian pilgrimage in the Holy Land. Father Matthias Karl, a German monk from the church, said a souvenir shop, an office for pilgrims and a meeting room were badly damaged, and bibles and prayer books were destroyed in the fire. “It’s totally destroyed. The fire was very active,” he told journalists.

Firefighting crews successfully extinguished the blaze and two people who were in the building suffered minor smoke inhalation. No significant damage was caused to the church itself, as the fire raged mainly on the roof. A verse from a Jewish prayer denouncing the worship of “false gods” was spray-painted in red on a church wall, suggesting that Jewish extreme-right extremists were responsible. The Hebrew graffiti was found, reading, “The false gods will be eliminated” — a quote from the Aleinu prayer.

In a statement released by the leader of the Joint List, MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash) strongly condemned the arson of the historic Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha, saying: “This deplorable act is not an isolated incident; it is part of a prevalent culture of hate, and an expression of an ongoing pattern of extremism, violence and impunity from the right-wing government of Israel.”

(more…)

Correcting the Zionist Narrative of Israel

From CounterPunch

The Zionist narrative exists to justify the existence of the state of Israel. It is the narrative that dominates the perspectives of the US and Canadian governments as well as the mainstream media in North America. This narrative accepts as its starting point the right of a Jewish state to exist based on the fact that Jews lived in the biblical lands 2,000 years ago and that these lands belong to God’s chosen people: the Jews. But does this narrative reflect the truth? Or is it self-serving propaganda? After all, given this starting point, the inevitable outcome of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine was the ‘cleansing’ of the existing Arab population in that region because a Jewish majority was required to make a Jewish state viable.

Prior to the emergence of the Zionist movement in Europe in the late 1800s, the Jewish population in Palestine had remained steady at about four percent for centuries. And by all accounts the Jews lived in relative harmony with the Muslim majority as well as with Christians and the Druze. But European Zionists began urging European Jews to ‘return’ to the Holy Land with the objective of establishing a Jewish state.

In the Zionist revision of history, the Palestinians suddenly and irrationally began attacking the Jewish population in Palestine between 1920 and 1947, while Jews were simply defending themselves. But most of the Jews in Palestine by 1920 were not the Jews who had been living there for centuries; the overwhelming majority were European Zionists who had recently migrated and whose primary objective was to establish a Jewish state.

(more…)

U.S. Defense Secretary: We Might Bomb Iran Even If a Peace Agreement Is Signed

From Global Research

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that a deal with Iran wouldn’t necessarily prevent war.

Military.com reports:

The U.S. will reserve the right to use military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon even if a deal is reached Iran’s nuclear program, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday.

“The military option certainly will remain on the table,” Carter said as negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland, struggled to reach an agreement ahead of a March 31 deadline.

“One of my jobs is to make sure all options are on the table,’ Carter said in remarks at Syracuse University and earlier on NBC’s “Today” program.

We thought that Iran getting nuclear weapons was the main reason we were thinking of bombing them. So if a peace deal is signed with the U.S., why are we still talking about bombing them?

What’s going on?

In reality, top American and Israeli military and intelligence officials say that Iran poses no danger.

But the hawks have desperately been trying to stir up war with Iran for decades, as part of a 65-year program of regime change all over the world carried out by the U.S.

And the U.S. has inserted itself smack dab in the middle of a religious war … and is backing the most violent side. And see this.

The American people want peace, but the military-industrial complex wants war.