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Trade between India and Russia exceeded $50 billion this year, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, setting a new record by an astronomical amount. It comes as the South Asian and Eurasian Giants deepen their ties despite major attempts by Washington to prevent this.
“There is an X factor when it comes to the relationship between India and Russia, which has remained good and has enhanced to a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. I signed an agreement along with DPM Manturov for future units of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu. The bilateral trade between India and Russia can increase from the present $50 billion to $100 billion in the next few years,” said Jaishankar, while interacting with the Indian diaspora in Moscow on December 26 as part of his five-day visit and after explaining that trade exchange with Russia was previously between $12 billion and $14 billion.
“Our relationship with Russia has been stable over the past many decades as the leadership has taken care to nurture it, and there are strong people-to-people connections between our two nations. We support Russia for their BRICS Presidency and will continue to be their partner,” India’s top diplomat added.
He also indicated that India and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – made up of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan – will begin negotiations on a free trade agreement at the beginning of 2024. Both countries already prepared a draft trade agreement in March 2020, but its consideration was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fact that Jaishankar visited Moscow in the last week of the year to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and with the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov among others, demonstrates the importance that India places with its relationship with Russia, something to the immense frustration of the US.
The Biden administration has told foreign governments, including India, that now is not the time for “business as usual” with Russia, as the US President makes no secret of his efforts to try to isolate Moscow. Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, the Biden administration has been trying to disrupt Russia’s economy through sanctions and export control measures, which created hurdles in India’s trade ties with the country. Both countries have acknowledged that billions of dollars of payments are stuck in banks due to difficulties in transferring payments created by the sanctions.
New Delhi has also expressed serious concern about the West’s import restrictions on Russian diamonds. Russia and India complement each other in the diamond industry, with the former being the largest producer globally while the latter is the world’s top exporter of polished diamonds.
It is recalled that the Indian Air Force (IAF) admitted to a committee of the Indian Parliament earlier this year that Russian defence exports to India have been delayed due to Western sanctions on the Russian military-industrial complex.
Russia and India signed in December 2021 the “Agreement on Military Technical Cooperation Program” for 2021-2031, which provides for the licensed production of T-90 tanks and Su-30 MKI fighter jets, along with the sale of S-400 systems. According to New Delhi’s aims of achieving self-reliance in defence production, Russia assists India in establishing manufacturing facilities for AK-203 rifles and BrahMos missiles, contributing to the fact that Russia is India’s largest supplier of arms.
Nonetheless, despite the difficulties created by the sanctions, New Delhi has shown Western powers that it will not shy away from Russia and instead will rapidly deepen trade relations. Due to this, Washington is forced now to show a greater understanding of India-Russia ties, which was spurred on mostly by the West’s favouritism towards Pakistan and financing of regional jihadi groups during the Cold War.
The success of Jaishankar’s visit to Moscow will ultimately be judged on the outcome of the meetings, such as whether a significant deal will be signed between Russia and India, which can be seen as a breakthrough. Although energy trade appears to be replacing defence as the key pillar of New Delhi-Moscow relations, evidenced by the fact that Russia is now the largest supplier of crude oil to India, it does not diminish security as a major concern, including financial security, especially in the face of US pressure. Yet, even a breakthrough deal is unlikely to garner major public backlash in the West as they now understand that they cannot deter the growing relations between India and Russia, meaning it will only be a matter of time until $50 billion worth of trade becomes $100 billion.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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[Our thanks to Al Jazeera for this article.]
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It has been four days since Gaza’s smallest refugee camp was pounded in yet another series of Israeli air strikes, but Palestinians there are still digging up the bodies of their loved ones from under the rubble.
The onslaught in central Gaza’s Maghazi late on Sunday killed at least 90 people, including children and many who were internally displaced.
In one of the deadliest attacks on the Gaza Strip since Israel launched a war on the enclave on October 7, residents including Ashraf al-Haj Ahmed said the assault happened “suddenly” and without prior warning.
“At around 11:30pm that night, we witnessed a series of large explosions that shook the entire camp,” al-Haj Ahmed told Al Jazeera.
At least three homes were completely destroyed [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
His relative’s home was among those that were flattened to the ground. Al-Haj Ahmed recalled running towards it as soon as the bombardment woke him up, just a few blocks down.
At the scene of the attack, he found a four-storey building destroyed “on top of those who were living in it”.
“There must have been around 40 people, among them are the owners of the house, as well as displaced families who were taken in,” he said.
At least three houses in the overcrowded camp were hit by Israeli air strikes. Officials in Gaza said seven families were among the casualties.
While the official number of those who were killed stands at 90, residents of the camp near Deir el-Balah say in reality, the figure is much higher as entire residential blocks were wiped out.
“In each home, there’s a minimum of 50 people,” another Maghazi resident told Al Jazeera. “A lot of them are displaced Palestinians from other parts of Gaza who were forced to flee their homes.”
Israel’s attacks have not spared homes and shelters that displaced people have fled to [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
The camp normally houses 30,000 people, according to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA). But with the displacement of Palestinians fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment in other parts of the enclave, the number of people there has risen to an estimated 100,000.
“We pulled out so many body parts that we can’t even estimate the total number of deaths yet,” the second resident said.
“They’re all in pieces, and we’re pulling them out with our bare hands,” he added. “We’ve now gathered at least two piles of body parts.”
‘Dark and Painful Night’
Israel’s attacks have not spared homes and shelters that people have fled to.
Despite being on the southern side of the Strip, an area that Israeli forces deemed “safe” and ordered civilians from the north to flee ahead of their ground offensive, Maghazi has been subjected to intense artillery and air raids.
It was also attacked last month when at least 50 Palestinians were killed. The vicinity of the camp was also subjected to intense Israeli shelling over the last week.
Abu Rami Abu al-Ais is among those who have been sheltering in Maghazi ever since he left his home in the al-Zahra neighbourhood. He said Sunday’s attack was not the first time he and his family members had been hit.
“We had a home in al-Zahra, which came under attack. After coming here, the house we were staying in was bombed again,” al-Ais, whose daughter is badly injured, told Al Jazeera.
More than 21,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
He echoed al-Haj Ahmed’s experience and said there had been “no warnings whatsoever” prior to the strikes.
Al-Ais said in previous assaults on the enclave, Israeli forces would sometimes warn residents of a building to evacuate a few minutes before an attack, either by throwing leaflets or via speakerphones. But during this offensive, there had been no such warnings.
“The rockets fall on the heads of innocent people sleeping in their homes,” he said. “They [Israel] want to commit a complete genocide.”
Al-Ais said people are still collecting the remains of their friends, neighbours and relatives with their bare hands.
“We found the remains of women and children who were blown up. Their body parts have been scattered over a span of about three blocks,” due to the intensity of the strikes, al-Ais said.
“It was a very dark and painful night for Maghazi,” he recalled. “The widespread and sheer destruction is indescribable.”
Residents of Maghazi refugee camp have called for an urgent ceasefire [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Infrastructure, such as roads leading to the camp, were also destroyed.
Al-Ais said there are no excavators that can help speed up the process of recovering people from under the blocks of concrete.
The lack of much-needed fuel to operate bulldozers and vehicles means that – just like civil defence teams in Gaza – residents are digging with only their bare hands to try and pull out as many victims from under the rubble as they can.
Israel has blocked the entry of fuel since it imposed a total siege on the already blockaded Strip at the start of the war, and has only allowed a very small amount of aid in through the Rafah border crossing.
“We don’t need food, we don’t need water, we don’t need coffins,” al-Ais said. “What we need is a ceasefire and for this war to end.”
Al-Haj Ahmed, agreed. “Shame on the Arab world. We don’t just need aid, we need you here personally. Come and stand with your brothers,” he said.
Attacks on refugee camps and civilian infrastructure have become common since October 7. The Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has been targeted several times, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.
Civilian infrastructure – including schools, hospitals, ambulance vehicles, and places of worship – has also been subjected to bombardment.
More than 21,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, while nearly 1.9 million – more than 80 percent of the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza – have been displaced.
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Featured image: At least 90 Palestinians were killed in Sunday’s attack on the Maghazi refugee camp [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
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US Vice President Kamala Harris has the lowest approval rating of any vice president in their first term since 1990. According to the latest polls, the ratings of vice presidents are linked to the presidents. If proven true, this will be disastrous for Harris since Joe Biden is currently less popular than Donald Trump.
According to the American poll-focused blog FiveThirtyEight, Harris’ approval rating fell from 41.7% to 36.3% from January 1 to December 5. A poll by the Los Angeles Times found that as of December 18, only 39% of registered voters had a favourable opinion of Harris, and 55% had an unfavourable opinion, a net rating of -16 percentage points. These results show that Harris is less popular among voters than US President Joe Biden, a head of state with historic unpopularity. Furthermore, the current vice president’s approval rating is lower than what Mike Pence, Dick Cheney and Al Gore had during their first term.
Voters may be paying more attention to Harris than previous vice presidents due to concerns about the age of Biden, who in 2020 became the oldest US president in history. If he wins re-election, he will be 82 years old on Inauguration Day and 86 years old at the end of his second term.
According to a September CNN poll, 77% of all voters, including 65% of Democrats, say they are concerned about Biden’s age and suitability for office. Harris would be sworn in as president if Biden failed to complete his second term.
Although Biden has two primary opponents who are polling better than many of former President Donald Trump’s opponents, the Democratic Party all but cancelled the primaries, refusing to hold debates and putting only Biden on the ballot in several states, such as Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
“To realise just how unpopular Kamala Harris is, you have to keep in mind the historical significance of it all. No one in her position has had this low of favourabilities in a first term since Dan Quayle,” declared the leader of the American Policy Center from University College London, Thomas Gift, to the American news magazine Newsweek.
“That’s saying something. So it’s no surprise, especially with Biden’s age, that Republicans keep hammering home a simple point: a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris,” he added.
If the Democratic Party hopes that Harris’ relative youth can ease voters’ concerns, these polling numbers add another cause for concern for the Democratic Party National Committee.
For his part, Biden’s approval ratings have been low for more than a year, and recent polls have found him trailing former US President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, in a head-to-head match-up and key swing states.
A Monmouth University poll released on December 18, only days prior to a Wall Street Journal poll showing Biden with a 37 percent approval rating, found that the current US President hit a new low of 34 percent. In contrast, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ national polling averages, Trump holds a 2 percent lead over Biden.
In fact, sources close to the US president told The Hill that advisers, internal White House aides and external personal confidants, have met with Biden to discuss Trump, the negative polling and how to message the president’s accomplishments effectively.
One source told the outlet that the meetings had occurred because of “deep frustration” over polls.
“The meetings are intended to discuss messaging on his age and his accomplishments. There has been concern among his inner circle that the messaging has not been strong or consistent enough to break through with the public,” the source said.
Given Harris and Biden’s declining approval in the polls, it is little wonder that the Colorado Supreme Court issued a surprise decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot in that state, making Democrats excited that this could be repeated in other states. However, hopes were dashed when the US Supreme Court on December 22 rejected a request by the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether Trump has immunity from federal prosecution over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
With the Supreme Court’s rejection of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request, the appeals court will now first hear the immunity case, which could make it difficult to maintain the March trial date. Due to this, Trump welcomed the Supreme Court’s move and said he was looking forward to presenting his arguments before the appeals court, stressing on his Truth social media platform, “Of course I am entitled to Presidential Immunity.”
“I was President, it was my right and duty to investigate, and speak on, the rigged and stolen 2020 Presidential Election,” he said, repeating his claims to have won the previous election.
It is evident that the American establishment does not want Trump to return and is using every non-fatal method to prevent him from running in next year’s election, where he has a serious chance of becoming president again, especially considering Biden’s failure to improve the lives of the average American in the post-pandemic period. Yet, it is seemingly apparent that the Democrats will insist on Biden and Harris despite their historic low approval ratings.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Back in August this year, reputable Egyptian investigative journalist Mohammed al-Alawi revealed exclusive materials regarding the purchase of a villa worth nearly $5 million by a woman named Olga Kiyashko. This would hardly be newsworthy if the person in question wasn’t the mother-in-law of the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky.
The stunning atrocities going on day after day is being recorded by U.S. drones over Gaza and by brave Palestinian journalists directly targeted by the Israeli army. Over 66 journalists and larger numbers of their families have been slain. Israel has excluded foreign and Israeli journalists for years from Gaza.
Jamaica serves as a peculiar case study on special economic zones’ integration in global supply chains (GSCs) because it is a small island developing state in the Caribbean region with 213 special economic zones across 10 out of 14 of its parishes which employs 53,000 people.
The Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron is worried. He is keeping an eye on the ballooning costs of his country’s war against Gaza and the Palestinians. Initially, the Netanyahu government promised to increase its defence budget by NIS 20 billion (US$5.48 billion) per annum in the aftermath of the war.
In the past few years, the U.S. military has failed to meet its recruitment goals, according to U.S. news outlets. International outlets, like Al Jazeera, also report on the shortages. Young people’s poor mental and physical health, learning losses, and lack of confidence in the U.S. government and the military have all been blamed for lagging recruitment. The recent Covid period worsened all these problems.
According to former German prime minister, Angela Merkel, the Agreements did not fail, but fulfilled their real objective: to prepare Ukraine for a war against Russia in the near future. Commenting on the beginning of Moscow’s special military operation and the escalation of the conflict in Donbass, the German former official stated that this confrontation was expected from the very beginning, with the ceasefire established in Minsk only working as a way to temporarily alleviate tensions, enabling Kiev to gain time.
Will the genocidal war machine come to its senses and stop the barbaric slaughter of innocent civilians? Or will the conflict stir up so much regional anger, that the conflict escalates into a much wider confrontation between Israel, America, Hezbollah and Iran?
31 year old Amsterdam High School teacher Liam Pickett died suddenly of a burst aortic artery on Nov. 28, 2023 which happened after teaching his last period class.
Writing and photographing in wartime are acts of resistance, acts of faith. They affirm the belief that one day – a day the writers, journalists and photographers may never see – the words and images will evoke empathy, understanding, outrage and provide wisdom. They chronicle not only the facts, although facts are important, but the texture, sacredness and grief of lives and communities lost.
For the last thirty years, various resistance groups in the Middle East have emerged. Over time, they have made alliances among themselves. Their collective goal is to free Palestine from the brutal and enduring Israeli occupation.
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The unstoppable Israeli U.S. armed military juggernaut continues its genocidal destruction of Gaza’s Palestinians. The onslaught includes blocking the provision of “food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” openly genocidal orders decreed by Netanyahu and his extreme, blood-thirsty ministers.
The stunning atrocities going on day after day is being recorded by U.S. drones over Gaza and by brave Palestinian journalists directly targeted by the Israeli army. Over 66 journalists and larger numbers of their families have been slain. Israel has excluded foreign and Israeli journalists for years from Gaza.
This no-holds-barred ferocity came out of the Israeli government’s slumber on October 7th which allowed a few thousand Hamas and other fighters to take their smuggled hand-held weapons and attack soldiers and civilians before being destroyed or driven back to Gaza.
Seventy-five years of Israel military violence against defenseless Palestinians and fifty-six years of violently and illegally occupying their remaining slice of the original Palestine provides some background for Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion’s candid statement: “We have taken their country.” (See, his full statement here).
The overwhelming military superiority of Israel – a nuclear armed nation – in the Middle East has produced a more aggressive Israeli government. Being more secure than ever before doesn’t seem to temper the expansionist missions of right-wing Israeli colonies in the West Bank.
Presently, the narrow Netanyahu majority in the Parliament believes that “nothing can stop us.” Presently, they are right.
Joe Biden and Congress are vigorously enabling the annihilations. The UN is frozen by the Joe Biden administration’s vetoes in the Security Council against ending the carnage in Gaza. The Arab nations either lay in ruins – Syria, Iraq – or are too weak to cause Israeli generals any worry. The rich Arab nations in the Gulf want to do business with prosperous Israel and, other than Qatar, care little about their Palestinian brethren.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are no obstacle. Israel, along with Russia and the U.S. do not belong to the International Criminal Court. The Palestinian Authority is a party, but the practical difficulties of investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza and apprehending the accused are insurmountable. The ICJ’s jurisdiction requires a country to bring Israel before the Court for war crimes or genocide. In any event, the Court’s lead-footed procedures trespass on eternity. So much for international law and the Geneva Conventions. Netanyahu rejects the moral authority of seventeen Israeli human rights groups, including Rabbis and reservist soldiers. Their open letter to President Biden in the December 13, 2023 issue of the New York Times on “The Humanitarian Catastrophe in the Gaza Strip” was ignored by the media despite the truth and courage it embodied.
In the U.S., protests and demonstrations are everywhere. Many are organized by Jewish human rights groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Standing Together, Veterans for Peace and various student organizations. Everywhere Biden travels there are people from all backgrounds protesting.
A few days ago, the first protests by labor union members occurred in Oakland, California. Union activists could turn their attention to why, for years, union leaders put billions of dollars into riskier lower-interest Israeli bonds rather than U.S. Treasuries or bond funds investing in America. Like U.S. weapon deliveries, purchases of Israeli bonds by states, cities and unions have surged since October 7th.
Pope Francis, informed of the Israeli attack on the only Catholic Church and Convent in Gaza, which housed people with disabilities, killing and injuring Christians sheltering there, sorrowfully said: “Some would say, ‘It is war. It is terrorism.’ Yes, it is war. It is terrorism.”
In 2015, over 400 Rabbis from Israel, the USA and Canada called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the practice of demolishing hundreds of Palestinian homes as being contrary to international law and Jewish tradition. Their successors Rabbis for Human Rights are being ignored by the regime.
The Head of the U.S. Bishops Conference and the National Council of Churches, representing millions of parishioners, condemned the bombings but received little coverage.
There is only one institution that could stop Netanyahu’s mass military massacres of the Palestinian people. That is the U.S. Congress. As long as over 90% of the politicians there automatically support AIPAC, the Israeli Government Can Do No Wrong Lobby, even a peace-loving Joe Biden cannot deter Netanyahu. Bibi (his nickname) could simply say to a hypothetically transformed Biden “Joe, take it up with OUR Congress.”
How has AIPAC achieved such domination on Capitol Hill? By years of relentless lobbying and the smear of “anti-semitism” to anyone defying them. AIPAC and its chapters don’t bother with marches or demonstrations. They personally focus on the legislator – one by one. Carrots or sticks. Praise, PAC money and junkets are the Carrots. The Sticks are smears and money for selected primary challengers in their Districts or States. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) called AIPAC “a Hate Group.”
There are about 300,000 citizens spending significant time back in the states working Congress in AIPAC’s favor. They know the doctors, lawyers, accountants, clergy, local politicians, donors, golf champions and other friends of the Senators and Representatives, and forcefully promote Israeli expansionism backed to the hilt by the U.S. government.
AIPAC is proficient in part for lack of any organized opposition. It is also practicing state-of-the-art non-stop grassroots lobbying.
Congress is poised to send $14.3 billion to Israeli militarism—a “genocide tax” on U.S. taxpayers—without public hearings. While growing public opinion in the U.S. is against unconditional backing of the Israeli regime, it has not changed a single vote in Congress. Someday, more organized support for America’s national interest will.
(For calls to your legislators, the Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121.)
[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]
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Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012). His new book is, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All” (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).
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More than two months into Israel’s punishing military offensive in Gaza, a report by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture has yet another piece of tragic statistics: at least 28 Palestinian artists, intellectuals, and writers in Gaza have been killed since October 7.
They are among the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in the besieged coastal enclave that has faced indiscriminate and incessant Israeli bombing after Hamas fighters carried out an unprecedented cross-border operation.
The report eloquently captures the profound impact of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza’s cultural fabric, offering a poignant narrative that underscores the gravity of the situation.
“The war on culture has always been at the heart of the aggressors’ war on our people, as the real war is a war on the narrative to steal the land and its rich treasures of knowledge, history, and civilization, along with the stories it holds.” says Dr. Atef Abu Saif in the report’s introduction.
He emphasises that the essence of this war is embedded in an endeavour to erase those who persist in contributing to this rich cultural heritage.
In honouring their legacy and ensuring their efforts and works remain indelible, we present a trimmed list of Palestinian literary and artistic figures who was brutally killed by Israel in last two months:
Heba Zagout
Image: Heba Zagout’s art frequently centred on themes such as women, the homeland, nature, and the profound bond between mothers and children.
Visual artist and fine arts educator Heba Ghazi Ibrahim Zagout, aged 39, and her son were killed on October 13. In the days leading up to her tragic death, she recorded a video showcasing her paintings and passionately discussing her works, expressing her dream of organising an art exhibition to share her creativity.
Her art frequently centred on themes such as women, the homeland, nature, and the profound bond between mothers and children. Zagout, an alumna of Gaza’s Al Aqsa University with a degree in fine arts, depicted scenes from the Old City of the occupied East Jerusalem, the revered Al Aqsa mosque, and the Church of the Nativity in Beit Laham—a significant site for Christians, marking the birthplace of Jesus.
Hiba Abu Nada
Image: Abu Nada was educated at Islamic University, Gaza, where she was awarded a bachelor’s degree of biochemistry.
Hiba Abu Nada, a 32-year-old poet and novelist, was killed alongside her son in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis on October 20.
The accomplished writer had garnered recognition for her contributions, including published collections of poetry and a novel titled “Oxygen is Not for the Dead,” which secured second place at the Sharjah Awards for Arab creativity in 2017.
Her last poem was shared on X, formerly Twitter, just a few days before her death:
“Gaza’s night is dark apart from the glow of rockets, quiet apart from the sound of the bombs, terrifying apart from the comfort of prayer, black apart from the light of the martyrs. Goodnight, Gaza.”
Omar Abu Shaweesh
Poet, novelist, and dedicated community activist, Omar Faris Abu Shaweesh, was killed on October 7 during the shelling of the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza.
Distinguished for his commitment to youth causes, Abu Shaweesh co-founded several youth associations and earned accolades both locally and internationally.
Among his notable awards are the “Best National Song of the Year 2007” from the International Festival of National Song and Heritage in Jordan.
Furthering his impact, the Arab Youth Council for Integrated Development of the Arab League honoured him with the “Distinguished Arab Youth in the Field of Media, Journalism, and Culture” award in 2013.
Abu Shaweesh’s literary contributions were equally significant, with several collections of poetry and a novel, “Alā qayd al-mawt” (2016), to his name.
His legacy extends beyond his written words, reflecting a profound dedication to uplifting youth and promoting cultural richness of Palestine.
Inas al Saqa
Image: An influential figure in Gaza’s theatre scene, Saqa was among the pioneers in children’s theatre and an artist skilled in visual arts.
A renowned playwright, actor, and educator specialising in children’s theatre, Inas al Saqa was killed in a late October Israeli airstrike alongside three of her children—Sara, Leen, and Ibrahim.
Sheltering in a Gaza City building, the family was struck, leaving Farah and Ritta critically injured and in intensive care.
An influential figure in Gaza’s theatre scene, Saqa was among the pioneers in children’s theatre and an artist skilled in visual arts.
Saqa’s cinematic contributions included roles in the 2014 film “Sara” and “The Homeland’s Sparrow,” both addressing significant societal issues and the Palestinian struggle. Beyond her acting, she was known for her cultural contributions, collaborating with theatre groups in Gaza.
Her last social media post serves as a haunting testament: “Sometimes you look back to get a glimpse of your past… and you discover that you emerged alive from a massacre…”
Yusuf Dawas
Image: Fluent in both Arabic and English, Dawas wrote extensively and produced videos discussing a range of topics, including his aspiration to travel and explore the world.
On October 14, Palestinian writer, journalist, and photographer Yusuf Dawas lost his life in an Israeli airstrike on his family home in northern Gaza.
Dawas, also a guitarist, actively participated in the We Are Not Numbers initiative—an organisation established in Gaza after Israel’s 2014 attack, dedicated to fostering a new generation of Palestinian writers and thinkers to effect meaningful change in the Palestinian cause.
Fluent in both Arabic and English, Dawas wrote extensively and produced videos discussing a range of topics, including his aspiration to travel and explore the world—a dream shared by many young people in Gaza, especially given more than sixteen years of the blockade imposed on them by the Israeli occupation.
Mohammed Qaryeqa
The artist Mohammed Sami Qaryeqa, aged 24, was killed on October 18th. Known for his innovative approach, he integrated technology with art, depicting scenes from daily life.
His final social media post showcased a video of children playing in the garden of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, just a day before it fell victim to an Israeli airstrike, leading to a tragic massacre with 500 martyrs and dozens of wounded.
Even in his last moments, Qaryeqa endeavoured to alleviate the anxiety and psychological stress faced by children and patients in the hospital through his art, reflecting his unwavering commitment to bringing comfort and solace in the face of adversity.
Nour al Din Hajjaj
Poet and writer Nour al Din Hajjaj was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his home in Al Shujaiyya on December 2.
Renowned for his literary contributions, he authored the play “The Gray Ones” (2022) and the novel “Wings That Do Not Fly” (2021). Hajjaj was an active participant in initiatives such as the Cordoba Association, and the Days of Theater Foundation.
His final message to the outside world was:
“My name is Nour al Din Hajjaj, I am a Palestinian writer, I am twenty-seven years old and I have many dreams.
I am not a number and I do not consent to my death being passing news. Say, too, that I love life, happiness, freedom, children’s laughter, the sea, coffee, writing, Fairouz, everything that is joyful—though these things will all disappear in the space of a moment.
One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings so that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold it back.
Another dream of mine is to have a small family, to have a little son who looks like me and to tell him a bedtime story as I rock him in my arms.”
The listed names offer a glimpse into the untold number of artists, writers, and musicians shaping Gaza’s resilient arts landscape.
As another prominent killed Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer once reminded us, if he dies, we must live to tell his story:
If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child,
somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze —
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself —
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above,
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love.
If I must die
let it bring hope,
let it be a story.
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Featured image: Heba Zagout’s art frequently centred on themes such as women, the homeland, nature, and the profound bond between mothers and children. (Source: TRT World)
As recentes notícias sobre a libertação de Maryinka mostraram que os russos continuam a avançar no campo de batalha, apesar da lentidão dos combates. Mais do que isso, a cidade é extremamente estratégica e possibilita o processo de libertação total da República Popular de Donetsk, consolidando o controle territorial russo nas regiões reintegradas.
O anúncio da vitória em Maryinka foi feito no dia 25 de dezembro pelas autoridades russas. O fato foi reconhecido pelo próprio governo ucraniano, que confirmou que as suas tropas recuaram da cidade e estão agora entrincheiradas nas redondezas.
Maryinka, por fazer parte de Donetsk, já é território legalmente russo desde os referendos de 2022, porém, a região ainda era disputada militarmente, com presença de forças ucranianas na cidade até então. Maryinka está localizada no extremo oeste de Donetsk e o seu controle é essencial para permitir a expulsão definitiva dos soldados ucranianos do recém-integrado oblast.
Maryinka tem sido bombardeada diariamente desde o início do conflito. A sua localização estratégica levou a fortes atritos desde 2014, quando começaram os confrontos entre separatistas russos e militantes ucranianos. Na época, os ucranianos conseguiram construir fortificações na região e manter-se numa posição sólida, que só agora foi destruída pelos russos.
Uma extensa rede de túneis subterrâneos e bunkers foi construída pelas forças de Kiev, segundo o Ministério da Defesa russo. Isto explica por que os combates foram tão intensos e longos, considerando a dificuldade de conduzir operações militares em regiões ocupadas por canais subterrâneos que permitem ao inimigo se esconder e armazenar equipamentos. Nesse sentido, ao destruir a fortificação militar ucraniana no sudoeste de Donetsk, os russos conseguem infligir pesados danos às forças de Kiev, agravando ainda mais a fraqueza da Ucrânia.
Em verdade, controlar as cidades nos arredores de Donetsk parece ser hoje uma prioridade russa. Ao libertar as zonas fronteiriças dos novos oblasts, os russos conseguem expulsar o inimigo e consolidar as suas posições nos territórios que já fazem parte da Federação. Nesse sentido, o sucesso em Maryinka soa como uma grande vitória para Moscou e mostra como os objetivos militares e políticos russos continuam a ser alcançados, apesar do conflito parecer “lento” e sem grandes mudanças territoriais.
Desde o início da operação militar especial, a Rússia optou por uma estratégia de movimentos “lentos mas seguros”. O objetivo das forças de Moscou nunca foi avançar rapidamente no campo de batalha e tomar o máximo possível de territórios – pelo contrário, a Rússia tem se esforçado por manter linhas de defesa sólidas, protegendo as zonas já libertadas e mantendo uma distância segura entre estas e as áreas controladas pelos ucranianos.
No mesmo sentido, os russos apostam fortemente no uso de artilharia para neutralizar o inimigo, mobilizando tropas no terreno apenas depois de infligir danos substanciais ao inimigo. Assim, as vidas dos soldados russos também são protegidas. É possível dizer que salvar vidas militares e civis tem sido a principal prioridade da Rússia durante toda a operação.
Na prática, isso faz com que o combate seja mais demorado e gera na opinião pública uma sensação de “paralisia” no campo de batalha. No entanto, é uma forma comprovadamente eficiente de salvar vidas humanas sem causar perdas militares e territoriais. O tempo não é inimigo da Rússia neste conflito – pelo contrário, o tempo corre contra Kiev, que perde cada vez mais soldados, equipamentos e territórios e não tem capacidade de reverter este cenário.
Em outra declaração recente do ministério da defesa russo, foi dito que o principal objetivo da operação militar especial em 2023 era neutralizar a “contraofensiva” ucraniana. Obviamente, o objetivo foi alcançado com sucesso, com o conflito a entrar agora numa nova fase, em que as forças ucranianas já não parecem ter qualquer possibilidade de sequer tentar uma reação ou contra-ataque. Nesta nova etapa de hostilidades, as forças russas têm controle absoluto sobre como conduzir seus avanços, pois as tropas ucranianas estão extremamente enfraquecidas e não conseguirão manter posições por muito tempo.
Do ponto de vista militar, a libertação de Maryinka pode ser vista como o início de uma onda de libertações nas regiões fronteiriças de Donetsk. Acredita-se que a Rússia iniciará movimentos focados na obtenção do controle total dos novos territórios, eliminando definitivamente a presença militar ucraniana nestas áreas. Considerando a estratégia adotada até agora, é possível que os conflitos se prolonguem e os objetivos demorem a ser alcançados, mas isso certamente acontecerá devido ao próprio interesse da Rússia em evitar perdas humanas – e não devido à capacidade de defesa da Ucrânia.
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Back in August this year, reputable Egyptian investigative journalist Mohammed al-Alawi revealed exclusive materials regarding the purchase of a villa worth nearly $5 million by a woman named Olga Kiyashko. This would hardly be newsworthy if the person in question wasn’t the mother-in-law of the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ever since, his wealth increased exponentially. Although sources vary significantly, Zelensky’s current net worth that not even the mainstream propaganda machine denies is roughly $20 million. The actual number could be orders of magnitude higher, but for the sake of the argument, let’s say it’s true. Still, the question arises, how did he manage to accomplish a 25-fold increase in wealth? Worse yet, this “remarkable” accomplishment happened in the middle of an “evil Russian invasion”. However, it should be noted that the reason why his net worth is extremely likely to be much higher lies in the fact that he surely wouldn’t invest a quarter of his wealth into a luxurious villa that probably costs tens of thousands in maintenance per month.
Still, the more important question is where did the money come from? Obviously, the question is rhetorical, but the Neo-Nazi junta and its NATO overlords wouldn’t want anyone to start asking it, let alone giving the most obvious answer.
Egyptian sources indicate that much of the so-called “Ukrainian elite” acquired property in Egypt, particularly in the aftermath of the special military operation (SMO). However, Al-Alawi “dared” to do his job and investigate the matter and it seems that he really hit the hornet’s nest by revealing this information.
The investigation has so far concluded that al-Alawi was beaten to death. His family and relatives said that they feared for their lives ever since he revealed the details of his investigation. Namely, both al-Alawi and his family have been receiving death threats for months. Interestingly, the mainstream propaganda machine and its “independent fact-checkers” fought tooth and nail to “debunk” al-Alawi’s findings and even launched a smear campaign against him. However, Egyptian authorities are now suspecting that special services (most likely the SBU) were involved in al-Alawi’s murder. This is hardly surprising, given that murdering foreign journalists and anyone who doesn’t bow to the Neo-Nazi junta has become its common practice.
In this particular case, the goal was to punish al-Alawi for exposing Zelensky and undermining the image of a “war hero” that the Kiev regime and the political West have been trying to create since the SMO started. What’s more, it’s not impossible that al-Alawi had additional information about the rampant corruption of the Neo-Nazi junta and its leadership, the extent of which is difficult to overstate. The sheer magnitude of embezzlement on all levels of government has prompted the Kiev regime’s American backers to actively disrupt any audits. Such investigations would certainly reveal the enormous extent of the Neo-Nazi junta’s corruption. This would only exacerbate its funding issues, as the GOP-dominated Congress can’t wait for an excuse to cut it completely.
Corruption scandals are so common that the Neo-Nazi junta is simply unable to prevent people from leaking information about it. The Defense Ministry is particularly involved in such embezzlement schemes, as evidenced by ongoing investigations into the acquisition of sub-standard bulletproof vests, as well as the purchase of food supplies and uniforms at inflated prices. One of the more recent scandals was when Zelensky fired all officials in charge of conscription commissions. Namely, they were essentially selling exemption notices and making it possible for the more well-off people to avoid being sent to the frontline. This is creating tensions with the political West, as both the US and EU are deeply irritated by the lack of battlefield results.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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“I have to create affirmation cards to boost my self-esteem whenever I go to work daily.
I keep up the facade of happiness to meet daily targets and customers’ satisfaction. I have to keep up a facade of happiness even though I am paid less than my regular monthly salary.
Call centre workers are not treated as human beings. We are treated as robots or business transactions.”
(Online testimony from a 21-year-old woman working at a BPO company for 2 years and 2 months, Daily Observer, February 21, 2022).
***
For decades, special economic zones (SEZs) have been pivotal development strategies to promote economic growth, international trade, foreign direct investment, and job creation for several developing countries. Special economic zones (SEZs) are also known as “free zones”, “free trade zones” or “export processing zones” and they are geographically delimited areas within which governments facilitate industrial activity through fiscal and regulatory measures as well as infrastructural support (UNCTAD, 2019). Globally, SEZs have proliferated throughout the world and there are over 7,000 special economic zones employing more than 100 million people. More than 1,000 special economic zones have been established in the last five (5) years (UNCTAD, 2022).
Jamaica serves as a peculiar case study on special economic zones’ integration in global supply chains (GSCs) because it is a small island developing state in the Caribbean region with 213 special economic zones across 10 out of 14 of its parishes which employs 53,000 people.The nation was also a host of the 8th Annual Conference for the World Free Zones Organisation in 2022. Jamaica has positioned itself as a hub for private investment in the business product outsourcing (BPO) sector in the Latin America and Caribbean region. One of the main policy objectives for the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) is to promote job creation through economic growth while creating an enabling environment for local and foreign investors (National Investment Policy of Jamaica, White Paper, July 2022).
In this interpretive essay, I argue that the Government of Jamaica’s use of special economic zones as key policy instruments obscures the attention from the quality of jobs created and therefore, this undermines the sustainable development imperative, which is also a core aspect of its policy objective outlined in its National Investment Policy White Paper.
Sustainable development is defined as ensuring that the needs of the present generation are met without jeopardizing future generations and it is a form of development that pays keen attention to economic, social, and ecological considerations.Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2010) conceptual frameworks of “promise of happiness” and “cognitive capitalism” this essay explains that Jamaica’s neoliberal capitalist government regime, business product outsourcing (BPO) corporations, employers, BPO industry experts and private sector investors serve a powerful discursive function in which they construct and produce “happy” narratives and images of call centre workers while profits and foreign direct investment revenue have been maximised.
On the other hand, the majority of call centre workers describe their deplorable working conditions as akin to slavery and hence, free zones or special economic zones can be considered as ‘zones of unfreedom’.
Cognitive capitalism refers to the exploitation of creative and emotional labour and purports that the dominant subjective interpretation that work is a major contributor to the economy while thoughts, desires and feelings are quantified as expressed solely in terms of monetary value (Marini, 2007). Finally, this essay highlights how significant changes such as the post-COVID-19 pandemic context, global supply chain disruption, global geo-political crises, pessimistic projections for an incoming new year (2024) and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (artificial intelligence-driven work) pose serious implications for not only decent work creation in special economic zones but also for the Jamaican decision-making landscape concerning special economic zones.
Special economic zones undermine the Government of Jamaica’s sustainable development imperative because immense emphasis has consistently been placed on profit maximisation and the number of jobs created rather than the quality of jobs created.
This is evident in the fact that it was reported that the business product outsourcing sector (BPO) within special economic zones contributes USD$136 billion to the Jamaican economy which is equivalent to 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Williams, 2023). Local and foreign investors are entitled to a wide array of benefits under Sections 3 and 4 of the 2016 Special Economic Zones Act of Jamaica. Local and foreign investors are exempted from customs duties, exempted from income taxes on profits derived from rentals of property within zones and a 12.5% tax rate on income of the developer or occupant (Special Economic Zones Act of Jamaica, 2016).
One of the primary legal rights of a zone occupant is to transfer funds freely in and out of Jamaica under Section 39 1 h of the 2016 Special Economic Zones Act and as mentioned previously in the first part (Part 1) of this essay, this reinforces the hegemonic power of business product outsourcing (BPO) or call centre transnational corporations whereby they are effectively able to wield leverage over the Government of Jamaica’s local regulatory and investment policy frameworks to suit their agendas.
Transnational corporations expert, John Madeley (2008:18) argued that governments of developing countries often overlook the deeply problematic social costs of integrating into global supply chains and social costs associated with hosting transnational corporations in their countries because developing country governments are more concerned about pressing economic needs such as addressing high unemployment rates, chronic debt and the need for generating foreign exchange revenue from investments. As a result, developing country governments end up defending corporations that are exploiting the country (Madeley, 2008, p.18).
Madeley’s postulation is seen in the example of Government of Jamaica and its correspondent agencies and ministries utilising the media (online news headlines) as an avenue to establish constructs of “happy news” about the creation of more BPO/call centre jobs by marketing and promoting Jamaica as an ideal investment location because it has a proven track record in foreign direct investment, nearshore advantage to North America, a highly educated and English-speaking workforce, competitive labour costs and quality infrastructure (JAMPRO, 2017). Competitive labour costs are the code words for low-waged, low-valued added, indecent work as the cost for wages in Jamaica are 40-60% lower than the corresponding salaries in North America.
Sara Ahmed (2010) in her book, “The Promise of Happiness” offers a critical decolonial and feminist perspective and an incisive interpretation of happiness where she defines happiness as a technique of power relations and a crucial industry that maintains hierarchical relations in societies through texts, popular images, messaging, and several forms of media. Ahmed (2010:3) postulates that happiness narratives or national stories are often cited in old or new media when the social realities of oppressed groups do not reflect the national mythologies of happiness.
The national mythology of happiness associated with business product outsourcing (BPO) work is widely shared in newspaper headlines by industry experts, government, BPO employers, private investors, and even high-ranking government officials such as the Prime Minister of Jamaica, The Most Honourable Andrew Holness who boasts,
“ Jamaica has the largest BPO market in the Latin America and Caribbean region and the industry has created “job opportunities that has transformed people’s lives” (Angus, Jamaica Information Service, June 7, 2022).
Without a doubt, massive transformation has been associated with creating thousands of BPO jobs but what is not mentioned in the national mythology or national frenzy of happiness is the fact that the transformation is highly uneven, as the nation still suffers from high inequalities in income, life expectancy and access to social and economic opportunities for majority of its population (UNDP’s Human Development Report, 2021) and the fact that the transformations lay bare the enduring history of labour exploitation that stems from its colonial past.
The transformation to which Prime Minister Holness speaks is not transformative per se either in potential or reality but is rather highly extractive. The harsh social ramifications of special economic zones’ integration in global supply chains are revealed in the quotes from testimonies of call centre workers at the beginning of this interpretive essay who have openly shared that despite slavery-like, waged jobs, they are forced to mask their real emotions on the job by pretending to be happy. This is referred to as emotional labour. Emotional labour involves more than being polite to customers. It involves suppressing genuine emotions with happiness because most call centre workers’ job security and wages are on the line and their working conditions are primarily characterized by emotive performance (Granday, Rupp and Brice, 2015).
Thus, happiness about working in Jamaican call centres is treated like a script to be followed as deviations from the script of happiness deployed by employers, private investors, BPO industry experts and governments would be perceived as not only a deviation from happiness but unsettling the broader macroeconomic, social, spatial-ecological, epistemological, and political conditions of oppression?Similar to Ahmed (2010:50), I ask the question, “How can one justify the unequal distribution and exploitation of labour and say such a form of labour makes people happy?” How can Jamaica’s call centre workers be happy about low wages, gruelling working hours, customer, peer and employer mistreatment, abuse and harassment, excessive surveillance of job performance, limited or no social protection benefits, limited or no job security, myriad occupational health illnesses associated with call centre work and no union representation to advocate on their behalf?
The zones of unfreedom established by the previous and the current neo-liberal capitalist government regime continue to court foreign direct investment and hold economic growth as the sole metric of development without any serious emphasis on the quality of jobs created.
The severity of the BPO/call centre dilemma has gained the attention of the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, Richard Byles who has explained that BPO jobs are not only low waged but low value-added as most of them primarily rely on customer call service operations and they are like the low waged jobs that have created two decades ago. For the Government of Jamaica to achieve its sustainable development imperative, the Government of Jamaica must place urgent focus on ensuring the special economic zones as central strategies of development or policy instruments court both foreign direct investment while creating decent work with adequate attention to designing and implementing progressive or inclusive labour demand and labour supply policies. Adequate attention must be given to designing and implementing progressive or inclusive, labour demand and supply policies because the vast majority of the populations in the Latin American and Caribbean region are working jobs (including call centre work) that do not pay enough that lift them out of poverty and people living and working in poverty experience the highest deficits in decent work (Abramo, Cechini and Morales, 2019, p.14).
Secondly, special economic zones undermine the Government of Jamaica’s sustainable development imperative because there are several labour and human rights violations even though national laws and policies have outlined that employers should adhere to legislation governing interactions with employees.
Fundamental rights and freedoms of Jamaican workers including the right to freedom of association and freedom from discrimination under Chapter III- Fundamental Rights and Freedoms in Jamaica’s Constitution (Amended 2011) have been seriously breached in special economic zones.
In fact, as a country, we have been categorized for repeated labour rights violations of workers, according to the 2022 International Trade Union Confederation Global Rights Index. These unlawful actions should exemplify greater social advocacy and movement towards reforming Jamaica’s Constitution to better reflect not only today’s socio-economic realities but to ensure rights of every Jamaican are both effectively upheld and enforced presently and for future generations. Additionally, from a right-based perspective, the United Nations Common Multi-Country Analysis (UN CMCA) Report in 2021 referred to the limitations of most Caribbean Constitutions. The report illustrated that most Caribbean countries do not provide guarantees for economic, social and cultural rights in their domestic legislations or constitutions.
Therefore, one potential area for improvement or a recommendation for the Government of Jamaica’s effort at constitutional reform is to ensure that our constitution fully reflects the values and principles enshrined in the 1966 UN Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights along with stronger enforcement mechanisms to ensure accountability and more punitive measures for individuals and or entities that are in breach of legally binding principles.Two powerful, online testimonies were posited in the Jamaica Daily Observer article entitled, “Sweatshop: Call Centre workers employed in a Slavery-like Working Environment and Unfair Treatment” dated February 21, 2022.
A 30-year-old call centre worker working at a BPO company explained in the Jamaica Daily Observer article:
“This sector is like modern-day slavery as you are easily drained, overwhelmed and replaceable. Base pay is not enough and the slightest mistake results in the loss of monthly incentives”.
A 22-year-old woman call centre worker, who works a year and 11 months at another BPO company noted in the Jamaica Daily Observer article:
“I have 10-hour shifts with no breaks or lunch. You have to do everything on time and if you are late for work, it comes out of your monthly pay. You earn a sick day every 22 days and when you get sick, they do not pay for it. The industry offers good salaries only at the managerial and occupational levels.”
In the same article, Khadea Folkes who is an Attorney-at-Law observed that according to Jamaica’s labour laws, workers are entitled to ten (10) sick days annually and these workers’ experiences and concerns underscore the need for the enforcement of the 2017 Occupational Health and Safety Act which would allow employees to experience decent work conditions without jeopardizing their health and well-being. The online testimonies of these call centre workers mirror a completely different reality from the ambitious statements examined in policy documents or “happy” national announcements of the creation and establishment of more zones of unfreedom with BPO sector jobs.
Sara Ahmed (2010) expresses that happiness means to follow someone else’s directives and when one or a group becomes unhappy or speaks about the source of their happiness is seen as a source of defiance especially if one or a group of oppressed people are expected to recede in the background.”
Ahmed’s explanation is quite relevant to these Jamaican call centres as their testimonies have not only assisted in debunking national mythologies of happiness, as zones by their very restrictive spatial design add to call centre workers’ unfreedom alongside surveillance but their testimonies also embody resistance against the national tropes of happiness and inequitable, extractive transformation that BPO brings to their lives. These testimonies also show how cognitive capitalism is embedded in the psyche of workers and is popularized by the time is money and money is time, adage. In a country where wages are 40-60% less than comparable wages of North American workers and where globally, the cost of living, inflation, and devaluation of developing countries’ currencies like Jamaica have impacted negatively on wages and purchasing power, we simply cannot expect Jamaican call centre workers to be happy or to “recede into the background by silencing stories that need to be told- stories that unsettle national fabrications of happiness.
To add insult to injury, there is more “unhappy” news from the 2022 International Labour Organization (ILO) publication has expounded on the fact that erosion of wages affects all wage earners in developing, emerging market and industrialized countries but a more disproportionate impact is faced by wage earners from low-income households, especially in the post-pandemic context. The report also calls for renewed attention on rebuilding people’s sense of social justice. We can only rebuild a sense of social justice when the local sustainable development agenda is pursued both on paper and, as well as when our development strategies are people-centred coupled with a serious focus on environmental sustainability.
Finally, the Government of Jamaica should observe the trends in global development that will affect the local, policy decision-making landscape concerning special economic zones, as we are a small, island developing states that are becoming ever more vulnerable to exogenous shocks.On a global scale, it is predicted that this year and the incoming years (2024 and beyond) will be characterized by rapidly shifting macroeconomic conditions, global supply chain disruptions both due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s long-lasting implications and geo-political crises, banking sector turmoil in the US and Europe, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and increased vulnerabilities for developing countries (United Nations, 2023). Already business product outsourcing (BPO) mainly consisting of call centre jobs is experiencing the headwinds of accelerated artificial intelligence which is expected to slash seventy (70%) of BPO with more than 38,000 of an estimated 55,000 people employed being without work (Editorial, Jamaica Gleaner, April 13, 2023). Excuse my pessimism which might be seen as an act of political troublemaking! but we must collectively rethink, reimagine, and develop policies to ensure a more equitable transformation beyond the current exploitative, extractive model of neoliberal and cognitive capitalism associated with these zones of unfreedom.
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Sources
Abramo, L, Cechini, S. and Morales, B. (2019). Social programmes, poverty eradication and labour inclusion. Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean. Santiago de Chile, Chile: United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) publication.
Ahmed, S. (2010). The Promise of Happiness. London and Durham: Duke University Press.
Allen, I. (11 October 2019). Byles: Jamaica needs to create high-value jobs. Jamaica Gleaner. Retrieved from https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20191011/byles-jamaica-needs-create-high-value-jobs
Angus, G. (7 June 2022). 6,000 More BPO Jobs Since COVID-19. Jamaica Information Service. Retrieved from https://jis.gov.jm/6-000-more-bpo-jobs-since-covid-19/
Granday, A. Rupp, D, and Brice, W. (2015). Emotional Labour Threatens Decent Work: A Proposal to Eradicate Display Rules. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 36, pp. 770-785.
International Labour Organization. (2022). The Impact of Inflation and COVID-19 on Wages and Purchasing Power. Geneva, Switzerland: ILO Publications
Jamaica Gleaner. (13 April 2023). Low tech-Low Wage Dilemma. Editorial. Retrieved from jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20230413/editorial-low-tech-low-wage-dilemma
Jamaica Observer. (21 February 2022). Sweatshop: Call Centre workers complain of a slavery-like working environment and unfair Treatment. Retrieved from https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/sweatshop/
Madeley, J. (2008). Big Business, Poor Peoples: How Transnational Corporations Damage the World’s Poor. London and NY: Zed Books. p.18
Marini, C. (2007). The Feminization of Labour and Cognitive Capitalism. Feminist Review, 87, pp. 40-59
United Nations. (2023). World Economic Situation and Prospects- Mid Year Update. New York, USA: UN Publications.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2019). World Investment Report. Special Economic Zones- Chapter IV. Geneva, Switzerland: UNCTAD Publications.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. (17 May 2022). Special Economic Zones. Geneva, Switzerland: UNCTAD Publications
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***
The Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron is worried. He is keeping an eye on the ballooning costs of his country’s war against Gaza and the Palestinians. Initially, the Netanyahu government promised to increase its defence budget by NIS 20 billion (US$5.48 billion) per annum in the aftermath of the war. But a document from the Finance Ministry presented to the Knesset Finance Committee on December 25 suggests that the number is NIS 10 billion greater.
The Finance Ministry is also projecting that the war against Hamas will cost the country’s budget somewhere in the order of NIS 50 billion (US$13.8 billion). NIS 9.6 billion will go towards such expenses as evacuating residents close to the borders of the country’s north and south, buttressing emergency forces and rehabilitation purposes.
The increased military budget is predictable and in keeping with the proclivities of the Israeli state. What is striking is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has regarded Israeli defence expenditure as generally inadequate when looked at as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).
Between 2012 and 2022, military expenditure as a percentage of GDP fell from 5.64% to 4.51%. Doing so enables him to have two bites at the same rotten cherry: to claim he was blameless for that very decline in military expenditure, and to show that he intends to rectify a problem he was hardly blameless for.
Even in war time, Netanyahu is proving oleaginous in his policy making. The mid-December supplementary budget for 2023, coming in at NIS 28.9 billion, was intended to cover the ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. But its approval was hardly universal. Opponents of the budget noted the allocation of hundreds of millions of shekels towards “coalition funds” intended for non-war related projects relevant to parliamentarians and ministers. Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, a coalition partner, would have nothing to do with it. Intelligence minister Gila Gamliel was absent from the vote, while Yuli Edelstein of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party abstained. Opposition leader Yair Lapid pointed the finger at the rising budget deficit.
On December 18, Yaron gave vent to some of his concerns.
“During this period, more than at any other time, and as investors, rating agencies, financial markets and the public as a whole are carefully examining policymaking in Israel, it is necessary to manage economic policy – fiscal and monetary – with great responsibility.”
Body counts interest Yaron less than budget figures and reputational damage in the markets, though killing Palestinians is proving an expensive business.
“The government will have to find the right balance between financing war expenses and the expected increase in the defence budget and the need to continue investing in other civilian budgets, which are already low, in particular in growth engines such as infrastructure and education.”
Yaron has every reason to assume that costs will continue to balloon. For one thing, Netanyahu’s idea of peace in the current conflict reads like a blueprint for ongoing, lengthy massacre, accompanied by permanent mass incarceration: the destruction of Hamas itself, the demilitarisation of Gaza and a Palestinian society free of radical elements. This is a nightmare to both humanitarians and the belt-tighteners in the Finance Ministry.
Notably, the plan says nothing about Palestinian statehood, which, in the scheme of Israel’s aims, has been euthanised. Gaza, the designated monstrosity Israel nourished as a supposedly useful tool to keep Palestinian ambitions in check, is to be turned into a prison entity that seems awfully much like it was prior to the October 7 attacks by Hamas. (The cruel, in such cases, lack imagination.)
A “temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt” will be established in accordance with “Israel’s security needs”. The zone will also serve to prevent “smuggling of weapons into the territory”, which sounds much like the original blockade, lasting 14 years, that was meant to achieve the same purpose.
The Israeli PM is, however, promising that the destruction of Hamas will take place “in full compliance with international law”, begging the question what sort of international law he is consulting. Given various official statements from Netanyahu’s cabinet and the Israeli Defence Forces, it must be either a law of jungle provenance or one applicable to animal kind. That same standard of legal analysis has permitted the generously expansive massacre of over 20,000 Palestinians, a staggering number of them children, the ongoing flattening of Gaza, and the utter destruction of critical infrastructure.
Given that Israeli law, alongside military and administrative policy, does nothing other than encourage the radicalisation of Palestinians and the fertilising of the Jihadist soil, this is charmingly delusionary. The current war will simply prove to be the same as previous ones, protean, adjustable, and shape changing. Conflict will simply continue by other means, a continued growth of flowering hatreds, leaving Israel a butcher’s bill of shekels and casualties it is only now chewing over.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: [email protected]
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***
Dying throes of U.S. militarism, with post-covid trauma and malaise, display themselves in Fayetteville, North Carolina this December as I travel there on a Friday for a Saturday meeting.
Fort Bragg is there, which is one of the largest military bases in the world.My meeting is with a group I volunteer with that counsels military members and veterans, takes calls from those who need help, and directs them to services.
In the past few years, the U.S. military has failed to meet its recruitment goals, according to U.S. news outlets. International outlets, like Al Jazeera, also report on the shortages. Young people’s poor mental and physical health, learning losses, and lack of confidence in the U.S. government and the military have all been blamed for lagging recruitment. The recent Covid period worsened all these problems.
Current service members suffer heart problems after receiving mandated Covid shots, and over 8000 service members were discharged for declining the shots, with members losing benefits and promotion opportunities. War rages in Israel and Palestine, and U.S. warships recently fired on drones that attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea. The military has sent thousands of U.S. troops to the Middle East while attacks on soldiers in Iraq and Syria increase.
Because my father was career military, my family lived at Ft. Bragg when I was a child, and my father left from there for his first deployment to the Vietnam War. The base was recently renamed Fort Liberty. Gleaming chains stores line the main road into town – I Hop, Panera, Ross, every imaginable fast-food place, and some I have never heard of like Cinnaholic, all brightly lit and crowded. Consumerism and consumption look like signs of prosperity, but here, now, they seem to have reached an unsustainable critical mass.
Signs of despair and struggle are everywhere along with a sweet vulnerability also circulating among common people as though we tremble at the edge of the world, the edge of doom when being kind to each other, making some kind of connection seems more important than ever.
“Is it nice enough?” I ask the lady at the counter when I check into the Comfort Inn on Friday night. “I’m tired after a long drive.”
“It is,” she answers tenderly. When I ask her where a good place to eat is, she asks me what I like and when I tell her a few choices, she walks out the door of the hotel beside me, with extraordinary politeness, to point out Mission BBQ a few store fronts down, close enough for me to walk.
Cars, muscular trucks, and gleaming motorcyles roar through the main drag that is eight-lanes wide. Occasionally, a driver accelerates an engine with a ferocious sound and burst of speed. You can almost smell the testosterone. I often wonder: does the U.S. public really understand what we ask military people, mostly men, to do when we train them for wars and send them to wars? What do people think actually happens there? Military patches, photos, tools, and mementos fill the walls of the Mission BBQ restaurant where I eat.
A large print of the U.S. Army’s Soldier’s Creed hangs prominently in the main dining room. Prints of soldiers returning from war, kissing girls, are displayed in the women’s bathroom.
The girl bussing tables asks me what I am reading. She tells me she likes to read, that she read a lot when she lived in England, growing up in a military family.
“Joan Didion,” I tell her and show her the cover of the book of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I read it in my twenties and am re-reading it now. My copy is yellowed and brittle. She thanks me, says she’ll check it out. The restaurant is full of young men, amazingly fit, plus a few young families. At the table next to me is a huge, beautiful man with tattoos all over his arms and neck. It looks like he is with his wife, mother, and toddler son.
On my walk back to the hotel, I see a smoke shop and am curious as I have never been in one before. Students in public schools where I have taught sneak vape pipes in bathrooms and get in trouble when detectors identify them. When I was in high school, we smoked cigarettes outside and some sneaked marijuana, but I didn’t like it. I wanted to see what the shop was like. They are everywhere now – neon and bright, full of colorful, varied products, rows of boxes and bottles, lines of vials and packages, candles, incense and fragrance oils. I puzzled how populations in the U.S. were so easily subdued by government Covid lockdowns in 2020 and beyond. Maybe shops like this one – and video games — were part of the answer. People stayed home, smoked, drank (liquor stores were never closed), played MMOGs, waited for Amazon boxes to appear on their porches.
I tell him I am a teacher, plus a writer and put on my reporter’s role, ask questions of the 23-year-old young man working there. He kindly answers. The store sells CBD or nicotine for vape pipes and a special kind of strong tobacco for the hookah pipes, also sold there.
In many states, marijuana is fully legal now. A steady stream of customers arrives, buying rolling papers for marijuana, another buying a vape pipe, which are rechargeable in all kinds of styles. The shop also sells disposal pipes to ingest psychedelic mushrooms. The young shop worker grew up in military family, he says, and recounted the many places he had lived. He joined the military at 17, was in for four years, stationed a few places, including Fort Bragg, and then got out. He’s now divorced at 23.
“I am leaving here as soon as I can,” he says.
I walk back to the hotel.Discarded shopping carts with trash and old clothes litter spaces between bushes. A homeless person rests beside her shopping cart, filled with clothes and bedding. Parking lots are strewn with trash. I look in the hotel lobby for hot tea.
“We don’t have fresh right now,” says the young black guy seated, half sleeping, in the lobby. I ask him if there’s a place I could walk to for a hot chocolate or tea.
“There’s a Dunkin Donuts,” he says. He steps out of the hotel with me and points. He’s wearing a security uniform. He says he’ll walk with me, that he’s trying to wake up for his night shift at the hotel. I ask him if he is working security after military service. He says he was in the Marines and was shot in the leg and got out on a medical discharge and now works security at the hotel. I ask him if he likes it.
“It’s quiet and not that hard,” he says. He is young, yet his face has a tremor. Old railroad tracks run beside the road. I tell the young man I lived at Fort Bragg when I was a child, that my father left for Vietnam from there.
“It’s a lot different since then, I’m sure,” he says. “Now they call it Fort Liberty. I don’t know why they did that. It doesn’t seem to matter. They’re just trying to be showy or something.”
Dozens of obscenely bright stores shine in the night as we walk to Dunkin Donuts. Christmas lights blink and flash. I see more trash tangled in bushes and strewn on sidewalks; cigarette butts, plastic cups, and Styrofoam containers litter parking lots.
When I get back to the hotel room, the colors from the high-definition TV in my room are even brighter than the world outside; shapes and figures are hyper-real, extremely defined, almost grotesque in their clarity. There is a ridiculous game show on. I don’t see high-definition TV at home, so hotel TVs easily entrance and shock me. When I watch too long, a sick feeling of the decline of Western civilization overtakes me. The show, Raid the Cage, is on a major network this Friday night, the network with the stylized eye ball I remember from childhood. How different TV is now.
Ghoulishly grinning, jumping, and cheering couples take turns running and grabbing purses, electronics, designer perfumes, jewelry, even kayaks from an enclosure and then carry the items out before a buzzer ends the round. The man or woman goes into the enclosure while the other one cheers and jumps. The person may even push a four-wheeler or a car out. I have the sound off, watching this scene unfold, this American decadence and consumerism with garish lights, neon flashing, and bells ringing on the set. I think couples may have had to compete in other games to qualify to “raid the cage.”
“Rebuild the world,” says a Lego toy advertisement with insanely detailed computer animation. Holiday Coke ads glitter with snows and Santas and computer stardust. Has TV become more hyper real after Covid nightmares, after wars in Ukraine and Palestine? Do advertisers want us in there – inside the screens – rather than in the world?
Pharmaceutical companies occupy airwaves. Fat people dance in a town square in an ad for pills to lower blood sugar. Another ad proclaims that a cartoon guy will deliver a colon test to your doorstep in a box. Drug ads for eczema, chrone’s disease, and all kinds of ailments fill the screen. Rich people in glittering rooms with tinsel and gold and greenery slowly eat Lindor chocolates. Pfizer advertises vaccines for pregnant women. On another network, a show called The Great Christmas Light Fight appears.
There is too much here. My eyes and heart hurt from the excess. My meeting is tomorrow.
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This article was originally published on Brownstone Institute.
Christine E. Black’s work has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Nimrod International, The Virginia Journal of Education, Friends Journal, Sojourners Magazine, The Veteran, English Journal, Amethyst Review, Dappled Things, Adbusters Magazine, Brownstone Institute, The Harrisonburg Citizen, The Stockman Grass Farmer, Off-Guardian, Cold Type, The News Virginian, and other publications.
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Given the unholy dissonance, Bethlehem’s usual celebration of the birth of a Palestinian Prince of Peace was cancelled this year as Gaza endured – and an indifferent West watched – genocide unfold beneath pitiless Israeli airstrikes. Along with a “Liturgy of Lament,” the Rev. Munther Isaac created a nativity scene for the times: Baby Jesus lying amidst the rubble. Meanwhile, rescue workers still struggle to dig, pull, save children from it. Peace on earth, indeed.
Now more than ever, “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history” has leveled Gaza to a hellscape where, per Doctors Without Borders, “no one and nowhere is safe.”
Over the holiday weekend, 90 people were killed in strikes on Gaza City, including 76 members of one extended family and a longtime UN official alongside his wife and five children, and a “Christmas Eve massacre” saw over 100 killed in Khan Younis, Bureij refugee camp and Al-Maghazi refugee camp, about half women and children. In a genocidal crusade where “everything is intentional,” such collateral damage is no concern to Netanyahu; after griping critics are “unjustly blaming Israelis for these casualties,” he proclaimed, “We have no choice (but) to continue to fight… We are not stopping.”
Appalled by the ongoing carnage, Bethlehem officials cancelled traditional Christmas celebrations in the presumed place of Jesus’ birth. At the Church of the Nativity, a searing sculpture depicts a bombed-out version of the nativity scene with debris, barbed wire, and angels representing the souls of too many murdered Palestinian children. At the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Rev. Munther Isaac set up a creche with baby Jesus in a Palestinian keffiyeh – “A Jewish infant. A homeless infant. A refugee infant” – lying in the concrete remains of a building.
“We are angry. We are broken. This is an annihilation,” he said in his sermon, Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament.“If Christ were born today, he would be born under the rubble. This is where we find God right now.”
Honoring a Jesus “born among the occupied and marginalized…in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness,” Isaac also blasted the hypocrisy of a Western world that “sent us bombs whilst celebrating Christmas.”
“They sing about the Prince of Peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land,” he said. “Your charity, your words of shock after the genocide won’t make any difference. Words of regret will not suffice…I want you to look at the mirror (and) ask: Where was I?”
The Intercept echoes him, wishing us “Merry Christmas!” while noting that, “in any just universe,” we should all be imprisoned at the Hague for our failure to act on ills from the “junkyard of the U.S. war on terror” to “the Palestinian nightmare.” Hillel the Elder: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
In Gaza, for now, 14,000 rescue workers making up civil defense teams across the enclave daily toil to save lives in an apocalyptic landscape where, “Everyone is a target.” “I cannot sleep,” says Ibrahim Musa, 27. “I am constantly haunted by the voices and screams of people under the rubble as they beg us to pull them out. These are our children, our siblings, our families whom we are saving.” After each airstrike, they arrive at the scene and quickly try to determine what lies under the tangle of wire and concrete: “We scream until someone hears us.” Often, as they begin to dig, they must calm children trapped beneath, asking about their families: “We sometimes lie and tell them everyone is okay so they don’t go into shock…This is our work.”
At a bombing in southern Al-Qarara, Ahmed Abu Khudair recalls hearing moaning, starting to dig, finding “two stuck legs.” He frees a 12-year-old girl named Aisha, who says eight members of her family are buried there with several other families, including nine children. But without equipment, they cannot reach them. This is their ultimate horror: “Leaving a place knowing there are people alive under the rubble, but you cannot do anything for them.” From poet Nasser Rabah:
“When I return from the war, if I do/don’t look into my eyes/do not see what I saw…If war knew/that it made good poets/it would shoot itself.”
Yet life goes on. In this world, we wish you a holiday season of peace, joy, family, compassion and no savage military incursions. We are unfairly blessed.
Explaining our Chirstmas manger on the rubble. "If Jesus were born today, he would be born in Gaza under the rubble." Christmas in Bethlehem pic.twitter.com/qGeqj29HiC
The children of Gaza who are seeking refuge in the Catholic Church praying this morning. The sound of bombing can be heard in the beginning, but they continue their prayer. Resilience. We pray for and with all the children or Gaza pic.twitter.com/0GrxVPrO5z
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Abby Zimet has written CD’s Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women’s, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: [email protected]
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***
When your body temperature rises, sweat glands release water at your skin’s surface, which quickly evaporates and cools your skin and the blood underneath
In traditional Persian medicine, sweating is used for both preventive care and disease treatment
Sweat glands secrete antimicrobial peptides that help restrict the growth of various microbes on the skin, potentially helping to reduce infection or atopic dermatitis
Concentrations of the heavy metals nickel, lead and chromium may be 10 to 30 times higher in sweat than in blood and urine, and some toxins may be preferentially excreted in sweat
Sweating may offer support for chronic diseases, including cardiovascular, respiratory and joint diseases
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Sweating is often viewed as a nuisance — something unpleasant that humans try to avoid and cover up. Yet, this natural and important body process occurs for good reasons. In addition to regulating body temperature, sweating helps maintain homeostasis in your body, including removing waste products and toxins.1
Sweating can also be used therapeutically to support well-being and reduce chronic disease.2 If you’re unable to sweat normally, sweating either too much or too little may signify significant health concerns, another clue of its wide-reaching importance.
Why Humans Sweat
Sweating, also known as perspiration, describes the release of liquid from your sweat glands, which number anywhere from 2 million to 4 million. During puberty, your sweat glands become fully active, with glands in men tending to produce more sweat than sweat glands in women.3
As a method of thermoregulation to help keep your body cool, sweating ramps up if the weather is hot or you’re exercising. However, you may also sweat if you’re feeling angry, stressed, anxious or afraid. Medical conditions, such as cancer and low blood sugar, can also trigger sweating, as can menopause and fever.
Consuming certain medications, including thyroid hormone and morphine, may also make you sweat, as can drinking alcohol or caffeinated beverages or eating spicy foods, a condition known as gustatory sweating.4
When your body temperature rises, sweat glands release water at your skin’s surface, which quickly evaporates and cools your skin and the blood underneath. “This is the most effective means of thermoregulation in humans,” according to researchers with the University of Mississippi Medical Center.5 Beyond cooling you off, sweating also has “important homeostatic functions,” such as:6
Clearing excessive micronutrients from your body
Removing waste products produced by metabolic processes
Eliminating toxins
Support for chronic diseases, including cardiovascular, respiratory and joint diseases
Health Risks of Excessive or Inadequate Sweating
Your body depends on its ability to sweat normally, such that when this balance is thrown off disease states can result. Hyperhidrosis is the medical term for excessive sweating, believed to affect about 4.8% of U.S. adults, or 15.8 million people.7
Hyperhidrosis is known to interfere with self-esteem, social interactions, relationships and career choices, with many affected reporting problems with work, school, social functioning and emotional health. Close to half — 48% — say their quality of life is poor or very poor as a result of hyperhidrosis.
The condition can also cause dehydration and skin infections.8 A link to systemic conditions is also possible, as sweating disorders may signal dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, particularly the sympathetic nervous system.9
Hypohidrosis, which is inadequate sweating, and pathologic anhidrosis, an inability to sweat, are also potentially damaging to your health and may lead to dry skin, heat exhaustion, heatstroke and death.10
Sweating to Help Prevent and Relieve Chronic Disease
In traditional Persian medicine, sweating is used for both preventive care and disease treatment.11According to a review published in Galen Medical Journal:12
“Reviewing historical medical manuscripts indicates that traditional Persian medicine (PM) scientists have described several methods for the treatment of diseases. Sweating is one of them which has an important role in both prevention and treatment of diseases.
PM physicians were well aware of the health benefits of sweating and believed that sweating removes waste products, maintains the body health, and balances body temperature.
Based on the principles of PM, any disturbances in the excretion of metabolic and dietary waste products can cause disease; therefore, the use of several sweating methods and even diaphoretic herbs have been considered in maintaining human health and as one of the therapeutic method since many centuries ago.”
Indeed, from Roman baths and Scandinavian saunas to Aboriginal sweat lodges, sweating for health has been embraced by cultures worldwide. Researchers writing in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health explained:13
“Sweating with heat and/or exercise has been viewed throughout the ages, by groups worldwide, as ‘cleansing’ … Sweating offers potential and deserves consideration, to assist with removal of toxic elements from the body.
… Sweating is not only observed to enhance excretion of the toxic elements of interest in this paper, but also may increase excretion of diverse toxicants, as observed in New York rescue workers, or in particular persistent flame retardants and bisphenol-A … Optimizing the potential of sweating as a therapeutic excretory mechanism merits further research.”
The researchers noted the following promising roles of sweat in detoxification:
Sweat may be an important route for excretion of cadmium when an individual is exposed to high levels
Sweat-inducing sauna use might provide a therapeutic method to increase elimination of toxic trace metals
Sweating should be the initial and preferred treatment of patients with elevated mercury urine levels
Sweat glands also secrete antimicrobial peptides that help restrict the growth of various microbes on the skin, potentially helping to reduce infection or atopic dermatitis. The sweat gland-derived antimicrobial peptide dermcidin is also thought to play a role in regulating the innate immune system’s response to infection and injury.14
Many Toxins May be ‘Preferentially Excreted Through Sweat’
Because sweat is 99% water, it’s sometimes said that sweating doesn’t provide a meaningful avenue for detoxification. In the journal Temperature, it’s noted, “The role of sweating to eliminate waste products and toxicants seems to be minor compared with other avenues of excretion via the kidneys and gastrointestinal tract.”15
However, research shows that toxins are, in fact, excreted via sweat. According to research in Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology:16
“Many toxic elements appeared to be preferentially excreted through sweat. Presumably stored in tissues, some toxic elements readily identified in the perspiration of some participants were not found in their serum. Induced sweating appears to be a potential method for elimination of many toxic elements from the human body.”
For instance, concentrations of the heavy metals nickel, lead and chromium may be 10 to 30 times higher in sweat than in blood and urine.17 It’s also noted in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, “Physiologists have long regarded sweating as an effective and safe means of detoxification, and heavy metals are excreted through sweat to reduce the levels of such metals in the body.”18
That study found levels of nickel, lead, copper and arsenic in sweat were higher when the sweating was induced via dynamic exercise as opposed to sauna usage, although mercury levels in sweat were the same regardless of sweating method.19
Another systematic review found that in people with higher exposure or body burden of arsenic, cadmium lead and mercury, “sweat generally exceeded plasma or urine concentrations, and dermal could match or surpass urinary daily excretion … Sweating deserves consideration for toxic element detoxification.”20
Bisphenol A is another chemical contaminant often detected in sweat, in some cases even when no BPA was found in serum or urine samples.21
Health Benefits of Sauna Usage
Inducing sweating via sauna usage has been linked to many health benefits, including for the heart, respiratory system, joints, chronic pain and brain.22 One mechanism for this effect is thought to be related to the fact that heat stresses your heart and body similar to that of exercise, thus prompting similar effects.23 However, sweating is also part of sauna bathing’s therapeutic effects.
Researchers in Finland — where sauna use is common — found that men who used a sauna four to seven times a week for an average of 15 minutes had a 66% lower risk of developing dementia, and 65% lower risk of Alzheimer’s, compared to men who used the sauna just once a week.24
Waon therapy, a form of dry sauna treatment that warms the entire body, is also linked to improved heart health, including in people with chronic heart failure.25 Separate research published in JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that men who used a Finnish-style, dry heat sauna seven times per week also cut their risk of death in half from fatal heart problems compared to those who used it only once a week.26
This held true even after confounding factors such as smoking, blood pressure and triglyceride levels were factored in. In regard to time, the greatest benefits were found among those who sweated it out for 19 minutes or more each session.
As noted by the study, “Sauna bathing leads to skin sweating — induced fluid loss and increase in heart rate, which are physiologic responses to warm temperature … Our results suggest that sauna bathing is a recommendable health habit.”27
How to Induce Sweating
Regular sauna usage is one way to induce sweating, but it’s not the only one. Virtually any type of intense exercise will lead to sweating, as will exercising in warm temperatures or in a heated room, such as in Bikram yoga. If you choose to use a sauna for sweating, there are several options, including a Finnish sauna, far-infrared saunas and near-infrared saunas.
The difference between the infrared saunas and the traditional Finnish sauna is the Finnish-style heats you from the outside in, whereas the infrared heats from the inside out. Near-infrared saunas have additional benefits as they penetrate your tissues more effectively and at wavelengths not absorbed by water.
The near-infrared range affects your health primarily through interaction with chromophores, light-absorbing molecules found in your mitochondria and water molecules. Near-infrared light also has healing and repairing properties, helping optimize other biological functions.
Remember, if you sweat heavily, you’ll also lose valuable fluids and electrolytes. So, be sure to drink plenty of pure water and replace your electrolytes. Coconut water is one option to replace electrolytes naturally. You can also mix one-quarter teaspoon of Himalayan salt with a gallon of pure filtered water for electrolyte replacement.
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The current conflict in Ukraine is a direct result of the failure of the Minsk Agreements. Between 2014 and 2015, Russia and the European Union mediated negotiations between the breakaway republics of Donbass and the Kiev government, reaching a mutually beneficial protocol that was expected to guarantee regional peace. However, the terms of the pact were never respected by the Ukrainian regime, which continued to constantly attack the republics and advance its project of “de-Russification” and ethnic cleansing.
According to former German prime minister, Angela Merkel, the Agreements did not fail, but fulfilled their real objective: to prepare Ukraine for a war against Russia in the near future. Commenting on the beginning of Moscow’s special military operation and the escalation of the conflict in Donbass, the German former official stated that this confrontation was expected from the very beginning, with the ceasefire established in Minsk only working as a way to temporarily alleviate tensions, enabling Kiev to gain time.
However, this does not appear to be the opinion of some other insiders who were also deeply involved in negotiations in the Belarusian capital. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Donbass region as a war correspondent. There I interviewed several local leaders, politicians and state officials, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Lugansk, Vladislav Deinego, who was one of the negotiators in the Minsk process.
In our conversation, I asked the Minister his opinion on the failure of the Minsk Agreements and heard from him a long explanation about how the situation got out of control and escalated to the current status of war. According to Deinego, Merkel is lying when she claims that the plan has always been to simply prepare Ukraine. For him, Europe had a genuine interest in achieving regional peace and stabilizing its relations with Russia, avoiding a military escalation that would put the entire continental security architecture at risk.
Deinego claims that Kiev wanted total war from the beginning. The Minister explains that, before the Minsk Accords were established, the separatists tried to resolve the situation diplomatically in several ways. After non-military means failed, the republics proposed to Kiev that the fighting be somewhat limited to avoid civilian casualties.
First, a ban on the use of artillery and aviation was proposed, which Kiev quickly denied. Next, Donbass’ leaders attempted to establish security zones, limiting the use of heavy weapons according to their distance to civilian areas. In this model, artillery would be allowed only in regions far from inhabited cities, while in the “zero line” combat would be limited to the regular use of infantry, preventing civilians from being hit by heavy weapons. Even so, Ukraine denied signing such a deal.
This insistence by the neo-Nazi regime on waging all-out war against the separatists, according to the minister, generated real concerns among Europeans. The deeper the Ukrainian incursions were, the closer the attacks would come to Russian borders, worsening the security crisis. In practice, the situation could at any time escalate into a situation of absolute violence in which Moscow would be forced to intervene, generating a major conflict in Europe. This worried EU members, especially Germany, which was very dependent on the partnership with Russia.
Being a major importer of Russian gas and depending on friendship with Moscow to guarantee its economic and social stability, Berlin engaged deeply in the diplomatic process to try to end, or at least freeze, the conflict. For this reason, Germany was the main negotiator on Kiev’s side in Minsk, while Russia negotiated in support for the Donbass’ republics. In this sense, after many negotiations, the pact was finally signed, establishing measures such as ceasefire, release of prisoners and respect for the political autonomy of Russian-speaking regions.
Deinego believes that actual compliance with the Agreements would be the best scenario for Europeans as it would guarantee stability in Russia-EU relations, despite Ukrainian hostility towards Moscow. However, as well known, Kiev never obeyed the Minsk’s terms and continued violence in the region – even though the intensity of the fighting obviously decreased. Deinego thinks that this was never in the European interest and that, in fact, the direction taken by the conflict showed the failure of European diplomacy.
Indeed, at the time Russia-EU relations were prosperous, despite ideological and geopolitical rivalry. There was no reason for Europeans to agree to participate in a war plan in which they would be severely harmed. This leads us to believe that other actors worked to escalate the crisis, without considering European interests. Certainly, the US, which always wanted war with Russia, was responsible for this.
The circumstances show that Washington probably took advantage of the “stability” generated by the Minsk Agreements to prepare Kiev to act as a proxy against Russia. The Europeans never participated in this plan and were betrayed by NATO just like the Russians. Currently, Europe continues to be a victim of NATO’s war plans, being forced by the US to impose suicidal sanctions against Russia, affecting its own economy.
The opinion of an insider of the Minsk process is vital to show the real reasons for the conflict. In practice, Deinego presents proof of how relations between the US and EU are semi-colonial, with Europeans being used by Washington in war plans, without having their interests respected.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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A former advisor to a former Ukrainian president warns that the expansion of forced conscription, the devaluation of hryvnia, and the Ukrainian elite’s lack of understanding of the current situation are putting the country in a very bad scenario. The Ukrainian elite’s lack of understanding is because they continue to hold delusional beliefs despite Western support exhausting and emerging divisions.
President Volodymir Zelensky’s decision to continue hostilities against Russia and increase military strength with forced drafts threatens to provoke a civil war in Ukraine, saidOleg Soskin, former advisor to former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma (1994 to 2005), on his YouTube channel.
“All events will influence the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine. There is still no money, there is a devaluation of hryvnia, there will be inflation, the rationing system will begin, there are no successes on the front, there are huge losses, there is a completely mocking elite who lost understanding of the situation,” he noted.
According to Soskin, the Kiev regime wants to continue military operations despite the imminent end of supplies of money and weapons from Western countries.
The expert added that Zelensky’s government is expanding the forced recruitment of men and women into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to send them to the battlefront. Soskin warns that as soon as they start arresting Ukrainians, spontaneous resistance will begin.
“Everything is developing towards a bad scenario; there is nothing good, and it is really clear that there will be no counteroffensive, no breakthrough. Furthermore, even conventional weapons are already running out,” concluded Soskin.
Soskin’s revelation comes only days after Major General of the Ukrainian forces Dmitry Marchenko admitted in an interview with Deutsche Welle, “We have run out of volunteers willing to voluntarily join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, and the Washington Post reported on December 22 that there is chronic shortage of artillery, citing a member of a unit which now only fires 10 to 20 shells a day at Russian positions, whereas previously, it used an average of 50 shells and sometimes up to 90.
At the same time, an unnamed Ukrainian Armed Forces official expressed concern to the Independent newspaper, claiming that Russia has destroyed Ukrainian industry, leaving the country unable to produce the equipment needed for its Armed Forces.
According to the newspaper, the agent stated that “Russia has succeeded in crippling Kiev’s industry, according to this senior Ukrainian officer, making it impossible to produce the supplies it needs domestically.
“This war has become a war of attrition and we have to hold the line for some time to win. We are really depending on international support from the US, Britain, the EU and South Korea,” the Ukrainian source said.
The official also mentioned the “need” for “more Patriot missiles than we previously expected” due to “new versions of S-400 rockets to hit ground targets.”
Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, wryly suggested that the West’s humanitarian response to Ukraine’s defeat might be to hold a concert supporting the Ukrainians, a clear expression of dissatisfaction with Western assistance. Previously, he emphasised that Ukraine’s future would be brighter if Western countries supplied weapons more quickly.
Podolyak is a clear example of the “elite who lost understanding of the situation,” as expressed by Soskin, since the current adviser believes Ukraine still has a chance of winning the war if the West provides more weapons more quickly. Yet, major aid packages for Ukraine were blocked by Hungary in the European Union and by Republicans in the US Congress, clearly demonstrating that the West is divided on continuing support.
It is the Ukrainian “elite who lost understanding of the situation” that is responsible for the mounting and rapid death toll. Despite the summer offensive, initially scheduled for the spring, being an utter failure that led to the death of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and the destruction of Western military equipment, the Ukrainian elite continued to delusionally believe that they could reverse their predicament and even capture Crimea.
The truth is that Western countries are less willing to spend their money on Ukraine amid its lack of success on the front, which is why they are thinking about confiscating Russian assets. Although the Europeans are coming under pressure from Washington, which demands that Russian assets be channelled to support Kiev, it is evident that Moscow’s response will be immediate for offending countries, such as Germany, for example, which has assets that Russia could confiscate.
With Western support exhausting, conscription becoming increasingly desperate and unable to support manpower needs, and Ukrainian elites still holding onto delusional beliefs, there is every chance that the country could descend into civil war, as Soskin warns, because ordinary people will refuse to fight and die in a futile war against Russia.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
In a sermon called Christ in the Rubble, given on December 23, in Bethlehem, Rev. Munther Isaac, made the following comments:
“Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th and the world was silent.
Should we be surprised that they’re silent now? If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we as Christians are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness. And we are compromising the credibility of our Gospel message. If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.”
Rev. Munther, who is a Palestinian theologian, condemned the collective West:
“The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling! They always take the words of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we are not treated equally. Yet, the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, is almost always deemed infallible!”
Words like these are not to be taken lightly. October 7th, 2023 will go down in history as one of those pivotal moments where the fate of the world hung in the balance. At this moment in time, everything is Gaza. The whole world is watching.
The Genocidal War Machine
Will the genocidal war machine come to its senses and stop the barbaric slaughter of innocent civilians? Or will the conflict stir up so much regional anger, that the conflict escalates into a much wider confrontation between Israel, America, Hezbollah and Iran?
The character of the American global war machine is not pleasant. In fact, the United States has intervened, bombed, invaded and engaged in regime changes in over 80 nations in the last 100 years. It is their modus operandi. Why would we expect them to suddenly change?
The nation-state of Israel is an integral part of the global war machine. Israel was installed by European colonial powers for strategic purposes, beginning with the infamous Balfour Declaration in 1917, that bequeathed 8,470 square miles (21,937 km2) of land to a stranded ethnic group—namely, the Jewish diaspora, who spent 1900 years lamenting the loss of their homeland.
It was the British Empire who made a deal (with no expiry date) with one of the largest banking families in the world, the Rothschild family,who incidentally do not own any residential property in Israel. They have a multitude of magnificent estates in Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and Austria, as well as one lone estate in America. Why such a lack of interest in living in their own Private Little Idaho in the Middle East?
The answer is that the Rothschild family and their allies, the British Empire, had no interest in Israel for humanitarian purposes. They used and manipulated the scattered remnants of ancient Israel who were spread out over Europe, and convinced them Israel was the “only safe and secure home” for Jews.
They were interested in expanding their power base by creating a military outpost in the Middle East.
The ideal location of Palestine on the Mediterranean Sea offers a transit hub for trade and traffic from North Africa via Egypt to the south, and Europe to the north via Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. To the East is the gateway to Asia through Iraq and Iran.
In the world of geopolitics, it is always about location, location, location.
Christ in the Rubble, by Kelly Latimore Icons
Through the Eye of a Needle
Yeshua ben Yusef, otherwise known as Jesus, son of Joseph, once made a bold statement that unsettled even his followers. Jewish tradition held that wealth and prosperity were a gift from God, while poor people were cursed because of sin. Yeshua’s kindness towards the poor and downtrodden was a slap in the face to the self-righteous religious leaders.
Yeshua announced on one occasion, that it was “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
When his disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Bankers, like the Rothschild family, are the rich men and women who are unlikely candidates for the Kingdom of Heaven. In January of 2023, at the last meeting of the uber-wealthy in Davos, Switzerland, almost 3000 of the wealthiest and most powerful people met to discuss how they can become wealthier and more powerful.
“As global elites gather this week in the ski resort town of Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum, our global context couldn’t be more alarming. For the first time in 25 years, extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased at the same time. People in the US and around the world struggle to pay the high costs of food, gas, and other necessities, yet over the past two years, the richest 1% have secured nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world combined.”
The main problem with the super rich is that they don’t care. They lack empathy and human compassion. They are not in touch with humanity. Their inability to comprehend humanity puts them into a sociopathic category, a separate species of the human race.
Gaza is a third-world territory surrounded and occupied by a first-world nation. Gaza is one of the poorest areas in the world: Per capita income was estimated at US$3,100 in 2009, a position of 164th in the world. A UN report in 2022 estimated Gaza Strip’s unemployment rate to be 45% and 65% of the population under poverty, living standards went down by 27%, compared to 2006, and 80% of the population depends on international aid for survival.
Israel’s per capita income is $54,771 per person, or almost 18 times as much as the average citizen of Gaza. The world is in a class war between all of humanity and the mega billionaires who are gobbling up all the resources, consolidating their power base and making long-term plans for the enslavement of the human race.
The Übermensch
The mega billionaires represent the Übermensch (Super-human) of Friedrich Nietzsche’s play Thus Spake Zarathustra. Nietzsche’s character proclaimed that “God is dead,” and the road to true enlightenment lay in casting off the shackles of Christianity and religion in general. The Übermensch were the Herrenrasse(Master Race), an idea that inspired the Nazis.
The Nazi notion of the Master Race also spawned the idea of “inferior humans” (Untermenschen) who needed to be dominated and enslaved. The Nazis considered Jews, Gypsies and Slavs, including Poles, Czechs, Russians and Serbs, “racially inferior sub-humans.”
These ideas of racial supremacy and racial inferiority are currently embraced by the Zionist regime of Israel.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” ~ Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defence Minister
“Those evil butchers have no G-D, no religion. Islam, as Christianity before it, is an offshoot of Judaism. In the Bible, Israel is land of the Jews. Hamas actions attest that they are surely not Muslim. I doubt they’re even human. Wild animals don’t do the things they’ve done.” ~ Dof Yomi
“The Western world must stand with Israel as it fights the bloodthirsty animals of Hamas.” ~ Israel’s Ambassador to Berlin Ron Prosor
“The Hamas organisation have behaved like animals and Israel will target Hamas like human animals during and after the war.” ~ Israeli Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Avi Dichter
Human Rights
The struggle for basic human rights and dignity is central to the current conflict in Gaza. Dehumanizing Palestinians is part of the apartheid culture that was created by the nation-state of Israel who have systematically confiscated the Palestinians’ land over the course of the last 100 years.
The so-called Holy Land has become very unholy since October 7th. It is highly symbolic that Bethlehem, the birth place of Yeshua ben Yusef, is now in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. If Yeshua was alive today and living in the West Bank, he would be arrested and branded a terrorist.
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***
Nov. 30, 2023 -Omaha, NE – 30 year old Michael Peterson died suddenly at his home on Nov. 30, 2023.
Nov. 29, 2023 – Spanish 30 year old Vegan bodybuilding influencer Alfredo Martin died suddenly (Nov. 29, 2023) No cause of death reported.
Nov. 28, 2023 – Amsterdam, NY – 31 year old Amsterdam High School teacher Liam Pickett died suddenly of a burst aortic artery on Nov. 28, 2023 which happened after teaching his last period class.
Nov. 23, 2023 – Taftville, CT – 37 year old Robert Blanchette JR died suddenly on Nov. 23, 2023.
Nov. 19, 2023 – South Wales – 30 year old Charlie Batcup, British soccer player, died suddenly during a trip to Amsterdam Nov. 19, 2023.
Nov. 19, 2023 – BRAZILIAN DOCTOR DEAD – 33 year old Dr.Rodolfo Duarte Ribeiro dos Santos suffered a cardiac arrest following a hemorrhage in the liver and died on Nov. 19, 2023.
Nov. 18, 2023 – Kinnelon, NJ – 30 year old volunteer firefighter Justin Bower died suddenly.
Nov. 18, 2023 – Sheffield, UK – 37 year old Matt Hardy died after a 2 year battle with cancer (Nov. 18, 2023).
Nov. 18, 2023 -Former Ohio University wrestler, 37 year old Josh Horne died suddenly on Nov. 18, 2023.
Nov. 17, 2023 – Cork, Ireland – 39 year old sailor, Leading Seaman Conor Kiely was found unresponsive by his colleagues on a vessel that was in dock. He died on Nov. 17, 2023.
Nov. 16, 2023 – 37 year old Air India Pilot Captain Himanil Kumar had cardiac arrest at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport during training.
Nov. 15, 2023 – Zimbabwe international soccer player 32year old George Chigova died 4 months after suffering a heart attack. He died Nov. 15, 2023.
Nov. 15, 2023 – Dekalb County, GA – 33 year old Police Officer Samuel Curry died on Nov. 15, from complications related to a “sudden illness.”
Nov. 15, 2023 – Huntington, WV – 36 year old Derek Rowland Moore died unexpectedly in his home on Nov. 15, 2023.
Nov. 13, 2023 – NFL Football Star 35 year old Devon Wylie who played for the Kansas City Chiefs and Tennessee Titans died suddenly on Nov. 13, 2023 of “unknown causes.”
Nov. 12, 2023 – US DOCTOR DEAD – Seattle, WA 35 year old Dr. Blaise Anthony Carney MD died in his sleep while on vacation, on Nov. 12, 2023.
Nov. 12, 2023 – Anton, TX – 38 year old football coach Matthew Hoover was found dead in his home on Saturday Nov. 12, 2022. He leaves behind four daughters.
Nov. 11, 2023 -Purcell, OK – 38 year old Chase Patrick Hayes, audio technician for NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, etc died suddenly on Nov. 11, 2023.
Nov. 9, 2023 – UK – 30 year old Joshua Annear died suddenly in his girlfriend’s arms on Nov. 9, 2023 “my whole world has been shattered.”
Nov. 8, 2023 – California – 32 year old Enforcement Officer Kyle Evans Ghirardi suffered a medical emergency and died on Nov. 8, 2023.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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To: President Joe Biden
You’ve often spoken of how much you care about children and how terrible it is when they’re murdered. “Too many schools, too many everyday places have become killing fields,” you said at the White House last spring on the one-year anniversary of the school shooting in Uvalde. At the time of that tragedy in Texas, you had quickly gone on live television, speakinggravely.
“There are parents who will never see their child again,” you said, adding: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. . . . It’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.”
And you asked plaintively:
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies?”
The massacre in Uvalde took the lives of 19 children. For nearly three months, the ongoing massacre in Gaza has taken the lives of that many children every few hours.
In mid-November, after five weeks of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, the director-general of the World Health Organization reported that children were being killed at an average rate of six per hour, adding that “nowhere and no one is safe.” Palestinian civilians of all ages continue to undergo slaughter, with the death toll surpassing 20,000.
You have continued to voice support for Israel’s military assault on Gaza and its residents. After 10 weeks of the carnage, when you got around to expressing a bit of concern about Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing,” you were meanwhile still doing everything you could to greenlight and fast track massive U.S. shipments of weapons and ammunition to Israel so that the indiscriminate bombing could continue.
Even your belated and inadequate words on Dec. 12 about “indiscriminate bombing” apparently caused you to have second thoughts. The next day, Voice of America reported that “the White House appears to be walking back” your comment about “indiscriminate bombing.”
Most important, of course, are not words but deeds. As commander-in-chief, since early October you have approved large-scale shipments to Israel of 2,000-pound bombs—described by the New York Times as “one of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals,” a weapon that “unleashes a blast wave and metal fragments thousands of feet in every direction.”
In a Dec. 21 video report based on analysis of “aerial imagery and artificial intelligence”—headlined “Visual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped 2,000-Pound Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza’s Civilians to Move for Safety”—the Times indicated that “Israel used these munitions in the area it designated safe for civilians at least 200 times.” Those 2,000-pound bombs have been “a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza.”
Since the war in Gaza began 11 weeks ago, the Times reported, “the U.S. has sent more than 5,000 2,000-pound bombs” to Israel. And after a long phone conversation with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on Dec. 23, you told the press:
“I did not ask for a ceasefire.”
With your ongoing help, Israel is continuing to murder children and other civilians in Gaza just as methodically as the gunman murdered children at the elementary school in Uvalde. And you have continued to provide weaponry for the murders just as surely as the gun shop in Uvalde sold firearms and ammunition to the man who went on to kill at the elementary school.
But that is an unfair comparison—unfair to the Uvalde gun-shop owner, who did not know the intended use of the weapons and ammo. But you know what the billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and bombs gifted by the U.S. government are being used for.
When three 9-year-old students were among those shot to death at a school in Nashville last March, you spoke about them the next day.
“A family’s worst nightmare has occurred,” you said. “Those children should all be with us still,” you said. And you said: “We know the names of the victims.”
But you don’t know the names of the children you’ve helped to murder in Gaza. And there are so many.
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Writing and photographing in wartime are acts of resistance, acts of faith. They affirm the belief that one day – a day the writers, journalists and photographers may never see – the words and images will evoke empathy, understanding, outrage and provide wisdom. They chronicle not only the facts, although facts are important, but the texture, sacredness and grief of lives and communities lost. They tell the world what war is like, how those caught in its maw of death endure, how there are those who sacrifice for others and those who do not, what fear and hunger are like, what death is like. They transmit the cries of children, the wails of grief of the mothers, the daily struggle in the face of savage industrial violence, the triumph of their humanity through filth, sickness, humiliation and fear. This is why writers, photographers and journalists are targeted by aggressors in war — including the Israelis — for obliteration. They stand as witnesses to evil, an evil the aggressors want buried and forgotten. They expose the lies. They condemn, even from the grave, their killers. Israel has killed at least 13 Palestinian poets and writers along with at least 67 journalists and media workers in Gaza, and three in Lebanon since Oct. 7.
I experienced futility and outrage when I covered war. I wondered if I had done enough, or if it was even worth the risk. But you go on because to do nothing is to be complicit. You report because you care. You will make it hard for the killers to deny their crimes.
This brings me to the Palestinian novelist and playwright Atef Abu Saif. He and his 15-year-old son Yasser, who live in the occupied West Bank, were visiting family in Gaza — where he was born — when Israel began its scorched earth campaign. Atef is no stranger to the violence of the Israeli occupiers. He was two months old during the 1973 war and writes
“I’ve been living through wars ever since. Just as life is a pause between two deaths, Palestine, as a place and as an idea, is a timeout in the middle of many wars.”
During Operation Cast Lead, the 2008/2009 Israel assault on Gaza, Atef sheltered in the corridor of his Gaza family home for 22 nights with his wife, Hanna and two children, while Israel bombed and shelled. His book “The Drone Eats with Me: Diaries from a City Under Fire,” is an account of Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza that killed 1,523 Palestinian civilians, including 519 children.
“Memories of war can be strangely positive, because to have them at all means you must have survived,” he notes sardonically.
He again did what writers do, including the professor and poetRefaat Alareer, who was killed, along with Refaat’s brother, sister and her four children, in an airstrike on his sister’s apartment building in Gaza on Dec. 7. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that Alareer was deliberately targeted, “surgically bombed out of the entire building.” His killing came after weeks of “death threats that Refaat received online and by phone from Israeli accounts.” He had moved to his sister’s because of the threats.
Refaat, whose doctorate was on the metaphysical poet John Donne, wrote a poem in November, called “If I Must Die,” which became his last will and testament. It has been translated into numerous languages. A reading of the poem by the actor Brian Cox has been viewed almost 30 million times.
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made,
flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
Atef, once again finding himself living amid the explosions and carnage from Israeli shells and bombs, doggedly publishes his observations and reflections. His accounts are often difficult to transmit because of Israel’s blockage of Internet and phone service. They have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Nation and Slate.
On the first day of the Israeli bombardment, a friend, the young poet and musician Omar Abu Shawish, is killed, apparently in an Israeli naval bombardment, though later reports would say he was killed in an airstrike as he was walking to work. Atef wonders about the Israeli soldiers watching him and his family with “their infrared lenses and satellite photography.” Can “they count the loafs of bread in my basket, or the number of falafel balls on my plate?” he wonders. He watches the crowds of dazed and confused families, their homes in rubble, carrying “mattresses, bags of clothes, food and drink.” He stands mutely before “the supermarket, the bureau de change, the falafel shop, the fruit stalls, the perfume parlor, the sweets shop, the toy shop — all burned.”
“Blood was everywhere, along with bits of kids’ toys, cans from the supermarket, smashed fruit, broken bicycles and shattered perfume bottles,” he writes. “The place looked like a charcoal drawing of a town scorched by a dragon.”
“I went to the Press House, where journalists were frantically downloading images and writing reports for their agencies. I was sitting with Bilal, the Press House manager, when an explosion shook the building. Windows shattered, and the ceiling collapsed onto us in chunks. We ran toward the central hall. One of the journalists was bleeding, having been hit by flying glass. After 20 minutes, we ventured out to inspect the damage. I noticed that Ramadan decorations were still hanging in the street.”
“The city has become a wasteland of rubble and debris,” Atef, who has been the Palestinian Authority’s minister of culture since 2019, writes in the early days of the Israeli shelling of Gaza City. “Beautiful buildings fall like columns of smoke. I often think about the time I was shot as a kid, during the first intifada, and how my mother told me I actually died for a few minutes before being brought back to life. Maybe I can do the same this time, I think.”
He leaves his teenage son with family members.
“The Palestinian logic is that in wartime, we should all sleep in different places, so that if part of the family is killed, another part lives,” he writes. “The U.N. schools are getting more crowded with displaced families. The hope is that the U.N. flag will save them, though in previous wars, that hasn’t been the case.”
I see death approaching, hear its steps growing louder. Just be done with it, I think. It’s the 11th day of the conflict, but all the days have merged into one: the same bombardment, the same fear, the same smell. On the news, I read the names of the dead on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. I wait for my name to appear.
In the morning, my phone rang. It was Rulla, a relative in the West Bank, telling me she had heard there’d been an airstrike in Talat Howa, a neighborhood on the south side of Gaza City where my cousin Hatem lives. Hatem is married to Huda, my wife’s only sister. He lives in a four-story building that also houses his mother and brothers and their families.
I called around, but no one’s phone was working. I walked to al-Shifa Hospital to read the names: Lists of the dead are pinned up daily outside a makeshift morgue. I could barely approach the building: Thousands of Gazans had made the hospital their home; its gardens, its hallways, every empty space or spare corner had a family in it. I gave up and headed toward Hatem’s.
Thirty minutes later, I was on his street. Rulla had been right. Huda and Hatem’s building had been hit only an hour earlier. The bodies of their daughter and grandchild had already been retrieved; the only known survivor was Wissam, one of their other daughters, who had been taken to the ICU. Wissam had gone straight into surgery, where both of her legs and her right hand had been amputated. Her graduation ceremony from art college had taken place only the day before. She has to spend the rest of her life without legs, with one hand. “What about the others?” I asked someone.
“We can’t find them,” came the reply.
Amid the rubble, we shouted: “Hello? Can anyone hear us?” We called out the names of those still missing, hoping some might still be alive. By the end of the day, we’d managed to find five bodies, including that of a 3-month-old. We went to the cemetery to bury them.
In the evening, I went to see Wissam in the hospital; she was barely awake. After half an hour, she asked me: “Khalo [Uncle], I’m dreaming, right?”
I said, “We are all in a dream.”
“My dream is terrifying! Why?”
“All our dreams are terrifying.”
After 10 minutes of silence, she said, “Don’t lie to me, Khalo. In my dream, I don’t have legs. It’s true, isn’t it? I have no legs?”
“But you said it’s a dream.”
“I don’t like this dream, Khalo.”
I had to leave. For a long 10 minutes, I cried and cried. Overwhelmed by the horrors of the past few days, I walked out of the hospital and found myself wandering the streets. I thought idly, we could turn this city into a film set for war movies. Second World War films and end-of-the-world movies. We could hire it out to the best Hollywood directors. Doomsday on demand. Who could have the courage to tell Hanna, so far away in Ramallah, that her only sister had been killed? That her family had been killed? I phoned my colleague Manar and asked her to go to our house with a couple of friends and try to delay the news from getting to her. “Lie to her,” I told Manar. “Say the building was attacked by F-16s but the neighbors think Huda and Hatem were out at the time. Any lie that could help.”
Leaflets in Arabic dropped by Israeli helicopters float down from the sky.They announce that anyone who remains north of the Wadi waterway will be considered a partner to terrorism, “meaning,” Atef writes, “the Israelis can shoot on sight.” The electricity is cut. Food, fuel and water begin to run out. The wounded are operated on without anesthesia. There are no painkillers or sedatives. He visits his niece Wissam, racked with pain, in al-Shifa Hospital who asks him for a lethal injection. She says Allah will forgive her.
“But he will not forgive me, Wissam.”
“I am going to ask him to, on your behalf,” she says.
After airstrikes he joins the rescue teams “under the cricket-like hum of drones we couldn’t see in the sky.” A line from T.S Eliot, “a heap of broken images,” runs through his head. The injured and dead are “transported on three-wheeled bicycles or dragged along in carts by animals.”
“We picked up pieces of mutilated bodies and gathered them on a blanket; you find a leg here, a hand there, while the rest looks like minced meat,” he writes. “In the past week, many Gazans have started writing their names on their hands and legs, in pen or permanent marker, so they can be identified when death comes. This might seem macabre, but it makes perfect sense: We want to be remembered; we want our stories to be told; we seek dignity. At the very least, our names will be on our graves. The smell of unretrieved bodies under the ruins of a house hit last week remains in the air. The more time passes, the stronger the smell.”
The scenes around him become surreal. On Nov. 19, day 44 of the assault, he writes:
A man rides a horse toward me with the body of a dead teenager slung over the saddle in front. It seems it’s his son, perhaps. It looks like a scene from a historical movie, only the horse is weak and barely able to move. He is back from no battle. He is no knight. His eyes are full of tears as he holds the little riding crop in one hand and the bridle in the other. I have an impulse to photograph him but then feel suddenly sick at the idea. He salutes no one. He barely looks up. He is too consumed with his own loss. Most people are using the camp’s old cemetery; it’s the safest and although it is technically long-since full, they have started digging shallower graves and burying the new dead on top of the old—keeping families together, of course.
On Nov. 21 after constant tank-shelling, he decides to flee the Jabaliya neighborhood in the north of Gaza for the south, with his son and mother-in-law who is in a wheelchair. They must pass through Israeli checkpoints, where soldiers randomly select men and boys from the line for detention.
“Scores of bodies are strewn along both sides of the road,” he writes. “Rotting, it seems, into the ground. The smell is horrendous. A hand reaches out toward us from the window of a burned-out car, as if asking for something, from me specifically. I see what looks like two headless bodies in a car — limbs and precious body parts just thrown away and left to fester.”
He tells his son Yasser: “Don’t look. Just keep walking, son.”
In early Dec. his family home is destroyed in an airstrike.
“The house a writer grows up in is a well from which to draw material. In each of my novels, whenever I wanted to depict a typical house in the camp, I conjured ours. I’d move the furniture around a bit, change the name of the alley, but who was I kidding? It was always our house.”
“All the houses in Jabalya are small. They’re built randomly, haphazardly, and they’re not made to last. These houses replaced the tents that Palestinians like my grandmother Eisha lived in after the displacements of 1948. Those who built them always thought they’d soon be returning to the beautiful, spacious homes they’d left behind in the towns and villages of historic Palestine. That return never happened, despite our many rituals of hope, likesafeguarding the key to the old family home. The future keeps betraying us, but the past is ours.”
“Though I’ve lived in many cities around the world, and visited many more, that tiny ramshackle abode was the only place I ever felt at home’” he goes on. “Friends and colleagues always asked: Why don’t you live in Europe or America? You have the opportunity. My students chimed in: Why did you return to Gaza? My answer was always the same: ‘Because in Gaza, in an alleyway in the Saftawi neighborhood of Jabalya, there stands a little house that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.’ If on doomsday God were to ask me where I would like to be sent, I wouldn’t hesitate in saying, ‘Home.’ Now there is no home.”
Atef is now trapped in southern Gaza with his son. His niece was transferred to a hospital in Egypt. Israel continues to pound Gaza with over 20,000 dead and 50,000 wounded. Atef continues to write.
The story of Christmas is the story of a poor woman, nine months pregnant, and her husband forced to leave their home in Nazareth in northern Galilee. The occupying Roman power has demanded they register for the census 90 miles away in Bethlehem. When they arrive there are no rooms. She gives birth in a stable. King Herod – who learned from the Magi of the birth of the messiah – orders his soldiers to hunt down every child two years old and under in Bethlehem and the vicinity and murder them. An angel warns Joseph in a dream to flee. The couple and infant escape under the cover of darkness and make the 40-mile journey to Egypt.
I was in a refugee camp in the early 1980s for Guatemalans who had fled the war into Honduras. The peasant farmers and their families, living in filth and mud, their villages and homes burned or abandoned, were decorating their tents with strips of colored paper to celebrate the Massacre of the Innocents.
“Why is this such an important day?” I asked.
“It was on this day that Christ became a refugee,” a farmer answered.
The Christmas story was not written for the oppressors. It was written for the oppressed. We are called to protect the innocents. We are called to defy the occupying power. Atef, Refaat and those like them, who speak to us at the risk of death, echo this Biblical injunction. They speak so we will not be silent. They speak so we will take these words and images and hold them up to the principalities of the world — the media, politicians, diplomats, universities, the wealthy and privileged, the weapons manufacturers, the Pentagon and the Israel lobby groups — who are orchestrating the genocide in Gaza. The infant Christ is not lying today in straw, but a pile of broken concrete.
Evil has not changed down the millenia. Neither has goodness.
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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.
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***
The Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) executed on Sunday evening their seventh airdrop to assist those besieged within the Church of Saint Porphyrius in the north of Gaza Strip.
JAf said that the drop, executed under Royal directives, serves as a demonstration of solidarity with the Christian community amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.
The statement revealed that a Royal Air Force plane airdropped humanitarian aid and food supplies, aiming to alleviate the conditions of those trapped inside the church, recognised as one of the oldest churches globally.
The estimated number of besieged individuals within the church is approximately 800 civilians, primarily Christian, facing food shortages and a severe lack of basic necessities amidst harsh humanitarian conditions, according to the statement.
The source added that aid packages were parachuted onto the church, providing a safe haven for Christians and their children while being surrounded by Israeli occupation forces. This airdrop marks the seventh Jordanian airdrop, conveying a message of solidarity with our Christian brethren in the besieged strip amid the escalating Israeli war against Gaza, which has cast its shadow over the Christmas festivities.
During a meeting with religious leaders in the Al Husseiniya Palace last Wednesday, His Majesty King Abdullah, affirmed Jordan’s commitment to providing assistance to those seeking refuge in the church. The source emphasised that Jordan, in adherence to Royal directives, will continue to support the brothers and sisters in Gaza, standing by the Palestinian people and supporting their resilience on their land through various means to alleviate the challenging humanitarian conditions they face.
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Featured image is a Petra photo via The Jordan Times
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***
On October 17, just 10 days after the Hamas attack on Israel, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Hamas cannot be eliminated.
Barak said,
“We cannot completely eliminate Hamas. Hamas is an ideological movement which exists in [Palestinian] people’s dreams, in their hearts and in their minds.”
For the last thirty years, various resistance groups in the Middle East have emerged. Over time, they have made alliances among themselves. Their collective goal is to free Palestine from the brutal and enduring Israeli occupation.
The US and Israel have both killed numerous resistance leaders, but the resistance movement has only gained in strength and momentum.
Since October 7, and the Hamas attack on Israel which resulted in about 1,200 Israelis killed, and almost 200 Israelis taken as hostages to Gaza, Israel has responded with a military bombardment of Gaza that has resulted in over 20,000 dead, with the majority being women and children.
In a recent Harvard poll, respondents aged 18 to 24 were asked, “Do you think the Hamas killing of 1200 Israeli civilians in Israel can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians or is it not justified?” a 51 percent to 49 percent majority said the attacks were justified.
In 1977, the Geneva Conventions, to which Palestine acceded in 2014, classifies conflicts against racist regimes as legitimate armed conflicts. The UN has reported Israel is an Apartheid state, and by definition a racist regime.
History supports that the liberation of occupation is rarely achieved without an armed struggle. Resistance fighting is governed by international humanitarian law, which means civilians must not be targeted and should be protected. The Hamas attack of October 7 was armed resistance, but did not distinguish between legitimate Israeli regime targets, and civilians.
Yahya Sinwaris the Prime Minister of Gaza, and Israel holds him responsible for the October 7 attack. Israel has said one of the goals of its current war on Gaza is to kill Sinwar. He was born in Khan Younis refugee camp, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language from Gaza University.
“This abominable attack was decided upon by Yahya Sinwar,” said IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. “Therefore he and all those under him are dead men walking.”
Many experts have said that Israel is incapable of eradicating Hamas, because it is an ideology. Killing Sinwar, or others, including the Palestinian people, will not get rid of armed resistance.
In January 2020, US President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by a drone strike after his plane landed in Baghdad.
Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a main architect of Iran’s participation in the resistance of the occupation of Palestine.
In the fight to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Soleimani headed a coalition of Iraqi and Syrian fighters who killed as many ISIS as did the US-led coalition. The defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria was accomplished by the joint efforts of the US, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, but without collaboration.
In February 2008, the CIA assassinated Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus. He was the master of the military branch of the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. Israel had occupied the south of Lebanon for decades, but left abruptly in 2000. However, they have continued to occupy an area in the south known as Shebaa Farms, which has water resources Israel has exploited. Hezbollah is resisting the occupation of Palestine, but also Lebanese occupied land.
In March 2004, Ahmed Yassin was assassinated in Gaza by an Israel helicopter strike ordered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Yassin was one of the founders of Hamas. He was killed while going to pray in the early morning in the wheelchair which he had been confined to since the age of 12.
In September 2000, Yassin had proposed several ceasefire initiatives with Israel, asking Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, along with stopping the assassination of Palestinian activists.
Yassin defended the Palestinian people’s right to resist the occupation and had criticized the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank for their decision to not participate in the armed resistance to Israeli occupation.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, and in 2006 Hamas was elected to govern the enclave. Israel has imposed a land, sea and air blockade of Gaza since 2007, and many refer to Gaza as the largest ‘open-air prison’ on earth.
The population of Gaza is about 2 million, making it one of the highest population densities, and with eight refugee camps. The majority are Sunni Muslims, with a small Christian minority.
The UN is now warning of an imminent risk of famine in Gaza as the Israeli bombardment of the north and south rages on without a ceasefire in sight. The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published on Thursday reports the levels of acute food insecurity in Gaza is the largest ever recorded globally.
The UN’s World Food Program food security experts had already established that Gazans have ‘used up all their resources, livelihoods have collapsed, bakeries are destroyed, shops are empty, and families can’t find food,’ the report said.
The occupation of Palestine is the root cause of all suffering in the Middle East, and the liberation of Palestine is a fundamental cultural value held by the vast majority of all the Arab people, which number 22 countries, and represent about 300 million people.
The Palestinian people have been stateless, and under Israeli military occupation since 1948. They lack freedom, human rights and the UN calls Israel an Apartheid state.
Israel, and America may continue to kill Palestinian resistance leaders, but it will never stop the resistance, because it is a living ideology. The American patriot, Patrick Henry, said “Give me liberty, or give me death.” Those words spoken in 1776 are in the hearts and minds of millions of Palestinians and their supporters, including the University students across America.
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***
The US, EU, and UK do not tire of defending Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people with the cliched incantation that “Israel has the right to defend itself”.
In August 2022, Israel bombed Palestinians in Gaza over three days, killing 49 people, including 17 children. The US and the EU’s response to the massacre was to declare emphatically their support for “Israel’s right to defend itself” and mutedly to regret the death of Palestinian civilians.
That was the last major massacre Israel committed in Gaza before its current genocidal war, but it certainly was not the first. For that, we must go back to 1951, when Israel began to raid the Gaza Strip.
Israel had already expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza between the end of 1947 and the summer of 1950 when the remaining 2,500 Palestinians from the Mediterranean town of Majdal ‘Asqalan (now the settler-colony of Ashkelon) were loaded on to trucks by the Israeli army. Israel would also expel 7,000 Palestinian Bedouins to Egypt during this period up to 1955.
A History of War Crimes
In October 1951, the Israelis raided Gaza, killing dozens of Palestinians and Egyptians, demolishing dozens of houses, and blowing up wells to curb the attempts by the expelled Palestinians to return home across the new borders erected by the Jewish settler colony.
Earlier, in August 1949, Israeli soldiers captured two Palestinian refugees. They killed the man and 22 soldiers took turns raping the woman before killing her. In March 1950, Israeli soldiers abducted two Palestinian girls and one boy from Gaza across the new border.
They killed the boy and then raped the two girls before killing them. By then, it was quite common for Israeli soldiers and police to rape female Palestinian refugees attempting to return to their homes, a practice that was widespread during the Nakba a few years earlier.
In August 1950, for example, four Israeli policemen raped a Palestinian woman picking fruit from her family’s orchard across the West Bank border.
Israeli raids on Gaza would continue in 1952 and 1953, culminating in the Bureij refugee camp massacre in August of that year. The Israeli military unit 101 killed at least 20 Palestinian refugees, including seven women and five children, by throwing bombs through the windows of their huts while they slept and shooting those who fled. Dozens were injured. Other sources put the final tally of Palestinians killed at 50.
At the time, foreign observers did not mention Israel’s “right to defend itself” and called the massacre “an appalling case of deliberate mass murder”. That same year, the Israelis slaughtered 70 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank village of Qibya, which even the Indianapolis-based, pro-Israel National Jewish Post compared to the Nazi massacre at Lidice.
In February 1955, the Israelis raided an Egyptian military camp in Gaza, killing at least 36 Egyptian soldiers and two Palestinian civilians, one of whom was a child.
Until then, Egyptian authorities had been placating the Israelis by policing the borders and preventing Palestinian “infiltration”. After the raid, Palestinians in Gaza rose up against the Egyptian authorities, demanding weapons to defend themselves from the unceasing Israeli raids.
Exasperated by Israeli brutality and bellicosity, and under pressure from the Palestinian refugees, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser acceded to the Palestinian demand. A group of Palestinian fedayeen retaliated against Israel by raiding it in August 1955 and infiltrating as far as 27 miles inside its borders – ambushing soldiers, laying mines, and attacking vehicles and buildings – during which five soldiers and 10 civilians died.
Lest anyone think that the current Jewish supremacist Israeli government is the first to invoke the biblical “Amalek” to provide a religious imprimatur to its ongoing genocidal war against the Palestinians, as Benjamin Netanyahu did, it was in fact the secular Prime Minister David Ben Gurion who first used the analogy seven decades ago.
Ahead of Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Egypt in October 1956, Ben Gurion proclaimed that “the hosts of Amalek” were rearming themselves to “destroy the State of Israel and the people of Israel”.
The Israelis bombed the Gaza city of Khan Younis on 2 November 1956 from the air, killing scores of civilians before Israeli tanks entered the city on 3 November.
The Israelis rounded up resistance fighters and executed them on the spot or in their homes. Meanwhile, in the adjacent refugee camp, the Israelis rounded up all men and boys above the age of 15 in the town square. They proceeded to machine-gun them, killing between 300 and 500 people, the vast majority of whom were civilians and half being 1948 refugees. They occupied Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula until they were forced out by the US and the USSR in March 1957.
‘Genocidal Atrocities’
In the past few weeks, Israel carried out massacres in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which Israel dubbed “a dangerous combat zone” after it had served as a safe zone for one million Palestinians who had fled northern Gaza. It included the slaughter of 30 civilians sheltering at a school from Israel’s savage bombings. The relentless mass killing of Palestinians since 7 October makes the 1956 savage Israeli massacres seem humane in comparison.
In 1967, Israel again invaded and occupied Gaza. It expelled 75,000 Palestinians from the Strip and prevented 50,000 more (who were working, studying, or travelling outside Gaza when Israel invaded) from returning home. It confiscated 60 percent of the land and all the water of the Palestinians, much of which was for the exclusive use of the Jewish colonists who had access to 18 times the amount of water available to the indigenous Palestinians.
The Jewish colonists had 85 more (stolen) land per capita than the Palestinian owners of the land. Israel subjected the entire Palestinian population to a racialised military occupation during which it destroyed Gaza’s economic infrastructure until 2005.
Since Israel’s redeployment around Gaza in September 2005 and its incarceration of 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza concentration camp, the Israelis launched numerous bombing campaigns against the camp’s civilian inmates and the resistance, including in 2006, 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021, killing thousands of civilians.
The only “victory” that the Israeli military has scored since 7 October is the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, with tens of thousands more injured, and more than two million others displaced. It has further succeeded in the destruction of homes and residential buildings, hospitals, schools, libraries, municipal buildings, churches and mosques. Despite all the civilian slaughter and destruction, its reputation for military preparedness has been lost for the foreseeable future.
As more and more details trickle out of Israel’s murder of its own civilians and destruction of their homes on 7 October, it will be a long time before it can recapture some of the fictional military allure it had previously enjoyed in the West and among its Arab allies.
One of the more interesting ironies of the current Israeli war is that whereas the US empire and its EU and UK subsidiaries continued to rearm Israel since 8 October without respite so that the settler colony could continue its genocidal war, it is the Palestinian resistance that has had no weapons replenishment since that date and yet continues to score military victories against the Israeli invaders.
But not only have the Americans been the major party to this war against a colonised and brutalised people, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, went further by identifying the US with Israel so much that he referred to the Palestinian resistance as the “enemy” of the United States.
Sullivan said he had “discussed the conditions and timing for Israel to wind down the current phase of its operations with Israeli leaders”, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But he declined to specify a time frame, saying that neither wanted to “telegraph for the enemy what the plan is”.
If pro-Israel Americans likened the 1953 Qibya massacre to the Nazi massacre at Lidice, and famed Ashkenazi Israeli columnist Yehoshua Radler-Feldman, known by the pen name Rabbi Benyamin, wrote of the 1956 massacre of 50 Palestinian citizens of Israel in the village of Kafr Qasim “that soon we will be like Nazis and the perpetrators of pogroms”, today both Israeli officials and Palestinian resistance spokespersons are repeatedly referring to each other as “Nazis”.
But while the Palestinian spokesmen refer to the Israeli government and its military as Nazis and fascists, Israeli officials label the Palestinian people as a whole as “Nazis”.
Given the shameless racist discourse among Israeli officials about the Palestinians as “animals” and “subhuman”, the extraordinary force of the indiscriminate Israeli killing machine, and the scale of Israel’s genocidal atrocities, the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the analogy is up for debate.
What remains beyond doubt, however, is that while the industrial scale of Israeli atrocities in Gaza is unprecedented, their cruel nature has been part and parcel of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people since 1948.
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Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of many books and academic and journalistic articles. His books include Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan; Desiring Arabs; The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, and most recently Islam in Liberalism. His books and articles have been translated into a dozen languages.
Featured image: A view of a United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Yunis, Gaza on October 22, 2023 [Abed Zagout/Anadolu Agency]
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Folks, it’s time to break the cycle of abuses—cruel, brutal, immoral, unconstitutional and unacceptable—that have been heaped upon us by the government for way too long.
Here’s just a small sampling of what we suffered through in 2023.
The government failed to protect our lives, liberty and happiness. The predators of the police state wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government didn’t listen to the citizenry, refused to abide by the Constitution, and treated the citizenry as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—were armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies were allowed to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spied on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors made a killing by waging endless wars abroad.
The president became more imperial. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill. The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The presidency itself has become an imperial one with permanent powers.
The cost of endless wars drove the nation deeper into debt. Policing the globe and waging endless wars abroad hasn’t made America—or the rest of the world—any safer, but it has made the military industrial complex rich at taxpayer expense.
The courts failed to uphold justice. Time and time again, the Supreme Court failed to right the wrongs being meted out by the American police state. A review of critical court rulings over the past decade or so, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
The Surveillance State rendered Americans vulnerable to threats from government spies, police, hackers and power failures. Thanks to the government’s ongoing efforts to build massive databases using emerging surveillance, DNA and biometrics technologies, Americans became sitting ducks for hackers and government spies alike. Billions of people have been affected by data breaches and cyberattacks. On a daily basis, Americans were made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world. The Department of Homeland Security, which has led the charge to create a Surveillance State, has continued to deploy mandatory facial recognition scans at airports and gather biometric data on American travelers. Police were gifted with new surveillance gadgets. The Corporate State tapped into our computer keyboards, cameras, cell phones and smart devices in order to better target us for advertising. Social media giants such as Facebook granted secret requests by the government and its agents for access to users’ accounts. And our private data—methodically collected and stored with or without our say-so—was repeatedly compromised and breached.
Mass shootings claimed more lives. Mass shootings have taken place at churches, in nightclubs, on college campuses, on military bases, in elementary schools, in government offices, and at concerts. In almost every instance, you can connect the dots back to the military-industrial complex, which continues to dominate, dictate and shape almost every aspect of our lives.
The rich got richer, and the poor went to jail. Not content to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant, the courts continued their practice of jailing individuals who are unable to pay the hefty fines imposed by the American police state. These debtors’ prisons play right into the hands of those who make a profit by jailing Americans. This is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is fast becoming a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations,” and its rise to power is predicated on shackling the American taxpayer to a debtors’ prison guarded by a phalanx of politicians, bureaucrats and militarized police with no hope of parole and no chance for escape.
“Show your papers” incidents skyrocketed. We are not supposed to be living in a “show me your papers” society. Despite this, the U.S. government has introduced measures allowing police and other law enforcement officials to stop individuals (citizens and noncitizens alike), demand they identify themselves, and subject them to patdowns, warrantless searches, and interrogations.
Free speech was dealt one knock-out punch after another. Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors (and championed by those who want to suppress speech with which they might disagree) conspired to corrode our core freedoms, purportedly for our own good. On paper—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—we are technically free to speak. In reality, however, we were only as free to speak as a government official—or corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTube—allowed. The reasons for such censorship varied widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of free speech.
Police became even more militarized and weaponized. Despite concerns about the government’s steady transformation of local police into a standing military army, local police agencies continued to acquire weaponry, training and equipment suited for the battlefield. There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government civilians armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines.
Schools turned into prisons. So-called school “safety” policies, which run the gamut from zero tolerance policies that punish all infractions harshly to surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, school-wide lockdowns, active-shooter drills and militarized police officers, turned schools into prisons and young people into prisoners.
The government waged a renewed war on private property. The battle to protect our private property has become the final constitutional frontier, the last holdout against our freedoms being usurped. We no longer have any real property rights. That house you live in, the car you drive, the small (or not so small) acreage of land that has been passed down through your family or that you scrimped and saved to acquire, whatever money you manage to keep in your bank account after the government and its cronies have taken their first and second and third cut…none of it is safe from the government’s greedy grasp. At no point do you ever have any real ownership in anything other than the clothes on your back. Everything else can be seized by the government under one pretext or another (civil asset forfeiture, unpaid taxes, eminent domain, public interest, etc.).
The plight of the nation’s homeless worsened. In communities across the country, legislators adopted a variety of methods (parking meters, zoning regulations, tickets, and even robots) to discourage the homeless from squatting, loitering and panhandling. One of the most common—and least discussed—practices: homeless relocation programs that bus the homeless outside city limits.
The government waged war on military veterans. The government has done a pitiful job of respecting the freedoms of military veterans and caring for their needs once out of uniform. The plight of veterans today is America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices, and increasingly treated like criminals— targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights—for daring to speak out against government misconduct.
The Deep State took over. The American system of representative government was overthrown by the Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military industrial complex—a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad. When in doubt, follow the money trail. It always points the way.
The takeaway: Everything the founders of this country feared has come to dominate in modern America.
There is nothing normal about egregious surveillance, roadside strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, or pay-to-play politicians.
Let’s not take the mistakes, carnage, toxicity and abuse of this past year into 2024.
As long as we continue to allow callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance, racism, militarism, materialism, meanness and injustice—magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality—to trump justice, fairness and equality, there can be no hope of prevailing against the police state.
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Today, we are “fraternizing” and acting in solidarity Worldwide with the People of Palestine against the hegemonic agenda of the U.S. and it allies which are waging an all-out war against humanity.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Dr Ahmed Moghrabi, head of plastic surgery in Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, was heavily distraught as he recounted having to work around the clock for 80 days to treat the Palestinian victims of constant Israeli bombardment.
Jews then were an occupied people, struggling under the heavy hand of Rome, oppressed like the Palestinian people today who are likewise subject to a new imperial order expressed through remote cameras, armed drones and robots, and cluster bombs. They are subject to the brutal authority of Jerusalem, Washington, and London, the empire of deception and decay.
Just as the fabricated story of bin Laden and al-Qaeda was a fraud to push the United States into a series of wars for Israel, so too is the false account below of the Hamas-Israel relationship a calculated lie meant to advance disastrous outcomes for average people, including Jews, the world over. The fraudulent character of the accounts of the supposed rapes and killing of children has been expertly exposed by Max Blumenthal.
While it is astounding that one small, feisty Arab tribe in the nation of Yemen has shown the mega-world how to creatively stand up to the Hegemon without threatening nuclear weapons, without initiating direct military conflict and yet achieve their goals – what is even more astounding is that the Houthis are not the least intimidated by the Empire’s pretentious display of empty threats and waning power.
Both Russian and Ukrainian milbloggers reported that the Starokonstantinov strike is associated with solid information about the appearance of “something very important at the airbase”, which prompted the VKS to use its most dangerous air-launched missile that is generally reserved for such high-priority targets.
38 year old news anchor, journalist, Elaine da Silva was 23 weeks pregnant and was sent to hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Monday Nov. 20 with pneumonia. She died next day with her unborn child.
Yemen’s Houthi militia has shown how a small army can take on the American Empire and win. They have shown how courage, resolve and commitment to principle can act as a force-multiplier allowing a much weaker military to ‘punch above its weight’. They’ve also shown that a few well-placed missiles in key locations on the world’s most critical shipping lanes, can send tremors across the global economy and shake the “rules-based order” to its foundations.
Fifty years ago, no U.S. publisher, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times or any other newspaper in the U.S. or abroad was prosecuted for publishing the classified history of the U.S. war on Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers [although Nixon tried].
In response to the declaration of the Ansar Allah Resistance Movement in Yemen that it would enforce a blockade on Israeli linked ships until the genocidal siege on the Palestinians ceased, the U.S. has pledged to protect commercial vessels traveling throughout the Red Sea.
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A Palestinian surgeon in southern Gaza has made an impassioned plea to the Biden administration, asking the US president how many more civilians need to be killed in Israel’s military campaign on Gaza before the US demands a ceasefire.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Dr Ahmed Moghrabi, head of plastic surgery in Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, was heavily distraught as he recounted having to work around the clock for 80 days to treat the Palestinian victims of constant Israeli bombardment.
“I want actually to ask the Biden administration and the leaders of the world and [those] who sent these prohibited mass destruction weapons to Israel,” Moghrabi said. “How many more of us have to die? Really, how many more of us have to die, as civilians? How many more videos do you have to see?”
The US is one of Israel’s closest allies and supplies the country with billions of dollars in military assistance each year. Since the war on Gaza began in October, the US House of Representatives approved an additional $14bn to the country to aid in its campaign on the besieged enclave.
Israel has so far been sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships loaded with weapons and military equipment from the US.
Moghrabi, who said he has developed psychological disorders from his work since the war began, shared a grim account of the humanitarian situation inside Gaza’s hospitals, noting that doctors do not have proper tools or enough medical supplies to treat their patients.
“Me, as a doctor here, as a surgeon here, I can’t save lives properly as I’m supposed to because I don’t have proper instruments.”
Beyond that, patients are going hungry without food and thirsty without clean drinking water, according to Moghrabi.
'How many of us need to die?' 'How many more videos do you need to see?'
Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, Head of plastic surgery in Gaza's Nasser Hospital, asks Biden and world leaders about the 'miserable' daily ordeals Palestinians are facing due to the ongoing attacks by Israel. pic.twitter.com/aLiCuvKRJa
“Our children are not only dying from bombs or snipers or dragging them and executing them outside of their houses and executing them at the checkpoints; they are dying from hunger, from the cold, from the contamination of the water.
“You as democratic countries are there. I don’t know, how would you allow the entire population to starve?”
‘Biden Ensuring Israel’s Slaughter Continues’
Hospitals all across Gaza have been subjected to Israeli attacks, from aerial bombardment to being laid to siege by tanks on the ground or snipers on rooftops.
Middle East Eye reported earlier this month about the Israeli siege on al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, where 250 doctors, patients and their families were forced to the brink of starvation.
A staff member inside Awda gave a first-hand account to MEE of the dire conditions inside the hospital, when Israeli snipers surrounded the hospital and essentially turned the Palestinians inside into hostages until the hospital’s food and water ran out. Snipers were also shooting at anyone seen to move.
Last week, the World Health Organisation announced that northern Gaza no longer has a functional hospital due to Israel’s military assault, which has created a lack of fuel, staff and supplies.
“There are actually no functional hospitals left in the north,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in Gaza, told reporters.
The situation is similarly dire in the south of Gaza. The WHO said that out of all 36 health facilities in the enclave, only nine are partially functional – all of them in the south.
Despite the calls from much of the international community to end the war on Gaza, the United States has yet to push for a ceasefire.
At the United Nations Security Council last week, a vote for a ceasefire resolution was delayed multiple times to avoid a US veto. The language of the resolution ended up being changed to calling for urgent steps “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” between Hamas and Israel.
Analysts have said that the compromises made to avoid the US veto have resulted in a resolution that will have limited bearing on Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
“Biden’s changes will help ensure that Israel’s slaughter in Gaza continues while minimising the UN’s insight into what increasingly appears to be a genocide,” Trita Parsi, vice president of the Quincy Institute, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
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Featured image: Dr Suleiman Qaoud surveys the damage at the Rantisi Specialist Hospital, part of the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza City, following Israeli missile attacks on November 6, 2023 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
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Ukraine has a “civil rights problem”, with “wartime policies” that “effectively relegate Russian speakers to permanent second-class status”, and many Ukrainians “across the political spectrum”, including “former officials” and “intellectuals” worry that such policies, after peace is achieved, will “alienate, criminalize, or deport a significant portion of the country’s population.” Moreover, in a survey taken six months before the war, over 40 percent of Ukrainians nationwide (“and nearly two-thirds in the east and south”), agreed with Putin that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.”
Who is making these claims? Oh, it must be one of those “pro-Russia propagandists”, right?
No, it is in fact Nicolai N. Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, writing for Foreign Policy.
Professor Petro was a US Fulbright scholar in Ukraine in 2013-2014, and served in Washington as the State Department’s special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under President George H. W. Bush, and as temporary political attache at the American Embassy in Moscow.
Petro writes that “freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and minority rights” are all areas of concern in Ukraine. Regarding the first one, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), one of the largest denominations in the country, is, he notes, the target of a crackdown, with holy sites having been seized even years before 2022 and clergymen being judicially harassed over their alleged links to Moscow.
Regarding the second and the third (press and minorities), a March 2023 law gave further censorship powers to the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting: by 2024, it will further increase the minimum percentage of Ukrainian language on television from 75 to 90 percent, entirely prohibiting the use of non-Ukrainian languages in certain contexts. The main target of such policies is of course the Russian language, spoken by millions of Ukrainians. According toOleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, “the Russian language must completely disappear from our territory, it being an aspect of hostile propaganda and the brainwashing of our population.”
Commenting on such measures, Ukrainian philosopher Sergei Datsyuk stated “it will be unclear which is more dangerous for us, war with Russia or internal civil war” (Oleksiy Arestovich, former presidential advisor to Zelensky made similar statements). Those are serious concerns, but one should keep in mind that such “internal civil war” in fact already started almost a decade ago, in Donbass.
As Petro sums it up:
“in Ukraine, the freedoms of religion and the press are deeply intertwined with the issue of minority rights, specifically with the treatment of the country’s largest minority, Russophile Ukrainians—those who identify themselves with Russian heritage, be it through language, culture, history, or religion.”
He adds:
“the vast majority of Russophile Ukrainians refuse to categorize themselves as a minority. They see themselves simply as Ukrainians citizens, and as such, they argue, they have a constitutional right to speak any language and espouse any religion or culture they wish, not just the ones endorsed by the state. But Ukrainian law does not recognize Russians as indigenous to Ukraine, or even as a minority within Ukraine. They therefore have no claim to legal protection of their cultural heritage and language, a direct contradiction of Article 10 of the Ukrainian constitution.”
Professor Petro, and the aforementioned Ukrainians are not alone in their concerns about the civil rights of the Russian minority in Ukraine. As I’ve written, the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, also worries about the matter.
At its June session, the Venice Commission analyzed the (new) Law on National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine, and, among other things, concluded that,
“to ensure full conformity” with international standards, “a number of provisions of that Law should be reconsidered”, including those pertaining to “the right to organise events in minority languages”, to “publishing books and to bookshops”, “the right to access to mass media in minority languages”, and “the minority language school-system.”
However, in the words of Olga Stefanishyna (Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration),
“There is no Russian minority in Ukraine. It does not exist!”
Ukraine is in fact a strongly Russian-Ukrainian bilingual society, with a high degree of intermarriage, and, to further complicate things, many people can declare themselves ethnically as either Russian or Ukrainian, depending on context.
As I wrote back in 2020, regarding the Donbass war (which has been going on since 2014), one’s political stance could sometimes be a better predictor – regarding one’s attitude towards the conflict – than language or ethnicity. And the main dividing issue there was and is the Maidan. It has always been about 2 possible Ukraines: one is a European nation, closer to the West and the US while, at the same time, proud of Stepan Bandera and of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which during World War II sided with Nazi Germany and committed war crimes against Poles. The other is a natural ally of Russia and part of the “Russian world” (culturally) and is also proud of its Soviet heritage.
The “Russian Question” in Ukraine therefore does not pertain merely to “ethnic Russians” (self-identified or otherwise); it also involves the issue of Russophones and Russophiles.
As researcher Volodymyr Ishchenko writes, there has always been in Ukrainian politics a “large camp” calling for “closer integration with Russia-led international institutions rather than with those in the Euro-Atlantic sphere”. This “pro-Russian camp”, after the 2014 Maidan was “marginalized”, and according to Ishchenko the “pro-Russian label” became “inflated” to the point of being used to describe (and discredit) any discourse that raises questions about the “pro-Western, neoliberal, and nationalist” stances which have “dominated Ukraine’s political sphere since 2014, but do not really reflect the political diversity of Ukrainian society.” All such “pro-Russian” political parties have in fact been banned in 2022, including the Opposition Platform for Life, which had come second in elections and held 44 seats in the Parliament.
The fact that Nicolai N. Petro’s piece was published in Foreign Policy thus far without any attacks against him is quite interesting. Now that it is becoming increasingly clear to the Western political elite and media that a “land for peace deal” is the only way to Kyiv. And maybe there will finally be a wide and honest discussion on some inconvenient truths about post-Maidan Ukraine.
The truth is that even after peace is achieved, as long as the Russian minority remains marginalized there and as long as NATO expansion continues, there will still be room for tension and conflict – internally and internationally.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
“Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” said a U.S. military historian as Israel’s use of arms including 2,000-pound “bunker-buster” bombs pushed the Palestinian death toll over 20,000.
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As the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s 10-week annihilation of the Gaza Strip passed 20,000, warfare experts said this weekend that the retaliatory campaign ranks among the deadliest and most destructive in modern history.
Gaza health officials said Friday that 390 Palestinians were killed and 734 others wounded in the besieged strip over the previous 48 hours, driving the death toll from 77 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks to 20,057, with another 53,320 people injured. More than 6,000 women and over 8,000 children have been killed—approximately 70% of all fatalities.
That’s more than twice the number of civilians—and over 14 times as many children—as Russian forces have killed in Ukraine since February 2022.
Thousands more Palestinians are missing and feared buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment.
“The scale of Palestinian civilian deaths in such a short period of time appears to be the highest such civilian casualty rate in the 21st century,” Michael Lynk, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2016 to 2022, toldThe Washington Post on Saturday.
In 75 days, Israel killed 20,000 Palestinians and obliterated 308,000 homes in Gaza. That's 70% of the residential buildings in Gaza.
To put it in perspective, it's as if over 100 million homes in the USA were destroyed.
Robert Pape, a U.S. military historian and University of Chicago professor, toldThe Associated Press that
“Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.”
“It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever,” he added.
By comparison, the 2017 U.S.-led coalition battle for Mosul, Iraq during the war against the so-called Islamic State—widely viewed as among the most intense urban assaults in recent decades—killed approximately 10,000 civilians, around a third of them from aerial bombardment.
Pape said that by some measures, Israel’s bombing of Gaza is surpassing the Allied “terror bombing” of German cities during World War II.
He noted that U.S. and U.K. airstrikes obliterated about 40-50% of the urban areas of the 51 German cities bombed between 1942-45, and that around 10% of all buildings in Germany were destroyed. In Gaza, approximately 1 in 3 buildings have been destroyed. In northern Gaza, over two-thirds of all buildings have been leveled.
“Gaza is now a different color from space. It’s a different texture,” Corey Scher, who studies natural disasters and wars using satellite remote sensing at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, told the AP.
Parts of Gaza look like a wasteland from space: Before and after | AP News https://t.co/7r1p6lA67p
Experts point to the types of munitions being used by Israeli forces as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured. These include U.S.-supplied 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound guided “bunker-buster” bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas’ underground tunnels.
These massive bombs turn “earth to liquid,” Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon defense official and war crimes investigator for the United Nations, told the AP. “It pancakes entire buildings.”
Garlasco said that 2,000-pound bombs mean “instant death” for anyone within about 100 feet of the blast, with shrapnel posing a deadly danger for people up to 1,200 feet away.
Sometimes 2,000-pound bombs leave craters in the ground where they strike that are approximately 40ft in diameter. Leveraging this fact, we trained an object detection AI algorithm to find craters visible in satellite imagery of south Gaza pic.twitter.com/JjGdZsFBkI
In a separate interview with CNN, Gerlasco said that the intensity of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has “not been seen since Vietnam,” when U.S. airstrikes killed up to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. The U.S. dropped more bombs on tiny, non-belligerent Laos than all sides combined unleashed during World War II.
“You’d have to go back to the Vietnam War to make a comparison,” Garlasco added. “Even in both Iraq wars, it was never that dense.”
The use of such heavy ordnance in close proximity to critical civilian infrastructure like hospitals has alarmed observers.
“What we have been witnessing is a campaign that was planned, it was a plan, definitely, to close down all the hospitals in the north,” Léo Cans, head of mission for Palestine with Doctors Without Borders, told the Post.
The Israeli army published footage of them bombing an entire neighbourhood in Gaza.
Satellite images from the first month of the conflict reveal over 500 impact craters, each with a diameter exceeding 12 meters, consistent with the marks left by 2,000-pound bombs pic.twitter.com/ihH3XJByEA
Aided by AI-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commanders are approving bombings they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Although the United States—which has killed more foreign civilians this century than any other armed force in the world—provides Israel with thousands of 1,000 and 2,000-pound bombs, its own military avoids using such massive ordnance in civilian areas due to the devastation they cause.
“It certainly appears that [Israel’s] tolerance for civilian harm compared to expected operational benefits is significantly different than what we would accept as the U.S.,” Larry Lewis, research director at the Center for Naval Analyses and a former U.S. State Department senior adviser on civilian harm, toldCNN.
That includes the risk of killing Israel’s own citizens and others held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
Another Israeli who was released from captivity in Gaza says she thought she would be killed by Israeli bombing, not by Hamas.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu lies to the public and says more bombing will compel Hamas to release captives. pic.twitter.com/B1ikrp6dk8
Lewis added that the Jabalia strike was “something we would never see the U.S. doing.”
That isn’t entirely true; during the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. dropped a pair of 2,000-pound Raytheon GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided bombs on the Amiriyah air raid shelter in Baghdad, killing at least 408 Iraqi civilians in one of the deadliest single airstrikes in modern history. U.S. officials claimed they thought the shelter, which was used during the Iraq-Iran war, was no longer a civilian facility.
“The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover,” John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Center for Civilians in Conflict, toldCNN.
Even more concerning for some experts is Israel’s use of unguided, or “dumb” bombs, against civilian targets in Gaza.
While IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that “we choose the right munition for each target so it doesn’t cause unnecessary damage,” the death and destruction in Gaza—and Israeli officials’ own words—tell an entirely different story.
Early in the war, Hagari declared that “Gaza will never return to what it was,” clarifying that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
Meanwhile, numerous Israeli officials advocated the complete destruction of Gaza, with more than a few government figures—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Cabinet members—making statements supporting genocide against the Palestinian people.
U.S. President Joe Biden—who has affirmed his “unwavering” support for Israel and is seeking $14.3 billion in additional military aid for the country, which already gets almost $4 billion annually from Washington—has implored Israeli leaders to stop the “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza, even as his administration thwarts international cease-fire efforts and restocks the IDF’s arsenal.
Chappell stressed that
“the devastation that we’ve seen for communities in Gaza is, unfortunately, co-signed by the United States.”
“Too much of it is carried out by bombs that were made in the United States,” he added.
Ahmed Abofoul—a Gaza-born, Netherlands-based attorney with the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq who has lost 60 of his relatives to Israeli bombing— said in Friday interview with Democracy Now! that “the American government is complicit in this genocide.”
“There is blood of Palestinian children on their hands,” he added. [Biden] said Israel is engaged in indiscriminate bombing. This is a war crime. So, the question is: Why do you then send weapons to Israel? The position of the U.S. is quite hypocritical.”
[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]
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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Nel giorno del Natale cristiano cattolico, Israele non ferma le sue bombe e devasta con un raid aereo il campo profughi di Maghazi.
NATALE A GAZA: ANCORA COLPITI CIVILI PALESTINESI
Il campo si trova al centro della Striscia di Gaza ed il bollettino delle vittime sarebbe di almeno 106 persone ma purtroppo è destinato a salire.
Il giorno di Natale è stato trasformato in una delle giornate più sanguinose dall’inizio dell’operazione militare israeliana in risposta all’attacco di Hamas del 7 ottobre scorso.
I registri del vicino ospedale di Al-Aqsa hanno annotato un numero impressionante di feriti, almeno secondo quanto riportato dall’agenzia di stampa americana Associated Press.
ISRAELE COLPISCE IN PALESTINA ANCHE LA MEZZALUNA ROSSA
Mentre l’esercito israeliano IDF ha dichiarato di aver avviato una verifica sul campo dei danni e delle vittime a Maghazi, la Mezzaluna Rossa, equivalente della Croce Rossa occidentale, ha riferito sul social X che proiettili di artiglieria hanno colpito la sede di Khan Yunis, a sud della Striscia di Gaza, uccidendo alcuni sfollati che si trovavano al suo interno.
Anche l’Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità ha riferito di “testimonianze strazianti” raccolte dalle sue squadre di medici negli ospedali della Striscia di Gaza dove si trovano le vittime dei bombardamenti.
In un altro episodio, il ministero della Sanità di Gaza ha detto cheanche 10 membri di una famiglia sono stati uccisi in un raid nel campo di Jabalia.
NETANIAHU: “AVANTI FINCHÈ NON LI FINIAMO”
Intanto il premier israeliano Benjamin Netaniahu ha visitato di nuovo l’esercito nella Striscia, sottolineando come non intende fermare le operazioni, “fino alla fine, finché non li finiamo. Niente di meno”.
Netaniahu è molto contestato in Israele, soprattutto dai parenti degli ostaggi ancora nelle mani di Hamas.
Secondo fonti dell’esercito israeliano che hanno riferito alla Knesset, il parlamento israeliano, reparti di terra sono entrati “all’alba di oggi nei campi profughi nel settore centrale della Striscia di Gaza” portando la presenza delle forze armate con la stella di David ad essere presenti in tutta la Striscia.
FALLISCE IL NEGOZIATO EGIZIANO PER UNA TREGUA IN PALESTINA
Hamas e la Jihad Islamica hanno respinto la proposta egiziana di sostituire il loro governo a Gaza in cambio di un cessate il fuoco permanente. Lo riporta Haaretz sulla base di indiscrezioni giunte oggi dall’Egitto. Il piano egiziano, appoggiato dal Qatar, prevedeva un nuovo scambio di prigionieri, seguito da un cessate il fuoco permanente e dalla futura costituzione a Gaza di un governo di tecnocrati. Dalla Striscia anche il sito di informazione ‘Gaza Report’ scrive di aver appreso che Hamas e la Jihad islamica ”hanno respinto ufficialmente” il piano egiziano.
ISRAELE COLPISCE GENERALE IRANIANO IN SIRIA
Non ha aiutato alle trattative l’uccisione di un importante generale delle Guardie rivoluzionarie, l’esercito ideologico iraniano.L’agenzia di stampa ufficiale iraniana, IRNA, ha riferito che il generale Razi Moussavi è stato ucciso in Siria in un attacco vicino a Damasco attribuito a Israele.
Il presidente iraniano Ebrahim Raisi ha dichiarato che Israele “pagherà certamente per questo crimine”, segno della “frustrazione e dell’impotenza del regime sionista nella regione”.
FRONTE CALDO ANCHE IL CONFINE CON IL LIBANO. IN PALESTINA 21 MILA MORTI
Intanto Israele alza il livello di allerta al confine del Libano. Dall’inizio della guerra 80 mila cittadini israeliani residenti nelle città di confine dell’Alta Galilea sono stati sfollati, a causa degli scontri con gli Hezbollah in quell’area.
A testimoniare la vergogna e il dolore rimane lo sconcertante numero di vittime in quella terra, che secondo i credenti cristiani, ha visto la nascita di Gesù: dal 7 ottobre ad oggi sono quasi 21 mila morti e 55 mila i feriti.
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I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and, at the same time, to talk about the larger symbolic power of Christmas for us in the received tradition. Christmas today commemorates the birth of Jesus, the child of the poor Jewish couple Joseph and Mary who travelled from Nazareth to David, where Joseph was to be registered for the census ordered by the Roman Empire during the gaudy rule of Caesar Augustus.
Jews then were an occupied people, struggling under the heavy hand of Rome, oppressed like the Palestinian people today who are likewise subject to a new imperial order expressed through remote cameras, armed drones and robots, and cluster bombs. They are subject to the brutal authority of Jerusalem, Washington, and London, the empire of deception and decay.
These two imperial systems, although separated by two thousand years, have much in common. It was the dream of wealth and the power of Rome that deeply influenced the mentality behind British expansion in the nineteenth century, and American expansion in the twentieth.
Mary and Joseph stopped in Bethlehem the night that Jesus was born; Mary had him in the manger, alongside the animals, because there was no room for them at the inn. Today, Bethlehem is located in the West Bank, a region supposedly under Palestinian control, but subject to the worst forms of Israeli suppression. Bethlehem may be inhabited by Palestinians today, but the heavy hand of imperial control is the same that Jews were subject to then.
Jesus led an effort to resist Roman imperialism, the globalism of that day. He was one of many who tried to do so at that time. His approach was unique in that he made an appeal to all citizens, not just to ethnic Jews, and he stressed the spiritual aspect of resistance to Rome.
This Christmas gives us a chance to reflect on this long battle, economic, spiritual, and physical, against overwhelming imperial power in Palestine. Despite all the Zionist ideology that decorates the New York Times, I do not think there is much doubt as to where Jesus would stand in the current struggle.
Israel has always been an imperialist experiment. Establishing Israel as an ethnic state served as the means for the British Empire during the First World War to extend its influence throughout the Middle East, to extend its control the Suez Canal, and to gain access to petroleum. The leaders of the Zionist movement advocating that Jews had a right to Palestine guaranteed by God, and that they were entitled to take it back at any cost, were greatly assisted by the British Empire.
If we want to understand what is happening in Gaza today, it is useful to turn our attention to the German bombing of the Basque city of Guernica in Republican Spain on April 26, 1937. The German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazzione Legionaria carried out the attack under the direction of the brutal military genius Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen. The bombing of Guernica was not the deadliest battle of the Spanish Civil War, but it had profound significance for world history because it was a devious experiment.
The Germans and Italians, along with their Spanish Fascist allies, had decided that they did not care what the world thought of them and that they were determined to win the war in Spain by inspiring fear through ruthless destruction.
Bombs were dropped on Guernica without any military purpose, but rather to cause the greatest deaths among civilians, employing creative combinations of explosive bombs and incendiary devices that were dropped on residential communities. The attack first targeted water tanks and fire stations so as to make sure the fires could not be extinguished. Fleeing citizens were attacked by Heinkel 51s and Messerschmitts BF109s to show the entire world the unforgiving power of fascist armies.
And thus, in Guernica, a new form of war was born, a new breed of terror that would become the model for “Blitzkrieg” attacks in Poland and France a few years later.
Ruins of Guernica
Guernica was an unmistakable sign to the world that the Fascist forces did not care what others thought of them and that they had the military hardware and the troop discipline to destroy any resistance to their rule. The message telegraphed to all of Europe was the Guernica would be the fate of any city in Europe that dared to resist (source).
The horror of the attack was commemorated by Pablo Picasso in his painting “Guernica” because it so clearly represented a transformation of the nature of the war itself.
This new fascist way of war was best described by the leader of the Spanish fascists, General Emilio Mola. Mola declared,
“It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do.”
That brings us back to the on-going mindless genocide in Gaza: the murder of children, the bombing of hospitals, the killing of journalists and doctors, deprivation of food and water, and the ruthless push to kill in the most brutal manner with impunity.
Like Guernica, the attack on Gaza is not being carried out to defend the Jewish residents of Israel.
Nor it is being done to bring peace and security to anyone. In fact, it is undertaken in a manner that completely discredits the Israeli government and the American government.
This attack is not meant as defense, but rather as an opportunity to show to the entire world, in the most brazen manner possible, that the Israeli Defense Forces, backed by the United States, Great Britain, and numerous other powers, are free to do whatever they want.
It is an opportunity for experiments in destroying urban spaces and killing off citizens using drones, robots, missiles, facial recognition software, surveillance and tracking systems, and other new technologies (the Messerschmitts of today) that will be used in future wars around the world.
The attack on Gaza is an opportunity to demonstrate how an urban space can be occupied, its citizens controlled and destroyed, and the space entirely rebuilt to serve a different population without any possibility of resistance. The knowhow being developed in the process will not only be used to target Palestinians, it will be used against everyone, including Israelis.
Gazan child at a hospital after an Israeli airstrike
Gaza is unlike previous Israeli occupations of the occupied territories, or the murderous American invasion of Iraq, in that the point is not to cover up murder in the fig leaves of security, self-defense, or “just war.”
No, the collapsing shadow empire with its feet of clay in London, Washington, and Jerusalem has made a fatal decision to cast all legitimacy to the winds, to embrace brutality, terror, and overwhelming force as the only means to advance its desperate struggle for survival. If we go back to Noam Chomsky’s famous book “Hegemony or Survival,” it is clear that we have chosen “hegemony” over “survival.”
No one in Washington should be allowed the cowardice and hypocrisy to try to pin this war on Israel alone.
The “Gaza Option,” the total annihilation of a community with complete impunity has roots in the Nakba campaigns of the Zionists in 1948 that drove 750 thousand Palestinians from their land, but it also has roots in the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, the 1992 attack on Ruby Ridge, the 1993 Waco Siege, and the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing lockdown.
The rough beast slouching towards Gaza to be born this time will spread its new power to every smart city, to every shopping mall, to every office building in the world containing the surveillance and security software and hardware that is being tested on Palestinians today.
We Americans will not let this stand.
We will not allow a handful of the rich to employ banks of supercomputers, running sophisticated algorithms, to manipulate and dumb down our people, to use hidden persuaders in entertainment to induce narcissism, to run mass media campaigns to distract us with the insignificant, to fabricate financial crises that destroy our lives, nor to allow them to launch false-flag operations that will herd us into a Gaza of the soul.
We will not permit them to wall us in on all sides with economic bankruptcy, institutional collapse, cultural banality, spiritual depravity, intellectual barbarism, or physical slavery.
We will not follow the cardboard messiahs that they have carefully prepared for us backstage, nor will we use the flawed logic they feed us through their public intellectuals so to confuse us, nor will we fall for the cultural, racial, or identity conflicts they have stirred up in order to divide us against each other.
Nothing will stop us from coming together “e pluribus unum” to build a new nation, one that is built up from the basement following exactly the plans we have agreed on, a mansion for the people built not out of money and debt, not out of pornography, social media, and games, not out of weapons systems and surveillance technology, not out of offshore trusts and funds, but build out of, and by, our people, each and every one of us, gathering together to write a new contract which binds us together as equal partners for the common good within a nation state that follows the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.
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“We write to express our dismay and disappointment at political leaders and notable public figures invoking Holocaust memory to explain the current crisis in Gaza and Israel.”
This is how an open letter recently published by a distinguished group of scholars of the Holocaust and antisemitism begins. Its main concern is that appealing to the memory of the Holocaust risks obscuring the understanding of antisemitism and dangerously misrepresents the causes of violence in Israel and Palestine.
The scholars quote several problematic statements and acts by Israeli, European and American officials in the context of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October.
The Israeli ambassador to the UN donning a yellow star featuring the words “Never Again” while addressing the UN Security Council. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “Hamas are the new Nazis” and framing the war on Gaza as a battle for western civilisation in the face of barbarism. And USPresident Joe Biden remarked that Hamas had “engaged in barbarism that is as consequential as the Holocaust”.
It is impressive how western leaders are following the same script, to the point of uttering blatant absurdities, like conflating Israel with Ukraine when it is Palestine that has been occupied by Israel for more than half a century and should be equated to Ukraine.
Israel is invoking the Holocaust to justify what is nothing more than a collective punishment of the people living in Gaza. Almost all of its political leadership promoted an irrational and malign narrative beginning with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who said that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza”. Not a single word of condemnation for such outrageous statements was uttered by those western leaders who proudly uphold the so-called rules-based world order.
‘Poisoned’ Political Climate
Predictably, the open letter was contested by another group of distinguished scholars of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, Israel, and antisemitism. It was a poorly argued response that did not seem to grasp the concerns raised by the scholars and was convincingly dismantled in a counter-reply.
Amid a rising death toll of mostly women and children, the most the opposition letter could convey was a vague criticism of Israel’s “poor decisions”. Not a single shred of empathy for the ongoing humanitarian disaster was uttered.
Such insensitive positions have been echoed by unbelievable acts and behaviour by some European “democracies”. Peaceful public protests in support of Palestinian rights and asking for a ceasefire have been carefully watched and often hampered by authorities in the UK, France and, especially, in Germany. It is hard to ascertain if such behaviour is due to ignorance, laziness, fear or deliberate complicity with the Israeli government.
It took several weeks for Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, to recognise that “far too many civilians have been killed in Gaza” and that “we are witnessing an appalling lack of distinction in Israel’s military operation in Gaza”. It is even more depressing that another major EU power, Italy, issued appeals to Israel to ease its violence only after the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced the killing of Christian civilians inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza by Israeli snipers.
Far before the 7 October attack, European political discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had shifted and become poisonous; the old continent was experiencing its own McCarthyite period. Fundamentally flawed US and Israeli narratives about the conflict were accepted without even an eyebrow raised. To put it unequivocally, the mere assertion of Palestinian rights had become synonymous with antisemitism. Unbelievable smear campaigns were perpetrated against those who ask for justice for the Palestinians.
The ordeal experienced last week by Russian-American journalist and writer Masha Gessen is a dramatic example of such a toxic political climate.
Gessen had been awarded the prestigious Hanna Arendt prize for political thought, but the ceremony was almost cancelled because the host of the event, the Heinrich Boll Foundation, withdrew its support because of an article they had published days earlier in The New Yorker, emblematically titled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust”.
The writer’s unforgivable sin was that they equated the Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe to the current situation in Gaza. Ironically, the award was meant to recognise “individuals who identify critical and unseen aspects of current political events and who are not afraid to enter the public realm by representing their opinion in controversial political discussions”.
The political climate has become so absurd that, according to an acute observer, the same “Hanna Arendt would not qualify for the Hanna Arendt prize in Germany today”.
For once, common sense finally prevailed, and the ceremony was held. Gessen delivered an outstanding lecture, emphasising how comparison is important to learn and to know the world. They also remarked that:
“A political project is something that happens in the present, in the world, among people. Hannah Arendt spent her entire intellectual life thinking about what constitutes politics. To her, politics was a space where we figured out how to live together in this world, a space of discussion and thinking and the creation of new possibilities. After the Holocaust, it’s a space in which we figure out how to live together in this world without repeating the Holocaust. One of the structures that we have invented, acting politically, to prevent a repetition of the Holocaust, is international humanitarian law, particularly the laws for the protection of civilians. It is also the framework of international jurisprudence, such as the International Criminal Court, war crimes tribunals, and universal jurisdiction trials. The concept of genocide, too, emerged as a result of the Holocaust.”
It is then depressing, to say the least, that international humanitarian law, whose codification emerged in the aftermath of the Holocaust, is now openly disregarded by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank. It is equally absurd that the International Criminal Court would indict Russian President Vladimir Putin for the forced transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia, while not a finger has been lifted against Israel, which has not only forced the transfer of the children inside Gaza but has also killed at least 10,000 of them.
Weaponising Antisemitism
The outcry against Masha Gessen is part of a wider problem connected with the definition of antisemitism, and the too frequently instrumental conflation between it and anti-Zionism.
In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) proposed a definition of antisemitism accompanied by 11 specific examples of such phenomena. Seven of them are related to Israel and some are quite controversial, such as “claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavour” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of Nazis”.
Although adopted by only the US and 27 EU countries, and having no legal force, the IHRA’s definition is extremely influential and to a certain extent is setting the political discourse about the use of antisemitism in the framework of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would be more correct to say in weaponising its definition to suppress legitimate criticism of certain Israeli policies against the Palestinians.
In 2020, some academics proposed an alternative definition called the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. It provided 15 examples of antisemitism, and as many as 11 of them are related to Israel; however, five of them are statements frequently used in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which are explicitly listed as not antisemitic.
The most interesting are:
1) Supporting the Palestinian demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights, as encapsulated in international law.
2) Criticising or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jews and Palestinians in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean whereas such arrangements accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea”.
3) Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state, including its institutions and founding principles, policies, and practices, domestic and abroad, including its conduct in the West Bank and Gaza… It is not antisemitic to point out systematic racial discrimination nor compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid.
4) Boycott, divestment and sanctions, as commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves antisemitic.
5) Criticism [of Israel] that some may see as excessive or contentious, or as reflecting a “double standard”, is not, in and of itself, antisemitic.
The struggle against the highly concerning regurgitation of antisemitism is a legitimate one and should not be weaponised for political purposes, to maintain a feeble hold on power, and to shield Israel from accountability for actions that contravene its claimed democratic values.
Finally, invoking the Holocaust to claim impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity is immoral and dishonours the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the Nazi gas chambers.
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Marco Carnelos is a former Italian diplomat. He has been assigned to Somalia, Australia and the United Nations. He served in the foreign policy staff of three Italian prime ministers between 1995 and 2011. More recently he has been Middle East peace process coordinator special envoy for Syria for the Italian government and, until November 2017, Italy’s ambassador to Iraq.
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I read with great skepticism the statement describing the “The 10/7 Project” below.
I see in its content a prelude to what the vast and powerful complex of Zionist agencies in North America have in mind for us. I see the explanation of the “10/7 Project” basically as a declaration of psychological warfare on public opinion on a similar scale as the 9/11 Disinfo Project.
The intent of this gargantuan Lobby, known for its utter hostility to truth and rational discourse concerning Israel’s vastly oversized role in global governance, as one that is about to whisk us into War War and More War .
Just as the fabricated story of bin Laden and al-Qaeda was a fraud to push the United States into a series of wars for Israel, so too is the false account below of the Hamas-Israel relationship a calculated lie meant to advance disastrous outcomes for average people, including Jews, the world over. The fraudulent character of the accounts of the supposed rapes and killing of children has been expertly exposed by Max Blumenthal.
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December 5, 2023 — Washington, DC
Leading U.S. Jewish Organizations Launch ‘the 10/7 Project,’ a New Centralized Communications Operation to Promote Continued U.S. Bipartisan Support for Israel; Push for Accurate, Complete Coverage of Israel-Hamas War; Stronger Focus on Oct. 7 Victims and Hostages
The 10/7 Project to be led by American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federations of North America, ADL, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Following last month’s historic March for Israel that brought nearly 300,000 people to the National Mall, the nation’s most prominent American Jewish organizations have today joined forces to launch The 10/7 Project — a new centralized communications operation. The 10/7 Project is designed to promote continued U.S. bipartisan support for Israel by working to ensure more complete and accurate information about the Israel-Hamas war in real time for policymakers and the American public.
The 10/7 Project is led by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
A bipartisan effort, The 10/7 Project will focus on fact-based coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, aggressive rapid response, and a media campaign dedicated to reminding policymakers and the broader American public about the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas terrorists; uplifting the stories of the innocent victims of October 7; setting the record straight about the conflict in Israel and Gaza; and combating misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies.
“Since October 7, there has been a concerted and consistent effort from Israel’s enemies to draw a false and dangerous equivalence between Hamas’ deadly rampage to destroy the Jewish state and Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists,” said Ted Deutch, CEO, American Jewish Committee (AJC). “The 10/7 Project will be a trusted and timely source of accurate information to set the record straight and combat false narratives perpetuated by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies. They are responsible for slaughtering some 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians. This is no time for equivocation.”
“At this critical juncture, it is imperative that we separate fact from fiction regarding America’s most important Middle East ally and remind people that the vast majority of Americans understand that Hamas is our common enemy,” said Eric Fingerhut, President & CEO, the Jewish Federations of North America. “Through aggressive rapid response and a comprehensive media campaign, The 10/7 Project will work tirelessly to combat misinformation and inaccurate reporting about the Israel-Hamas conflict and continue shining a light on the victims and hostages of October 7. We must ensure that murderous Hamas terrorists are not covered in a way that morally equates them with the sovereign, democratic state of Israel and its people, and that the loudest, most uninformed voices are not permitted to drown out the facts.”
“In the wake of Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack on Israel, there has been an onslaught of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the conflict and Israel circulating on social media and, in some cases, elevated by mainstream press outlets,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of ADL. “Tragically, we have even seen alarming incidents of antisemitic violence and hate stemming from inaccurate coverage of the conflict. And while it’s understandable that Americans are clearly interested in what’s happening in the Middle East, The 10/7 Project will make sure they’re receiving verifiable, truthful, and balanced information, especially at a time when some platforms have regrettably cut back on their trust and safety teams.”
“The 10/7 Project will help ensure that America’s leaders are educated and informed about Hamas’s despicable assault on the people of Israel and the Western values that America and Israel champion together,” said Howard Kohr, CEO, AIPAC. “The United States must continue to stand with our democratic ally as it works to protect its families and secure its future.”
“As leaders of American Jewry, we cannot be silent in the face of deadly violence from the Hamas Terrorist Army targeting the people of Israel,” said William Daroff, CEO, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “We must ensure that America and the entire world are told and retold the stories of the butchery of the October 7 massacre. We must discredit and make outcasts of 10/7 deniers, who are Hamas sympathizers seeking to perpetuate false and misleading narratives by minimizing and rationalizing the most deadly day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And we must work together, as one Jewish community, to successfully communicate to the American people the critical need to stand with Israel, as well as the importance of the US-Israel relationship to America and to Israel.”
The 10/7 Project has also launched a daily newsletter, The 10/7 Project Daybook, for journalists and other interested parties and a new website. Members of the media interested in connecting with The 10/7 Project or talking with a spokesperson should email [email protected].
The 10/7 Project will not endorse or oppose any candidates for public office.
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The Events of 10/7, October 7, 2023, have still not been subjected to any formal investigation by objective arbitrators not tied to the giant and disreputable political lobbies like those preparing the ground for their Big Money/ propagandistic “10/7 Project.”
The haste of the Netanyahu/Biden government to eliminate Palestinians from the Jewish Supremacist state of Israel based on the contrived narrative of 10/7, repeats key aspects of the 9/11 scenario.
When the 9/11 episode was finally investigated by the purveyor of “public mythology,” Phillip Zelikow,
” the resulting report was was a total fiction conceived and executed to entrench Zionist lies about bin Laden/ Al-Qaeda.
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Dr. Anthony Hallis currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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While it is astounding that one small, feisty Arab tribe in the nation of Yemen has shown the mega-world how to creatively stand up to the Hegemon without threatening nuclear weapons, without initiating direct military conflict and yet achieve their goals – what is even more astounding is that the Houthis are not the least intimidated by the Empire’s pretentious display of empty threats and waning power.
As a 28-year-old country and being the poorest of all nations in the Middle East has not stopped the Houthis from exercise of their principles as equal participants on the global stage.
Even as the Ukraine war grinds to a reluctant halt with Zelensky and the US refusing to call it quits, continued funding going for naught in someone’s pocket, the US preps for military expansion in the Middle East. The Israeli-Gaza war mutates into another military adventure for an additional wasteful expenditure of resources and lives.
It is fair to say that the Houthis have the Hegemon neo-con militarists over a barrel with nowhere to go unless WW III is a valid objective.If the US with its feeble-minded Congress and equally anemic foreign policy apparatus believe they are still to be feared, the Houthis have called their bluff.
From mid-November when the Ansarullah launched their first drone, the world has followed their heroic deeds to protect the Moustazafeen (oppressed ones) of planet Earth.It may be that the Houthis own experience at the hands of the Empire has sensitized and empowered them to the Hegemon-initiated suffering they have endured.
Those Houthis are unique individuals as it appears they get their dander up when they experience raw genocide conducted against a defenseless civilian population which has now suffered 20,000 fatalities, gratis US bombs and missiles.
Drone attacks were conducted through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a 20-mile wide narrow passageway leading from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea and up to the Suez Canal which has now, in effect, closed down. It is that Strait which controls 30% of the world’s shipping.
Houthi boardings on cargo ships have been unexpectedly effective as five of the largest international shipping lines chose to ‘pause’ their operations as the Houthis forced shipping to find an alternative route around Africa.
The Israel goal has shifted from destroying Hamas since it is now recognized that strategy was never realistic.Israel has instead focused on the extermination of Palestinians from their indigenous home, incurring a full range of war crimes.
Disrupting the supply chain of shipments headed for the psychotic Israel is nothing short of genius strategy as it goes to the heart of what the Zionists value most; ittook the Houthis to recognize the vulnerability of international trade on its way to Israel to brazenly intercept tankers and oilers exhibiting more chutzpah than seen among many other more well-heeled Islamic nations.
As if Israel and its patron, had not enough to worry about, Malaysia, another small chink in the chain, has joined the fray as it has closed all its ports to Israel traffic.
Literally landing on-board a specific liner in question via a helicopter drop, the Houthis displayed acourage rarely seen in maritime encounters against the Empire as Jordan, the UAE and the Saudis may be quivering in their sandals at the thought.
Even US Secretary of Defense Austin’s haughty promise to “jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity” has fallen on deaf ears. “The recent escalation in reckless Houthi attacks originating from Yemen threatens the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law.”
Spokesman for the Houthi rebels replied,
“Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our operations in the Red Sea will not stop unless the massacre in Gaza stops. We will not give up the responsibility of defending the Moustazafeen (oppressed ones) of the Earth.”
Well, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
Meanwhile the USS Eisenhower remains floating idly in the tropical waters of the Red Sea without any sign of retaliation against the Houthis who could be expected to respond with an armed, under water drone to take out one US bazillion dollar floating bathtub.
As the Israel-Gaza conflict becomes more intense along the Lebanon border with Hezbollah adopting a more aggressive response, it is no coincidence that Yemen has been bombed since 2014,sanctioned by the US since 2012 and at war with its Saudi neighbors (with US weapons) in 2015, all of which failed as the Houthi’s refused to succumb to the Hegemon.
With a sitting duck flotilla of US Navy’s Operation Prosperity Guardian, the US has pushed the panic button with creation of an unimpressive ten member maritime coalition (including Bahrain — home to the US Fifth Fleet and member of the limp-noodle Abraham Accords), Canada sent three staff officers and the UK sent one rusted-out tin can to patrol the Red Sea in a futile effort to stop underwater armed drones.
To date, the US/UK have shot down a dozen drones as if to challenge Houthi’s authority in international waters as the US remains in a self delusional world. The Houthis shot down a $30 million American MQ-9 Ripper unmanned aerial vehicle since it“engaged in hostile surveillance and espionage activities in the airspace of Yemeni territorial waters.”
Suddenly, creation of a Palestinian state is now on the table even as the US will remain the largest block of resistance despite the election of Trump who, as a Zionist, will dance to Israel’s tune.
Never one to miss an opportunity to blame Iran for any military aggressive behavior, the US accused Iran of being “deeply involved’ with the Houthis as if US motives are pure as the driven snow.
As if the US’ highest priority is to continue confrontational relations with every country in the world which denies its status as Empire, there is no serious strategy on dealing with a principled opponent except more violence and hatred. The Houthis continue to make fools of the multi-billion dollar US Navy.
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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.
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On December 14, Avia.pro reported that the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) sent four MiG-31K/I (interceptors modified into strike fighters) armed with 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missiles (usually given the unconfirmed Kh-47M2 designation) to destroy high-priority targets at the Starokonstantinov airbase in the Khmelnitsky oblast (region). Citing Ukrainian sources, Avia.pro posits that the launch was carried out from Russia’s Lipetsk oblast, nearly 1000 km away. The attack was initially thought to have destroyed only the Soviet-era Su-24M tactical bombers modified to carry the Franco-British “Storm Shadow/SCALP EG” air-launched cruise missiles. Soon, the information was updated to include the destruction of MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter jets.
However, since then, there have been a number of reports that the actual targets were much more than the rapidly dwindling supply of older Soviet-era air superiority jets. These reports indicate not only the suspected destruction of several NATO-supplied air defense systems, including the much-touted “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems, but also the much more overhyped US-made F-16 fighter jets. Several milblog Telegram channels even gave the exact timing of the attacks. Citing sources “close to the leadership of the Kiev regime forces”, the reports claim that, at 16:45, three high-speed air targets were flying towards Starokonstantinov, resulting in a massive explosion two minutes later. By 16:50, at least two more explosions were recorded.
Both Russian and Ukrainian milbloggers reported that the Starokonstantinov strike is associated with solid information about the appearance of “something very important at the airbase”, which prompted the VKS to use its most dangerous air-launched missile that is generally reserved for such high-priority targets.
Prominent channels such as the “Two Majors” and the “Militarist” reported that these airstrikes were part of the wider effort that also destroyed one German-supplied “Patriot” SAM. Kiev-based Defense Express published similar reports on December 14, claiming that the VKS used the “Kinzhals” for the “first time in more than four months”, with the “last recorded strike being on August 11”, when targets in western Ukraine were hit.
Colonel Yurii Ihnat, one of the Neo-Nazi junta’s spokespeople, said that he would not comment on the information about the consequences of the attack, insisting that “[we should] let the enemy draw their own conclusions” and “[we will] not feed them information about what they targeted and what they hit”. However, even the heavily biased Kiev regime sources admitted that the attack was highly complex, involving lots of decoys and drones. Air raid sirens announced that MiG-31K/I jets took off at 11:07, which later turned out to be a false alarm. The same happened at 12:42 and 14:09, both of which were later confirmed to be false alarms, as there were no missile strikes. The next time, the aforementioned air raid sirens announced the attack only after the first explosion.
This is a clear indicator of the elaborate nature of the missile strike, once again confirming the notion that whatever was stationed at the Starokonstantinov airbase was indeed a high-priority target. The sheer magnitude of confusion in the Neo-Nazi junta sources resulted in announcements that the number of “Kinzhals” reached 15, up from just two missiles mere minutes earlier. As for the Russian military, it seems what caught the attention of its ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) was the urgent deployment of NATO-sourced SAM systems that were there to protect the high-priority assets. Apparently, as previously mentioned, this includes the stationing of the first highly anticipated US-made F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine.
Kiev regime’s Defense Minister Rustam Umerov recently stated that the F-16 is highly complex and sensitive, requiring the best possible facilities and infrastructure. The only airbase in Ukraine with such parameters is precisely the one at Starokonstantinov. Built by the USSR, it’s well-known for its sturdiness, being one of the most important Soviet airbases during the (First) Cold War. Coupled with the political West’s practice of announcing the delivery of weapons after they’ve already been transferred to the Neo-Nazi junta, as well as the fact that it had additional SAM coverage, this further reinforces the idea that the overhyped F-16 fighter jets are (or in this case, were) already at the Starokonstantinov airbase.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
US/UK arms-supported genocide in Gaza has 70,000 killed or injured to date: majority women, children and families.
Babies, children, pregnant women, journalists, reporters, plus entire families of up to three generations — all unarmed civilians, have been killed on the streets and in their homes by missiles from US-equipped and supplied, Israeli war planes — all flying completely unchallenged to perpetrate death and destruction on a scale not seen since WW2. That these are all war crimes is beyond dispute, for any terrorist act in the pursuit of war, or otherwise, that intentionally and/or wantonly kills unarmed civilians, ether singly or en masse, is, according to the Geneva Conventions, a war crime. And those responsible must be brought to trial, as early as possible after the genocide is eventually stopped.
To date, 20,000 Palestinians are reported to have been killed and 50,000 injured, by American-armed, Israeli troops, in Gaza, of which the majority were women, children and other unarmed civilians including journalists and photographers.
Israel is currently being armed and funded by a US House of Representatives (Congress) that votes to give nearly $US4,000,000,000 to this nuclear-armed state, every year — as America’s paid agent in the Middle East! The US Congress comprises both the House and the Senate, and are controlled overall by the influence of this most powerful lobby in America, AIPAC — the American Zionist Organisation (AKA ‘the Israel Lobby’), based in New York. This is a dangerously influential, powerfully funded, political lobby that is supported by both Christian and Jewish Zionists, that includes a US Evangelical Christian cohort numbering about 60 million — which uses its influence and power to control the legislative process. Consequently, no American President would dare to take any major decision without the prior approval from this unelected caucus.
Given that the US is still, at this time the most powerful nation on Earth, it follows that its creature state in the Middle East, has been given enormous power to disrupt the politics and economy of the entire region, and thence, the world. That is where the ultimate danger lies and from where the global (nuclear) war will start. It could be imminent. The disruption of International shipping, and therefore global trade, has already started. Global commodity prices will soon increase dramatically.
The immediate creation of a fully autonomous, independent State of Palestine might just avert such a world war. Maybe.
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Hans Stehling is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
My main argument about the Holocaust has always been “come on, this is cartoonish evil – people don’t act like that.”
However, insofar as Jews are “people,” they are proving wrong my assumption.
"There are bodies by the tens! Bulldozers ran them over & then left! This whole area is filled with bodies!"
I recently heard John Mearsheimer say that the Jews have no fear of being brought before a war crimes tribunal. He said that the language being used, calling the Arabs “subhuman animals,” could be used in such a trial, but there was no chance of that happening because America and/or the Jews control these tribunals. However, I’m not really so sure that’s correct.
I think the world is still processing that this is actually happening – that we’ve spent 3 months watching the Jews murder children. However, when it sets in what has happened, I think it is going to be very easy for the rest of the world to organize against the United States, which is ultimately responsible for this situation.
I think we could live to see Jews put on trial for this.
Israeli soldiers raiding a hospital in northern Gaza desecrated the bodies of dead patients with bulldozers, let a military dog maul a man in a wheelchair, and shot multiple doctors even after vetting them for terror links, according to allegations by staff and patients.
The claims relate to an eight-day operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the Kamal Adwan Hospital last week, which the military alleges was being used as a command and control center by Hamas.
Every hospital is a Hamas base.
CNN spoke to two senior medical staff, another doctor and a patient at the hospital, who provided corroborating testimonies of what happened. CNN also reviewed video evidence for some of the claims.
They paint a disturbing picture of how the IDF carried out the operation, as doctors were interrogated for their connections to Hamas and staff struggled to treat patients trapped inside.
The IDF says that Hamas hides terrorist infrastructure in and around civilian institutions in Gaza, such as hospitals, and that targeting them is essential as it works to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip. But its operations are contentious, with humanitarian organizations saying that medical facilities in Gaza are rendered unable to provide basic services.
They’ve claimed this for years, but there’s never been any evidence.
It would make sense to claim this, however, if you wanted to murder civilians on a large scale, while claiming it is a legitimate military operation.
That said, I don’t think anyone even claims this is a legitimate military operation at this point. Even the people who support it just say they support mass-murdering Arab children.
Among the most serious allegations relating to the IDF’s operations at Kamal Adwan is that, as troops were leaving the hospital complex, they used bulldozers to dig up bodies that had recently been buried in makeshift graveyards in the hospital’s courtyard.
“The soldiers dug up the graves this morning and dragged the bodies with bulldozers, then crushed the bodies with the bulldozers,” said the hospital’s head of pediatric services, Hossam Abu Safiya, in a phone interview on Saturday. “I have never seen such a thing before.”
No one has ever seen anything like that before. This is exactly the sort of thing the Jews claimed the Nazis did, and everyone laughed because it was so ridiculous.
Now, it seems, we’re seeing that the Jews were able to make up these stories about the Nazis because it’s what they would have actually done to people. This is a sort of “a-ha” moment there, perhaps.
Videos and images he shared with CNN show decomposing human remains scattered across the hospital grounds.
The allegation was supported by the hospital’s head of nursing, Eid Sabbah, and another nurse, Asmaa Tanteesh.
“The bodies outside in the courtyard were plowed in front of our eyes,” Tanteesh told CNN. “All the while, we were shouting and screaming at them, but our screams fell on deaf ears.”
Satellite imagery taken on December 15 – right before the IDF withdrew from the hospital area – shows razed grounds outside the hospital complex.
The IDF did not address the allegations directly when approached for comment by CNN but acknowledged that it had carried out an operation at the hospital. “The troops apprehended 80 terrorists, some of whom took part in the atrocious October 7th massacre,” it said in a statement to CNN.
Well, why aren’t they being paraded around then? If they actually arrested people from October 7th, surely they would be parading them around?
There is in fact zero evidence that they’ve captured any Hamas, at all. I assume they must have killed some. But there is no evidence of any captures.
Here, you must assume, they just arrested random hospital staff.
Earlier this week, the IDF released a video of the interrogation of the hospital’s director and published an accompanying statement saying he admitted it was being used for military purposes. It was unclear whether the statement was elicited under duress.
Abu Safiya, the pediatrics director, and Sabbah, the chief nurse, countered that the hospital only provided medical services and that the arrestees were civilians and medical workers.
Of course the statement was “elicited under duress.” Israel tortures everyone.
After they bomb you, then they come in and bulldoze you, then they arrest you and torture you.
Standard Jewish practices.
Now, the whole world sees the Jews as I see Jews.
I’m thankful to them for exposing themselves like this.
There was no chance of the whole world believing me until they saw it.
Palestinian health officials have come under fire while holding a press conference outside Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, a day after Israeli forces are accused of using bulldozers to crush Palestinian patients in the hospital's courtyard ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/EwNArEvVwj
On the day this was written, Israeli army bulldozers razed to the ground tents in Kamal Adwan hospital’s courtyard in Gaza and buried wounded Palestinians and patients alive. pic.twitter.com/pfGHZ5wCCg
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***
Dec. 23, 2023 – 31 year old French journalist Clementine Vergnaud, died suddenly on Dec. 23, after a 1.5 year struggle with bile duct cancer.
Dec. 11, 2023 – 42 year old Emily Matson, TV news Anchor and reporter at WICU-TV in Erie, PA, died suddenly.
Dec. 6, 2023 – UK – 45 year old journalist Russell Hargreaves, popular rugby commentator died suddenly.
Dec. 5, 2023 – Canadian Journalist Ian Vandaelle, who pushed COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine passports and wanted unvaccinated Toronto Police Officers fired – died suddenly at age 33 on Dec. 5, 2023.
Dec. 4, 2023 – 47 year old Sports Journalist and 2010 World Cup media manager Jermaine Craig died suddenly after collapsing in the gym. Died Dec. 4, 2023.
Dec. 4, 2023 – Italy – 34 year old Anrea Pardini, Tuscan journalist, was found dead in his house by his pregnant wife on Dec. 4, 2023.
Nov. 26, 2023 – Sierra Leone Journalist Stephen Douglas died suddenly from a heart attack on Nov. 26, 2023.
Nov. 21, 2023 – Brazil – 47 year old journalist Sergio Salexandre Vieira, died suddenly from a cardiac arrest.
Nov. 21, 2023 – Brazil – 38 year old news anchor, journalist, Elaine da Silva was 23 weeks pregnant and was sent to hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Monday Nov. 20 with pneumonia. She died next day with her unborn child.
Nov. 16, 2023 – Curitiba, Brazil, 44 year old journalist Kathya Pricyla Balan died Nov. 16, 2023 after 4 month battle with Turbo Breast Cancer, Triple Negative, common turbo cancer after taking COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine.
Nov. 11, 2023 – BBC Radio 5 journalist Helen Place died after “short and sudden illness”. She died Nov. 11, 2023 “a couple of weeks after a cancer diagnosis.”
Oct. 23, 2023 – Brazil – 50 year old journalist, Sandro Rego died suddenly due to cancer. He was living in North of Portugal.
Oct. 18, 2023 – Italy – 37 year old journalist Vittorio Savoia, Head of editorial Staff, died on Oct. 18, 2023 due to “sudden illness.”
Oct. 10, 2023 – 61 year old Gail O’Neill, former fashion model and TV Journalist died after battling a “serious illness” for 2 years.
Oct. 1, 2023 – 51 year old Puerto Rican journalist who worked for ESPN died suddenly after a battle with aggressive cancer.
Sep. 23, 2023 – TURBO CANCER DEATH IN HOURS – Brazil – 43 year old journalist Wallescka de Andrade Lyra was diagnosed with leukemia in the morning, intubated & died same day Sep. 23, 2023. Diagnosis to death: hours.
Sep. 14, 2023 – 35 year old BBC reporter, comedian Maddy Anholt died after 1 year battle with rare & aggressive brain cancer diagnosed shortly after birth of her baby.
Sep. 10, 2023 – Vancouver, BC – 46 year old CBC anchor Kuljeet Kaila died Sep. 10, 2023 from aggressive brain cancer: “It is the unanticipated swiftness of this battle that leaves us all in state of disbelief.”
Sep. 5, 2023 – 48 year old Ruschell Boone, Emmy award winning journalist died on Sep. 5, 2023 after 1 year battle with pancreatic cancer. Diagnosed June 2022, she was cancer free March but 4 months later it returned.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
“Yemen has said it would stop the blockade of Israel-bound ships as soon as sufficient food, water and medicine are allowed to enter Gaza. Guess that’s asking too much.” — Elizabeth Murray@elizabethmurra
Yemen’s Houthi militia has shown how a small army can take on the American Empire and win. They have shown how courage, resolve and commitment to principle can act as a force-multiplier allowing a much weaker military to ‘punch above its weight’. They’ve also shown that a few well-placed missiles in key locations on the world’s most critical shipping lanes, can send tremors across the global economy and shake the “rules-based order” to its foundations. In short, the Houthis have shown that David can bring down Goliath without breaking a sweat, provided that David maintains his perch along the Bab-al-Mandab Strait.
Here’s what’s going on:
The Houthis occupy an area along the narrowest part of the Red Sea that is the most important shipping corridor in the world. It is “responsible for 12% of international trade and almost one-third of global container traffic.”
When the movement of ships is disrupted along this waterway, insurance premiums skyrocket, prices on retail merchandise rise, and oil prices go through the roof.
That is why western powers are committed to keeping these shipping lanes open at all times whatever the cost. Here’s some background from CNN:
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels are stepping up their strikes on ships in the Red Sea, which they say are revenge against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza.
The attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes, which could potentially cause a shock to the global economy.
The Houthis are believed to have been armed and trained by Iran, and there are fears that their attacks could escalate Israel’s war against Hamas into a wider regional conflict. Who Are The Houthis, CNN
At present, these shipping lanes are effectively closed due to Houthis attacks on Israeli-bound vessels. This, in turn, has slowed overall traffic to a crawl. If the current situation persists or gets worse, the impact on the global economy could be catastrophic.
Today on UK Column News (1pm UK time) I will cover the latest on Yemen and how Ansarullah is already winning the war against the US-led global coalition destined for failure in the 'graveyard of invaders' which is the Yemen. pic.twitter.com/ZKXhuyiAjO
On Monday, oil giant BP became the latest company to announce it would be pausing its shipments through the Red Sea. Several shipping companies, including MSC, Maersk, Euronav and the Evergreen Group, have said they are also avoiding the Suez Canal as militants target cargo vessels.
Roughly 10 percent of all maritime oil trade goes through the Red Sea — which connects to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. Without access to the Red Sea route, many ships will have to take the far longer and costlier journey around Africa to reach their destinations….
It’s worth noting that the Houthis have repeatedly said that ships that are NOT bound for Israeli ports will not be attacked. But that has not stopped all of the major shipping companies from rerouting their vessels from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope. This alternate route adds weeks to the sailing time forcing carriers to raise their cargo prices and adjust their schedules. Bottom line: The action of the Houthis is going to further boost inflation in western countries pushing their economies into a sharp and protracted nosedive.
Surprisingly, the Houthis do not stand to gain anything for their efforts.
In fact, they are putting themselves at great risk (of retaliation by the United States) in order to pressure Israel into stopping its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and to allow the starving Palestinian people access to food, water and medical supplies.
The Houthis should probably be applauded for their selfless compassion and humanity, but Washington doesn’t see it that way. They don’t think see the Houthis’ action as laudable, virtuous or just.
They see it as a challenge to American primacy.
They see it as a threat to their regional hegemony and global leadership.
They see it as interference in their Gaza policy in which Israel has been granted carte blanche to kill and maim as many Palestinians as it sees fit in order to achieve its own strategic objective, which is Greater Israel.
So, what we have is an unstoppable force and an immovable object. We have two opposing points of view, and no way to resolve their differences without a direct military confrontation. That means there’s going to be trouble in the very near future.
And that is why, last Monday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that he had assembled a ten-member maritime coalition that would patrol the waterways in the Red Sea and defend the “freedom of navigation” in that area. (Coalition members include: Britain, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain.)
Now a reasonable person might wonder why Austin would cobble together another makeshift military coalition—whose strategic goals are far from clear—instead of first contacting the Houthi leadership to see if a deal could be worked out and a confrontation avoided. But those who have followed US foreign policy for the last 30 years, know that the US does not negotiate with people or countries it considers its inferiors.
So, that option was quickly discarded. Instead, the US has decided to pursue its traditional approach to emerging crises, which involves a fair amount of incendiary rhetoric followed by a military hammer-blow. And, that appears to be the direction that things are now headed. Check out this excerpt from an article by John Helmer:
“… on Monday, in the Moscow newspaper Vedomosti, it was reported that Russian experts expect “most likely, the Americans will launch missile and bomb attacks on command centres and military depots of the Houthis, or targeted strikes by special forces may follow in order to eliminate the commanders of the movement. The operation will be roughly comparable to the actions of Western allies in Syria or Iraq.” The newspaper claimed that, according to its source, “the military forces of Saudi Arabia and the UAE may participate in the operation – their armed forces and their proxies have been waging a sluggish war against Iran’s allies in Yemen since 2015. John Helmer,Dancing With Bears
And respected publications in the western media are calling for a war with the Houthis too. This is from The World Socialist Web Site:
The US media is, meanwhile, agitating for the Biden administration to target both Yemen and Iran. In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “The press is reporting that the Biden Administration is contemplating the use of military force in response to continuing attacks on commercial shipping by the Houthi militia in Yemen. It’s about time. The Houthi missile attacks pose the most significant threat to global shipping in decades, and they will continue unless a global coalition unites to stop them.”
The Journal continued, “The question is whether the U.S. and other Western navies are merely going to play defense and catch missiles as the Houthis set the terms of battle. Sooner or later a Houthi missile may get past U.S. naval defenses and kill American sailors. Then the White House will have little choice other than to strike back.” The Journal demands that the US escalate against Iran, declaring, “Eventually Iran’s rulers have to know that their assets—military and nuclear—are at risk if they continue to foment disorder, attack U.S. allies, and target American bases or ships.” As Gaza genocide continues, US prepares major escalation of war throughout Middle East, World Socialist Web Site
So, there’s definitely an element within the foreign policy establishment that supports the idea of a war on Yemen.
We expect this ‘rush to war’ will gain momentum in the weeks ahead as more ships are diverted to Africa and hostilities continue to mount. But there’s no sign that the Houthis are going to ease up on their demands or abandon the Palestinian cause anytime soon. If anything, they appear to be more resolute than ever as is evident in this quote by Houthi Council member Muhammad al-Bukhaiti,
“Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our operations in the Red Sea will not stop unless the massacre in Gaza stops. We will not give up the responsibility of defending the Moustazafeen (oppressed ones) of the Earth.”
There’s not a lot of wiggle-room here. The Houthis want a cessation of the violence and the distribution of humanitarian aid. And they are willing to go to war with the United States to make sure their demands are met. And no one knows better than the Houthis, what that means. During the 9 years they were at war with Saudi Arabia, Washington provided the weapons and embargo-power that led to the deaths of an estimated 377,000 people. “More than half died due to starvation and disease caused by the siege.” (Antiwar.com)
So, the Houthis know what savagery Washington is capable of. Even so, they are not backing down and not caving in. There’s going to be a ceasefire or there’s going to be a war. It’s up to Biden to decide. But if he opts for war, he should realize that it’s not going to be a cakewalk. Oh, no. There are going to be attacks on American bases, American warships and Saudi oil fields and infrastructure. Oil prices will soar, commercial shipping will grind to a standstill, and global equities will tumble. And, all the while, China and Russia will be watching from the sidelines while Uncle Sam drains his last ounce credibility and power down a black hole on the Arabian Peninsula.
This is how Houthi leader Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi summed it up:
“If the US wants to go to war with us, they must know that we are waiting. We want a direct war between Yemen and the US and Israel. We are not afraid of America and all the people of Yemen will stand against them.”
This is a war that the United States can easily avoid by simply ‘doing the right thing’ and approving a ceasefire now. That will bring a swift end to Israel’s atrocities and stop the attacks on commercial shipping at the same time. That’s a solution we can all live with.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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***
President Joe Biden, you defeated Donald Trump, yet your administration has not rolled back all of the evil caused by your predecessor.
Take the case of journalist Julian Assange.
Under the Obama administration in which you, Biden, were vice president for eight years, journalist and publisher Julian Assange was NOT prosecuted for publishing the Collateral Murder video of the U.S. Army murder by hellfire missile of Reuters reporters nor the classified Afghanistan and the Iraq War files.
However, you and the Obama administration did prosecute and won conviction of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for disclosing those classified materials.
As you will know as former head of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, journalists and publishers are protected by the First Amendment which allows them to publish classified materials given to them by whistleblowers. But, that amendment does not protect those such as Manning, whom you prosecuted, who released classified information to a journalist.
Fifty years ago, no U.S. publisher, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times or any other newspaper in the U.S. or abroad was prosecuted for publishing the classified history of the U.S. war on Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers [although Nixon tried].
Daniel Ellsberg, who released the 4,000-page sordid, classified tale of U.S. military involvement, fully expected to be prosecuted as he was the one who gave classified information to the media.
The Nixon administration’s theft of Ellsberg’s medical records torpedoed President Richard Nixon’s attempt at prosecuting Ellsberg [and the Times]. Nixon continued to rail against Ellsberg as “the most dangerous man in America” because he, Nixon, was unable to put Ellsberg in jail.
No publisher in the history of the United States had been prosecuted until the Trump administration came into power.
After WikiLeaks and other media published in 2017 “Vault 7,” a list and description of the mostly C.I.A. materials about C.I.A. hacking capabilities to ever come into the public domain, Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr and C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo decided to try a new legal theory, one that had never been used in U.S. history.
Pompeo while C.I.A. director calling WikiLeaks a nonstate hostile actor. (Screenshot)
A conviction of U.S. charges of espionage could result in Assange being sentenced to 175 years in prison.
At the time of the U.S. charges, Assange had requested asylum from the Ecuadorian government and had been protected by living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for five years.
With a change in Ecuadorian government and under intense pressure from the British and U.S. governments, in April 2019, the new Ecuadorian administration allowed British police to break the embassy’s sovereignty and enter it.
London police carried Assange out of the embassy, put him into a police van and immediately locked him up in the highest security prison in the U.K., Belmarsh Prison.
Prior to the police breaching the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange had been denied his razor for weeks. His haggard appearance as he was carried out of the embassy was part of an orchestrated negative publicity campaign orchestrated by the British government and without a doubt, the U.S. government.
Imprisoned for Almost Five Years with No Conviction
For the past four years and nine months, Assange has been in Belmarsh Prison, a high security prison for those convicted of violent crimes. He has been in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, a violation of the right not to be tortured, according to former U.N. Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer.
Yet, Assange has not been convicted of any crime. Despite no conviction, he has been incarcerated by the British government on behalf of the U.S. government until extradition proceedings to the U.S. are successful.
Belmarsh Prison flyover view. (dave patten, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Almost three years ago in January 2021, lower court Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange should be released from Belmarsh Prison. She denied the U.S. request for extradition based on Assange’s mental health, his propensity to commit suicide and conditions of U.S. prisons.
The U.S. appealed her decision, issuing “diplomatic assurances” that Assange would not be mistreated in a U.S. prison. The High Court, after a two-day hearing in March 2022, accepted those “assurances” and rejected Assange’s appeal.
His application to the U.K. Supreme Court to hear the case was then denied. Assange then applied for a new appeal of Baraitser’s legal decisions and the home secretary’s extradition order. His 150-page argument was rejected in a three-page ruling. The appeal of that decision will now take place on Feb. 20-21, 2024.
Don’t Trust US ‘Diplomatic Assurances’
Assange supporters in a weekly protest on behalf of the publisher on Sept. 16, outside Belmarsh Prison, where Assange is being held. (Alisdaire Hickson, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
As a former U.S. diplomat, I can guarantee Assange that U.S. “diplomatic assurances” mean absolutely nothing. The U.S. breaks its word to individuals and countries frequently. And the U.S. Department of State has no jurisdiction over the Bureau of Prisons which makes decisions unilaterally of how prisoners are treated [with input from the C.I.A., which plotted to kill Assange.]
He said that the Bureau of Prisons makes its own decisions on whether a person will be in solitary confinement and the recommendations of the State Department and Department of Justice are disregarded.
The United States has more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other country. In May 2023, the watchdog group Solitary Watch and the advocacy coalition Unlock the Box released a groundbreaking joint report showing that at least 122,840 people are locked daily in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails for 22 or more hours a day.
Pressure From Australia & US Congress
In October 2023, a group of bipartisan members of the Australian Parliament traveled to Washington and lobbied the U.S. government to drop the charges against Assange.
At the end of October, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Washington where he raised the Assange issue in a meeting with Biden and repeated his call for Biden to bring the matter to a close.
“We believe the Department of Justice acted correctly in 2013, during your vice presidency, when it declined to pursue charges against Mr. Assange for publishing the classified documents because it recognized that the prosecution would set a dangerous precedent.”
The letter continued to say that the signatories are “well aware that should the U.S. extradition and prosecution go forward, there is a significant risk that our bilateral relationship with Australia will be badly damaged.”
Why Aren’t Charges Dropped?
The Biden administration could immediately withdraw the request for extradition from the U.K. It wasn’t Biden’s administration that cooked up the novel legal theory under which Assange is charged; it was the Trump administration.
The Obama administration in which Biden served never charged Julian Assange with a crime.
Is it that Biden fears the right-wing Republican Party members will call him soft on the Trump-era cooked up “non-state actor” legal theory of espionage?
Surely, the former chair of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee can see through that smear attempt.
It is long past time for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to tell President Biden that the Trump charges against Assange that are the basis for the extradition request are without merit.
It’s long overdue for the United States to cancel its request for extradition of Julian Assange and for Assange to be able to be free from the bogus charges of the past decade.
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Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the U.S. Diplomatic Corps 20 years ago in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.
Featured image: Julian Assange at the Stop the War Coalition rally at Trafalgar Square, London, Oct. 8, 2011. (Haydn, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
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Although the administration of President Joe Biden claimed earlier on in the Al-Aqsa Storm launched on October 7 that the United States was opposed to the widening of the military struggle between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Hamas resistance movement in Gaza.
Soon after the bombing campaign and attempted total siege of Gaza, clashes between Hezbollah armed forces and the IDF grew in frequency and severity.
The blanket bombing of Gaza along with the IDF raids on towns and refugee camps in the West Bank was bound to ignite solidarity efforts across the region and the world. Millions everyday engage in mass demonstrations and rallies while resistance forces in Iraq and Syria have launched attacks on U.S. military forces.
In response to the declaration of the Ansar Allah Resistance Movement in Yemen that it would enforce a blockade on Israeli linked ships until the genocidal siege on the Palestinians ceased, the U.S. has pledged to protect commercial vessels traveling throughout the Red Sea. Therefore, such an initiative by Washington further exposes the false statements by the White House claiming the administration opposes the wanton slaughter of civilians, since the foreign policy trajectory of Washington and Wall Street is geared toward maintaining the occupation of Palestine.
In figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry over 20,000 people have been killed since October 7. More than 50,000 have been wounded and almost the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced.
The Palestinian people are suffering from lack of shelter, healthcare, clean drinking water, adequate food, fuel for transportation, energy generation and cooking. The U.S. as the main allies of the settler-colonial State of Israel has refused to call for a ceasefire and continues to block any effective measures before the United Nations Security Council.
Thousands of tons of weapons are being transported to the Israeli state by the U.S. every week as daily massacres of Palestinians occur. All humanitarian organizations have pleaded with Tel Aviv and the U.S. to halt the bombing.
Corporate and government-controlled media outlets in the West are providing political cover for the Israeli state by consistently labeling Hamas and other resistance forces in Palestine and across the region as “terrorists” and “rebels.”
Pentagon-led Alliance Facing Enormous Challenges
“Operation Prosperity Guardian” is the latest military project by the Pentagon to attempt to build a “coalition” of like-minded states whose objectives would be to keep commerce flowing in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic waterway providing a lucrative shipping lane connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. The strait connects the West Asian and Northeast African states of Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula along with Djibouti and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.
These waterways serve to transport manufactured goods, petroleum and natural gas. Any threat to shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden areas would represent a severe blow to the world economy.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin claimed in a press release that the alliance already had 20 members. However, many of the participants are choosing to remain anonymous.
Of the Arab states in the region only Bahrain has been named as a member. Even other imperialist states such as Spain, France and Italy have declined to join the Pentagon-led intervention. Spain says it would participate in a NATO or United Nations initiative while France wants to be a part of Operation Prosperity Guardian yet does not wish to function under the Pentagon command structures.
Greece made a public statement saying it would be involved in Operation Prosperity Guardian without specifying what resources are being shifted to the project. Greece noted that its economy heavily relies on shipping.
Australia, a close ally of the U.S., says it wants to join the Pentagon-led campaign while keeping its focus on the Pacific. The country will deploy 11 personnel to the operational center in Bahrain. However, no military vessels will be sent into the Red Sea area. (See this)
“While wrangling any multi-national coalition for a tumultuous operation like this is never easy, these developments among America’s closest allies are certainly setbacks. They also come as it appears that the threat to shipping is expanding far beyond the Bab el-Mandeb and its more immediate surroundings. Just hours ago, a Liberian-flagged chemical tanker M/V Chem Pluto that has ties to Israel was struck by a drone while sailing in the Indian Ocean, roughly 120 miles to the southwest of the Indian port city of Veraval. According to ABC News, Ambrey, a prolific security contractor that provides armed guards and other services to commercial vessels, said the drone struck the stern of the ship and a fire was ignited, but was eventually put out without injuries to the ship’s crew. The ship has structural damage and has taken on some water as a result of the attack. It was heading from Saudi Arabia to India when it was struck. The Indian Navy responded to the ship’s distress call with a maritime patrol aircraft and a warship.”
It is estimated that 10% of the oil shipped around the globe travels through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait.Several leading shipping firms have suspended their operations in the Red Sea area. The threats to its cargo, personnel and the higher costs for insurance and security have threatened to severely reduce their rates of profit. These shipping firms are being forced to reroute their commerce around the Southern and Western regions of Africa.
On December 24, Maersk, the second largest commercial shipping company in the world, announced that it would resume its regular commerce routes in light of the commitment made by the Pentagon to safeguard trade in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. This firm based in Denmark, will still face credible threats since the Yemeni resistance forces are not deterred by the growing presence of the U.S. warships.
White House Moves to Bolster Israel amid Major Setbacks in Military Campaign
Secretary of Defense Alston’s maneuvering of troops and military hardware is a reflection of the difficulties experienced by Tel Aviv and Washington in the Gaza siege. After nearly three months of offensive operations in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas and other resistance forces continue their strikes against the IDF.
The actual statistics for the number of IDF soldiers killed and wounded remain shrouded in secrecy. Nonetheless, since early December, figures have been released by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several press agencies which illustrate growing numbers of IDF forces killed including high-ranking members of elite military units and their commanders.
Thousands of IDF soldiers have been injured and rendered disabled. Most of the deaths and injuries are being inflicted by the al-Qassam Brigades and other military wings of the resistance movement. (See this)
Moreover, the losses are not only physical on the battlefield. World public opinion has turned against the State of Israel and the U.S. for its unconditional support for Tel Aviv.
The Biden administration has further damaged its potential for re-election due to the White House and Congressional positions on the Palestinian question. A majority of the Democratic electorate are in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.
Yet due to the strategic role of Israel in the U.S. imperialist project in West Asia and North Africa, the Biden administration is prepared to neglect the burgeoning mass sentiment against the settler-colonial state. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are led by imperialist interests. In order for there to be a shift in U.S. foreign policy towards Israel, tremendous political pressure will have to be brought against the legislative and administrative branches of the federal government.
The formation of a mass anti-imperialist party in the U.S. will require substantial time for political education and the building of internal organizational structures. Nonetheless, the work of constructing a society based upon peace and social emancipation is the only solution to the imperialist crises of perpetual war and economic exploitation both domestically and internationally.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
December 26th, 2023 by American Friends Service Committee
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The companies listed here have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its so-called “Swords of Iron” attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria during October-December 2023.
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Since Oct. 7, Israel has waged unprecedented aerial and ground attacks on Gaza after Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed at historic pace, and Israel has destroyed large parts of the Gaza Strip, making them uninhabitable. These attacks have been accompanied by a surge of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, clashes between the Israeli military and armed groups in Lebanon, and Israeli aerial strikes in Syria.
Shortly after Oct. 7, the U.S. government started transferring to Israel massive amounts of weapons. Among these weapons, Israel received more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month and a half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight.
Some of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program; some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget; and some were replenished U.S. military stockpiles in Israel, which the Israeli military may also use. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade.
The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without this continued flow of weapons from the U.S.
Despite massive public protests, the Biden administration has been working to give Israel over $14 billion to buy more weapons. This is on top of the $3.8 billion the U.S. already gives to the Israeli military annually. Israel is required to use this money to buy U.S.-made weapons. This is a form of corporate welfare for the largest weapon manufacturers, like Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics, which have seen their stock prices skyrocket, but also for companies that are not part of the weapon industry, such as Caterpillar, Ford, and Toyota (see below).
As a Quaker organization with a long history of work in Palestine and Israel, including in Gaza, AFSC supports a full arms embargo to both Israeli and Palestinian militant groups. This list focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.
This research relies on media sources, social media, and other open sources. This page is updated regularly as new information comes to light. If you have information that you think we should add, or if you are a researcher or journalist who needs access to the raw data, please contact us.
For a more comprehensive list of publicly traded companies that are involved in the Israeli occupation, accompanied by our divestment recommendations, please refer to our Investigate database.
Companies
AeroVironment
A military drone manufacturer headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.
Around Oct. 30, Israel requested to purchase 200 AeroVironment Switchblade 600 Kamikaze drones, an advanced direct fire loitering missile system that acts as a “suicide drone.”
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
AM General
A manufacturer of military vehicles based in South Bend, Indiana. The company’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee) has been used by the Israeli military in Gaza. The armor for these vehicles is made by Plasan (see below).
On Nov. 5, the Israeli military reportedly used Humvees, accompanied by tanks and other armored vehicles, to lead a “supply convoy” into Gaza. Humvees were again used by the Israeli military on Nov. 8 to transport Israeli media correspondents into Gaza.
On Dec. 6, a U.S. cargo plane delivered additional Humvees to Israel.
In addition to Oshkosh (see below), AM General also makes the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.
BAE Systems
The world’s seventh largest weapon manufacturer, UK company BAE Systems manufactures the M109 howitzer, a 155mm mobile artillery system that the Israeli military has been using extensively, firing tens of thousands of 155mm shells into the Gaza Strip.
Some of these shells are white phosphorus bombs, the use of which is forbidden in densely populated civilian areas and potentially amounts to a war crime.
BAE also manufactures electronic missile launching kits and other components for Israel’s F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets, which the Israeli Air Force has used extensively in all of its attacks on Gaza, including in 2023.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments) see our company profile on the Investigate database.
The Boeing Company
The world’s fifth largest weapon manufacturer, Boeing manufactures F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters, which the Israeli Air Force has used extensively in all of its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, including in 2023.
Boeing also manufactures multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, which convert these bombs into precision-guided munitions.
Israel has been using these bombs extensively, including in a Nov. 1 bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, which killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and could amount to a war crime, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
On Oct. 10 and 22, the Israeli military used bombs equipped with Boeing JDAM kits to carry out what Amnesty International calls “unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip.” The attacks, which could amount to a war crime, killed 24 people of the al-Najjar family and 19 people of the Abu Mu’eileq family.
Immediately after Oct. 7, Boeing expedited delivery of 1,000 smart bombs, and another 1,800 JDAM kits, to Israel. Both deliveries were part of a 2021 order that Israel made during its previous large-scale attack on Gaza.
Headquartered in Chicago, the company has important production facilities outside of Los Angeles, Seattle, and St. Louis. For more locations, see this map.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Caterpillar
For decades, Caterpillar has been supplying Israel with the D9 armored bulldozer, which the Israeli military routinely uses to demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Armored D9 bulldozers have been crucial in the Israeli military’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, accompanying combat troops and paving their way by clearing roads and demolishing buildings.
D9 bulldozers were also used in raids of Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarem, where a bulldozer was used to destroy a memorial to former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. Deliberate destruction of cultural heritage sites during an armed conflict canconstitute a war crime.
Israel placed an urgent order for dozens of D9 armored bulldozers during the current attacks.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Colt’s Manufacturing Company
Colt’s Manufacturing Company makes firearms, including the M16, which was the standard-issue assault rifle used by the Israeli military from the 1990s to the early 2010s. Many older M16 rifles are still in use by the Israeli military and police.
Israel requested to purchase from Colt about 18,000 M4 and MK18 assault rifles, out of 24,000 total assault rifles from U.S. companies. Israel designates these firearms for newly-formed civilian “security squads” in dozens of cities and towns, including illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
U.S. State Department officials, who have to approve the sale of automatic rifles, expressed concerns that these weapons will be used to expel Palestinian civilians from their land in the occupied West Bank. While Israel guaranteed that the rifles will only be used by government agencies, the U.S. has reportedly delayed a shipment of 4,500 rifles from the same order.
Colt is headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and is owned by Czech firearms manufacturer Colt CZ Group (CZP).
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Day & Zimmermann
A privately owned munitions manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1990, company subsidiary Mason & Hanger manufactured some of the 120mm rounds that Israeli Merkava tanks fired at a U.N. school in Gaza in November.
The Israeli military also routinely uses 155mm artillery rounds made at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, which is operated by American Ordnance, another subsidiary of Day & Zimmermann.
Dynamit Nobel Defence (DND)
Dynamit Nobel Defence (DND) is a German weapons company that co-developed the Matador (RGW 90) portable shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket with Rafael (see below) and the Singaporean government. It is unclear whether the Matador systems used in Gaza are made in Germany.
Elbit Systems
Israel’s largest weapon manufacturer, Elbit Systems is one of the primary suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military, including Skylark and Hermes military UAV drones, which form the majority of Israel’s fleet of large drones and have been used extensively in Gaza.
Elbit Systems’ killer Hermes 450 and 900 drones have been used extensively in attacks on and surveillance missions in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Lebanon.
It also supplies the Israeli military with 155mm artillery shells and many other weapons systems and technologies.
Elbit Systems spearheaded the technological aspects of the “smart” border wall surrounding the Gaza Strip, which failed on Oct. 7. It is also a prime contractor for the militarization of the U.S.– Mexico border.
On Oct. 13, the Israeli military fired 120mm tank rounds at journalists in south Lebanon, killing Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injuring six others in what could amount to a war crime. The munitions used were most likely M339 rounds made by Elbit Systems, according to Amnesty International.
The company, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, has a large U.S. presence, with facilities in Alabama (Talladega), Florida (Boca Raton and De Leon Springs), Massachusetts (Cambridge), New Hampshire (Merrimack), Pennsylvania (Birdsboro) South Carolina (Ladson), Virginia (Reston and Roanoke), and Texas (San Antonio).
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Emtan Karmiel
A privately-held Israeli firearm manufacturer that, within a week of Oct. 7, delivered some 12,000 rifles to the Israeli military and other security forces.
Many of these rifles, if not all of them, are MZ4P assault rifles that have been acquired by the Israeli Ministry of National Security to arm new civilian “security squads” in dozens of cities and towns, including illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. News of these security squads reportedly caused the U.S. to halt shipments of thousands of additional assault rifles to Israel (see above on Colt).
Ford Motor Company
A U.S. automaker whose commercial pickup trucks are armored and retrofitted for the Israeli military by AM General (see above), Oshkosh (see below), and Plasan (see below).
The Ford Super Duty F-350 XL pickup truck, for example, serves as the basis of Plasan’s SandCat light armored vehicle. On Dec. 6, a U.S. cargo plane delivered SandCat vehicles to Israel.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
General Dynamics
The world’s sixth largest weapon manufacturer, General Dynamics, supplies Israel with artillery ammunition and bombs for attack jets used in Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The company developed the F-16 fighter jet, although it has been manufactured by Lockheed Martin since 1993.
General Dynamics is the only company in the U.S. that makes the metal bodies of the MK-80 bomb series, the primary weapon type Israel uses to bomb Gaza. The bodies of the bombs are filled with explosives by the U.S. military, and then can be made into a guided bomb using Boeing‘s JDAM kits.
It is also the only company in the U.S. that makes 155mm caliber artillery shells, which have been used extensively to attack Gaza. One source reported that, by Nov. 25, one Israeli brigade fired some 10,000 such shells using BAE’s M109 howitzer.
155mm shells have been part of the U.S.’s recent weapons shipments to Israel. The U.S. is planning to send “tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells that had been destined for Ukraine” to Israel. Their use by Israel, according to Oxfam, is “virtually assured to be indiscriminate, unlawful, and devastating to civilians in Gaza.” On Nov. 13, more than 30 organizations issued a letter opposing the transfer.
On an Oct. 25 call with investors, General Dynamics CFO, Jason Aiken, said, “I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of [the attacks on Gaza], the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.”
General Dynamics is based outside of Washington, D.C., in Fairfax, Virginia. For more locations, see this map.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
A large Israeli state-owned weapon manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries makes multiple weapons systems specifically for the Israeli military, including the Heron TP killer drone.
On a Nov. 22 call with investors, IAI CEO, Boaz Levy, said that Heron drones have “played a pivotal role” in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, including in strike operations. In early October, Germany approved a request by Israel to use two Heron TP drones, manufactured by IAI, in its attacks on Gaza.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
L3Harris Technologies
The world’s ninth largest weapon manufacturer, L3Harris manufactures components that are integrated into multiple weapons systems used by the Israeli military in Gaza, including Boeing‘s JDAM kits (see above), Lockheed Martin’s F-35 warplane (see below), Northrop Grumman‘s Sa’ar 5 warships (see below), ThyssenKrupp’s Sa’ar 6 warships (see below), and Israel’s Merkava battle tanks.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Leonardo
The world’s eleventh largest weapon manufacturer, Italian company Leonardo makes the Oto Melara 76/62 Super Rapid 76mm naval guns installed on the Israeli Navy’s Sa’ar 6 warships, which were used for the first time on Oct. 16 against targets in Gaza.
Lockheed Martin
The world’s largest weapon manufacturer, Lockheed Martin supplies Israel with F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, which Israel has been using extensively to bomb Gaza. Israel also uses the company’s C-130 Hercules transport planes to support the ground invasion of Gaza.
Lockheed Martin manufactures AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for Israel’s Apache helicopters. One of the main weapon types used in aerial attacks on Gaza, these missiles have been used extensively in 2023. Some 2,000 Hellfire missiles were delivered to Israel sometime between Oct. 7 and Nov. 14.
On Dec. 11, the Israeli Air Force used a Lockheed Martin C-130-J Super Hercules aircraft to drop approximately seven tons of equipment to Israeli soldiers engaging in ground attacks in Khan Younis, located in the southern Gaza Strip. This was the “first operational airdrop” that Israel has carried out since the 2006 Lebanon War.
On Nov. 9, an Israeli missile hit journalists sitting near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The missile was reportedly a Lockheed Martin–made Hellfire R9X missile, a version of the Hellfire that was developed by the CIA for carrying out assassinations. Instead of exploding, the missile shreds its target using blades, allowing for a direct hit without collateral damage. The target in this case was not a military one.
The Israeli military also uses Lockheed Martin’s M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). Used to fire Elbit Systems’ high-precision AccuLAR-122, the weapon was used by Israel for the first time, since the 2006 war in Lebanon, on Oct. 6, according to the Israeli military.
On an Oct. 17 call with investors, Lockheed Martin CEO, Jim Taiclet, “highlighted the Israel and Ukraine conflicts as potential drivers for increased revenue in the coming years.”
Lockheed Martin is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and has key production sites in Denver, Houston, New Orleans, and San Diego. For more locations, see this map.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
MDT Armor (Shladot)
MDT Armor, owned by Israeli company Shladot, makes the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle, the standard patrol and reconnaissance vehicle used by the Israeli military and routinely used in human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.
On Nov. 14, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) posted evidence of the Israeli military using two David armored vehicles to block an ambulance carrying a wounded Palestinian in the Tulkarm Refugee Camp. The same day, the Israeli military used a David vehicle to attack Palestinian youth at the Zaatara military checkpoint near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.
A shipment of David vehicles was rushed to Israel in Oct. 2023. The David is built on the basis of Toyota’s Hilux and Land Cruiser pickup trucks and is retrofitted for the needs of the Israeli military at MDT’s factory in Auburn, Alabama.
For more information, see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Nordic Ammunition Company (Nammo)
The maker of the M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, a shoulder-fired “bunker-buster” rocket used by the Israeli military in Gaza. As of the end of October, the U.S. has delivered 1,800 out of a requested 3,000 M141 shoulder-fired rocket launchers to Israel.
These rockets are made in the U.S., at the Nammo Talley factory in Mesa, Arizona. However, Nammo Talley’s parent company, Nammo, is headquartered in Norway and co-owned by the Norwegian government and Finnish company Patria Oyj. The latter is co-owned by the government of Finland (50.1%) and Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (49.9%), which is part of Kongsberg Gruppen (FRA: KOZ).
Northrop Grumman
The world’s sixth largest weapon manufacturer, Northrop Grummansupplies the Israeli Air Force with the Longbow missile delivery system for its Apache attack helicopters and laser weapon delivery systems for its fighter jets.
It has also supplied the Israeli Navy with Sa’ar 5 warships, which have participated in the assault on Gaza.
Northrop Grumman is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, and its most important production sites are located in and around Baltimore, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Diego. For more locations, see this map.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Oshkosh
A specialty truck manufacturer headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Oshkosh manufactures the hulls for the Eitan, Israel’s newest armored personnel carrier, which was used operationally for the first time in the ground invasion of Gaza.
Oshkosh also makes the trucks that Israel converts into the Panther, an armored personnel carrier used extensively in the occupied West Bank.
On Dec. 7, the Israeli military captured dozens of Palestinians in Gaza and transported them to Israel for interrogation. Individuals were stripped down to their underwear and publicly humiliated for hours, potentially in violation of international humanitarian law. At least some were transported in Oshkosh Medium Tactical Vehicles. While Israeli media claimed that these individuals were all members of Hamas, the Israeli military later admitted that the vast majority were civilians.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
Plasan
A private Israeli military vehicle manufacturer that makes the SandCat light armored vehicle for the Israeli military. At least some of these vehicles are manufactured at the company’s factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Since Oc. 7, Plasan has delivered dozens of SandCat Tigris armored vehicles to the Israeli military and has produced “hundreds of ballistic plates every day” for its use.
The company also makes the armor for Oshkosh’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs) (see above) and AM General’s Humvees and JLTVs (see above). The Israeli military has used all of these vehicles in its 2023 attacks on Gaza.
On Dec. 6, a U.S. cargo plane delivered Plasan-armored Humvees to Israel.
Rafael
A large Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturer, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems makes missiles, drones, and other weapons systems for the Israeli military.
The Israeli military has used Rafael Spike Anti-Tank Guided Missiles extensively to target, from the ground, people inside buildings in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military has also used the Matador (RGW 90) portable shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket, which Rafael developed with German company Dynamic Nobel Defence and the Singaporean government.
Rafael’s Trophy Active Protection System for armored vehicles enables Israeli battle tanks to go into Gaza and avoid being damaged by anti-tank weapons. The company markets the system as one that “increases the lethality of combat forces.”
Rafael collaborated with the Israeli military to develop the Spark, a new unmanned drone used to carry out intelligence missions, escort ground forces, and direct strikes. After first being received by the Israeli Air Force in September, Spark drones have reportedly been assisting Israeli combat teams in Gaza and acting as a “force multiplier on the battlefield.”
RTX (formerly Raytheon)
The world’s second largest weapon manufacturer and largest producer of guided missiles, RTX supplies the Israeli Air Force with guided air-to-surface missiles for its F-16 fighter jets, as well as cluster bombs and bunker busters, which have consistently been used against Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure.
RTX subsidiary Pratt & Whitney manufactures engines for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.
As part of a joint venture with Israeli state-owned weapon manufacturer Rafael, RTX makes interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, which have been part of the U.S.’s recent weapons shipments to Israel.
On an Oct. 24 call with investors, RTX CEO, Greg Hayes, said, “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you’re going to see a benefit of this restocking.”
RTX’ is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. For more locations, see this map.
For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.
SK Group
A private Israeli company that owns:
Israel Weapon Industries (IWI): a firearms manufacturer that makes the Tavor assault rifle and Negev machine gun, both of which are standard issue weapons in the Israeli military. Since mid-October, IWI has reportedly been producing “hundreds of Tavor rifles each day” for the Israeli military as well as the domestic commercial market.
Meprolight: a manufacturer of ‘see-through-the-wall’ radar technology used to identify targets concealed behind walls and barriers. The technology was used by the Israeli military for the first time in its 2014 attacks on Gaza.
Israel Shipyards: a shipbuilding company that designs and manufactures missile boats, gunboats, and patrol boats for the Israeli Navy and Israel Border Police. On Dec. 5, the company announced the launch of its first Shaldag MK V patrol boat, a ship “equipped with highly advanced weapons,” for the Israeli Navy.
Other subsidiaries include Greek company Elvo, Israeli real estate developer Oshira, and Uni-Scope, which makes optical systems for armored vehicles.
Skydio
A drone manufacturer headquartered in San Mateo, California, that has sentmore than 100 short-range reconnaissance drones to the Israeli military, “with more to come.” These autonomous drones are used to navigate and produce 3D scans of buildings in “complex urban environments.”
SMARTSHOOTER
An Israeli company that developed the SMASH 2000L (3000) system, marketed as a ‘smart sight’ for tracking moving targets and used by the Israeli military in its 2023 attacks on Gaza. For example, in November, the Maglan special forces unit of the Israeli military used the system to target homes and infrastructure near a school in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza.
ThyssenKrupp
A German engineering company that built the Israeli Navy’s four Sa’ar 6 warships, which were used for the first time on Oct. 16 against targets in Gaza.
Toyota
A Japanese auto maker that manufactures the pickup trucks used by the Israeli military as the basis for the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle (see MDT Armor above).
XTEND
A privately held Israeli company that manufactures drones, including the Wolverine combat drone that requires “no training.” Operated via virtual reality goggles and a one-handed joystick, the Wolverine is being used by the Israeli military in Gaza to search and gather intelligence on buildings and infrastructure. Equipped with a robotic arm, the drones can also be used for “tactical operations.”
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Every now and then an image perfectly captures the moment, in all its light or darkness.I was struck by the creche that was set up in Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church after that city’s Christians canceled this year’s Christmas celebrations. You’ve probably seen it: it shows the Nativity scene, as all such displays do, but the newborn infant Jesus is lying in the ruins of a concrete building.
“God is under the rubble in Gaza,” says the pastor who created the creche, Rev. Munther Isaac. “This is where we find God right now.”
I’m not a Christian, if Christianity means embracing the theology of a threefold God and the idea of Jesus as the sole source of personal salvation. But I love the teachings of Jesus as they’ve been conveyed. And I’ve been deeply moved by the meaning of the Christmas story, even if I can’t accept it literally. It says that God, the most powerful entity that ever was or ever could be, chose to enter this world in the most helpless form we humans can imagine: a newborn infant. And not just any infant, either. A Jewish infant. A homeless infant. A refugee infant.
A Palestinian infant.
Rev. Isaac, who last name once meant “he who laughs”, has touched the world. That’s not due to any artistic skill. On the contrary. Not to be unkind, but the creche is not an aesthetic triumph. His execution and framework are awkward. But his heart is pure, and it shows.
Look at it again.
The animals in the manger are at the bottom of the ruins and the Three Wise Men are in the upper right. But what’s most striking is the sight of Joseph and Mary in the upper left corner, separated from their child by the rubble and unable to reach him. I imagine them not knowing if he’s dead or alive. Perhaps they wrote his name on one leg to identify him if the worst happens, like so many other Palestinian parents.
The childlike simplicity of the creche stays with me: the toy figures, the candles, and the doll itself, so unlike any real child — but so like a toy a real child might have.
According to the story, Jesus was born in a manger because the Romans forced everyone to return to the city of their birth to be counted in the census. Historians say that’s not true; people (only men, actually) were counted where they lived. But it’s true that the occupiers demanded that they be carefully counted.
That particular colonial practice hasn’t changed. As Israeli architect and author Eyal Weizman writes in his book, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation:
An important aspect of Israel’s overall domination … is manifested in its control of the population registration. Every Palestinian birth in Gaza, death in the West Bank, marriage in Jerusalem, or change of address in Galilee must be entered into Israel’s Interior Ministry database in order to exist. No one can travel, work, open a bank account, or even emigrate without it.
We know how the Christmas story ends. This child becomes a leader, a prophet, the epitome of marginalized humanity: despised, hunted, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Nothing in this story –nothing – teaches us to side with the oppressor against the oppressed.
Joe Biden is Catholic. So was one of my grandmothers. (The other was Jewish.) Like many a Catholic grandmother, mine terrified me with the prospect of damnation at a very young age. But people carry their own kind of hellfire. The Catholic faith and litany is also rich with beauty and profundity. My life has been enriched by its art, music, and literature. A Catholic monsignor helped me recover from drugs and alcohol. I know the dark side of the Church’s history, but I know its other side, too.
I can’t help but wonder how the president reconciles his faith with his support for today’s occupiers. Pope Francis, the Holy Father, said of the conflict: “we’ve gone beyond war. This is terrorism.” He used the word “terrorism” again after Israeli snipers shot and killed two women sheltering in a Gaza church – “in cold blood” and “without warning,” according to Church officials there.
I believe the president is a sincere Catholic. That’s why I don’t understand how he can reconcile his actions with his faith. I don’t know why he isn’t moved by the image of the infant in the rubble, even after 8,000 children – perhaps many more – have died. I don’t know why he sides against the homeless, the refugees, the laboriously counted and still unseen people suffering under occupation.
I’m grateful to Rev. Isaac, “he who smiles,” for creating this work. I hope he and his neighbors can smile again someday soon. I’m haunted by his portrayal of two parents unable to reach their child under the ruins. Of the mother — the divine mother — who for Christian and Muslims is a uniquely sacred figure for all of humanity. Of the mother, afraid. Of the mother who is every mother living under oppression.
By most Christian accounts, Mary was a teenaged girl – probably no older than 14 – when an angel appeared and revealed her destiny. That’s a heavy weight to place on a young girl’s shoulders. But it’s no heavier than the weight a mother or father carries when they hold their dead child in their arms.
As for the president, perhaps at some point he learned the Litany of Loreto, one of the prayers of praise for the mother, Mary. It includes these words:
Mother of hope.
Mirror of justice.
Mystical rose.
Gate of heaven.
Morning star.
Solace of migrants.
Comfort of the afflicted.
Queen of Martyrs.
Queen of peace.
And it concludes:
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world
— R. Eskow, Christmas, 2023
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Dec. 2, 2023 – Australia – 36 year old Pediatric nurse Amy Barker was 36 weeks pregnant when she died suddenly with her unborn child. The family has no answers.
Nov. 21, 2023 – Brazil – 38 year old news anchor Elaine da Silva was 23 weeks pregnant and was sent to hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Monday Nov. 20 with pneumonia She died next day with her unborn child.
Nov. 19, 2023 – Dr.Kristina Navarro-Krupka, athletic director for UW-Platteville died suddenly with her unborn baby on Nov. 19, 2023.
Nov. 8, 2023 – UK – 33 year old Jayne Cox, a COVID-19 Vaccinated mom of 3 died suddenly Nov. 8, 2023 during C-section before she could hold her newborn baby in her arms.
Oct. 31, 2023 – India – 35 year old Dr. Priya was a doctor and an actress in the Malayalam film industry. She suffered a fatal heart attack while pregnant. The baby was saved.
Oct. 1, 2023 – UK – 29 year old Hannah Williams was diagnosed with Stage 3 Lung Cancer during pregnancy, delivered her baby and died 10 days after delivery and 4 months after diagnosis.
Sep. 27, 2023 – Denver, CO – Margaret Marian Rossman died on Sep. 27, 2023 from complications of childbirth.
Sep. 14, 2023 – Palermo, Italy – 28 year old Giorgia Migliarba was 6 months pregnant when she presented to hospital in cardiac arrest and died suddenly with her baby.
Aug. 15, 2023 – Scottsburg, IN – 34 year old Devonnia Tscheulin, a Paramedic and Deputy Chief for Scott County EMS died suddenly from “complications during delivery” of her third child.
Aug. 14, 2023 – New York, UK – 27 year old Eladia Garcia died from 2 heart attacks due to complications of giving birth to a stillborn baby on Aug. 14, 2023.
Aug. 6, 2023 – Franca, Brazil – 30s year old teacher and lawyer Vanessa Mendes Takarada had a stroke on Aug. 6, 2023 and she died along with her unborn twins on Aug. 30, 2023.
July 22, 2023 – Perth, Australia – 24 year old Krystal Pitt collapsed while lining up at a local post office just 10 days after giving birth to her 2nd child, and died in hospital a few days later.
July 21, 2023 – Liverpool, UK – Kelsey Brown died suddenly while pregnant with her second child. She had just moved to Spain with her family.
July 21, 2023 – Brazil – 26 year old Renata Pereira was 3 months pregnant when she had cardiac arrest & died suddenly.
July 14, 2023 – Lubbock, TX – 19 year old Ariana Nicole Sanchez gave birth to a baby girl who weighed 10 pounds 6 ounces and died unexpectedly during delivery.
June 10, 2023 – South Carolina – Justine Kostenbauder delivered a baby girl but died unexpectedly from complications during delivery.
June 2, 2023 – Lafayette, IN – 26 year old Sha’Asia Johnson had a heart attack 2 hours after delivery and died unexpectedly.
May 15, 2023 – Perth, Australia – 36 year old Monika Mann died 7 days after giving birth to twins. She arrived at ER “unresponsive” and was declared dead.
May 11, 2023 – New Zealand – 32 year old Sue Maroroa Jones, International NZ Chess Champion, died suddenly after giving birth to her 2nd child, on May 11, 2023, due to “post natal complications”.
May 2, 2023 – 32 yo Olympic sprinter Tori Bowie died on May 2, 2023 She was found dead alone in bed after wellness check Autopsy: she was 8mo pregnant & in labor?
My Take..
COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated pregnant women are dying suddenly, often of unknown causes. This shouldn’t be happening in 2023.
But they are really coming for pregnant women in 2024.
Here are some examples:
Nov. 9, 2023 – AJOG (American Journal of Obstetrics & Gyn) recommends 6 COVID-19 shots for pregnant women
On Nov 9, 2023, AJOG published: “Pregnancy should be a condition eligible for additional doses of COVID-19 messenger RNA vaccines”
“we believe that additional booster doses should be offered to pregnant individuals who received a bivalent COVID-19 booster before becoming pregnant.”
for most people, there were the first two doses (primary series), the booster (late 2021), the 2nd booster (Summer 2022), the bivalent (Fall 2022), so depending if you took the 2nd booster or waited for the bivalent, they are recommending a 5th or 6th COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women.
“no evidence of harm from third or additional doses of COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines in females in the demographic of childbearing potential exists”
“it is unlikely that additional appropriately spaced doses pose threats to maternal or infant health”
Oct. 17, 2023 – NBC – COVID, flu, RSV Vaccines urged during pregnancy but few want them, CDC finds
“For the first time, four vaccines are recommended during pregnancy, including new RSV shots. Doctors say they are prepared to take on vaccine disinformation.”
“this is the first year that four vaccines are being recommended during pregnancy. Yet, there are already signs that fewer pregnant women are getting vaccinated”
“We didn’t get this kind of pushback on this scale before the pandemic.”
“new CDC guidance means pregnant women will be encouraged to get four vaccines to protect against the flu, Covid and pertussis (also called whooping cough), as well as respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. “
“none of these vaccines have ever been shown to have any negative impact on the fetus or newborn.”
Dec. 12, 2023 – Investigation Shows Pfizer Likely Deceived Pregnant Women to Push RSV Vaccine
“Once again, Pfizer has been found putting pregnant women and preborn children at risk, this time with trials for an RSV vaccine.”
according to an investigation recently published by the British Medical Journal(BMJ), Pfizer failed to alert pregnant women participating in its own RSV vaccine trials about trials for a similar vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that ceased immediately after a potential risk of preterm birth and neonatal deathbecame evident.
“Researchers must renew the informed consent of each participant…if new information becomes available”
“There is no indication that Pfizer followed this guideline when new information became available from GSK’s halted trials”
“no women were notified of the possible dangers to their preborn children.”
“In April 2022, just two months after GSK halted trials, Pfizer published its Phase 2 trial results which showed a “numerical imbalance of preterm births” in its own vaccine.
Pfizer showed no interest in warning pregnant women about this possible danger, even when it decided to study preterm birth as an “adverse event of special interest” in Phase 3.” According to the BMJ report, Pfizer did not disclose that decision either in Phase 3 trial consent forms.
“Women not only remained uninformed about GSK’s new information, they were also not informed that preterm birth was being studied as an adverse event.”
“BMJ reached out to authorities in 18 countries with trial sites and over 80 trial investigators – none were able to confirm women had been told of the findings.
In fact, according to BMJ’s report, “some confirmed that Pfizer continued to enroll and vaccinate women for months after the news of the potential risk of preterm birth in GSK’s vaccine trial was made public.”
Despite GSK halting trials due to the risk of preterm birth – the cause of which GSK was never able to fully determine – and despite Pfizer’s own findings on preterm birth that required further analysis from a committee with the FDA, a year later, the Food and Drug Administration still approved the (RSV) vaccine in August 2023.
4 of the 14 FDA members voted that the data presented by Pfizer were not adequate to support safety after a detailed discussion on the preterm birth.”
“In its approval, the FDA restricted use of the vaccine to a window of 32 to 36 weeks of pregnancy. According to the Pfizer website, this restriction is to prevent the risk of preterm birth.“
Oct. 23, 2023 – Medscape – What Will It Take for More Pregnant Women to Get the Updated COVID-19 Vaccine?
Camille Clare, MD, MPH, calls the moment a pregnant patient decides to get the COVID-19 vaccine “a win.”
“Despite a majority of pregnant women reportedly receiving the initial two-dose series of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, only 27.3% have received the booster, according to the CDC.”
“Less than half of pregnant women reported receiving the flu vaccine, the report found.“
“misinformation surrounding the safety of the vaccine has contributed to its uncertainty or refusal.”
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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More than 1,000 Palestinian elders have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets during the 10-week Gaza onslaught, with dozens of men and women over age 60 “executed” by Israel Defense Forces troops, a prominent human rights group said Friday.
“Israel has turned all people in the [Gaza] Strip into targets since the October 7 start of its ongoing genocide against Palestinians there,” Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based nonprofit, asserted in a statement.
Euro-Med Monitor said that 1,049 elderly men and women have been killed by Israeli forces since they began bombing the densely populated enclave in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that left more than 1,100 people dead.
The group said the majority of elderly Gazan victims were crushed to death under the debris of their homes or the shelter where they sought safety amid Israel’s near-relentless bombardment. Others were killed while venturing out in search of basic necessities.
“Alarmingly, however, dozens were targeted in killings and field executions,” the NGO alleged. “These incidents included soldiers shooting elderly people immediately after ordering them to evacuate their homes, and in some cases, executing them just moments after their release from hours or days of arbitrary detention.”
.@EuroMedHR: "1,049 elderly men and women have been killed during the 76-day genocide—about 1% of the estimated 107,000 elderly people who live in the Gaza Strip, and 3.9% of all Palestinian deaths during the aggression" https://t.co/iQwOtA0ZOS
The elderly Dr. Akram Abu Hasira and his wife were shot and left to bleed to death by Israeli forces on… December 21, after being forcibly evacuated from their home on Yarmouk Street in Gaza City. The soldiers then set fire to their home. Their son, Dr. Mahmoud Abu Hasira, reported that after the Israeli forces withdrew from the area, their family managed to bury the couple’s bodies….
[Euro-Med Monitor] also highlighted the execution of Dr. Muhammad Eid Shabir, 77, former president of the Islamic University in Gaza, along with his wife, Rihab Muhammad Shabir, 74, on November 11… His daughter confirmed to Euro-Med Monitor that Israeli planes bombed her aunt’s house on Abu Hasira Street in Gaza, killing five civilians, while 15 people survived the attack. The majority of victims were women and children…
“They came out alive, fleeing into the street, where my mother sent a distress message, and I heard my father’s voice calling for one of his grandchildren,” the daughter told Euro-Med Monitor… “After the start of the truce on November 25, my parents were found dead in the street on the opposite road to Shifa after they had been shot by an army sniper.”
Other Gaza elders reportedly killed by Israeli forces but not highlighted in Euro-Med Monitor’s statement include Nahida Khalil Anton, a 70-year-old Palestinian Christian woman who, along with her 50-year-old daughter Samar Kamal Anton, left the sanctuary of the Holy Family Parish in Gaza City to use a bathroom in another building. Both women were shot by an Israeli sniper or snipers; one while trying to carry the other to safety.
Israel denies killing the women. Pope Francis reacted angrily to the killings, accusing Israel of “terrorism.”
This is Nahida Khalil Anton sitting by her daughter Samar Kamal Anton. Nahida and Samar were shot and killed by an IDF sniper while walking over to the Sisters' Convent to use the restroom. They had been seeking refuge in the Holy Family Parish in Gaza. https://t.co/W8mYTY1Rqbpic.twitter.com/g2vLuCcXts
Elderly Gazans also face a higher risk of starvation and disease, as Israel has cut off the flow of food, medicine, and hygiene staples.
“Tens of thousands of elderly people are at serious risk of death,” warned Euro-Med Monitor, given that nearly 70% of them “suffer from chronic diseases, and the majority of them have not received any medical care, as most of the hospitals are out of service.”
The group also noted that “distinct suffering experienced by elderly people residing in displacement camps, where there are no services or care options available to them that are appropriate for their age, health issues, inability to withstand cold weather, or frequent need to use the restroom. Notably, 700–1,000 people must use a single bathroom in these camps.”
“Israel is waging a campaign of widespread punishment and killing, and oppressing Palestinian society’s most vulnerable groups in a way that is seldom seen in the modern history of wars or armed conflicts,” the statement concludes. “Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza fully unveils its blatant disregard for international humanitarian law and is a serious transgression of the principles of war.”
Euro-Med Monitor’s analysis came as the Palestinian death toll from 78 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks topped 20,000, with around 70% of those killed women and children. More than 50,000 others have been injured. Around 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced; most of the strip’s homes have been damaged or destroyed.
“The need for a permanent cease-fire has become urgent, and… in order to stop the ongoing genocide war, an immediate international investigation must be launched into Israel’s horrific crimes,” the group said. “Any countries that remain silent are actively encouraging Israeli genocide.”
[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]
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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
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The following is a combined two-part English summary of an Al Mayadeen Arabic broadcast.
The first carries little information, but accurately describes the sentiment of the people of Gaza in the face of genocide, which has only swelled the ranks of resistance volunteers. It remains to be seen which side will outlast the other, but the outcome is by no means certain. Israel is ill-prepared to tolerate extended mobilization.
The second is the description of the negotiations.
Member of the General Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Comrade Maher Mezher, in an interview on Al Mayadeen TV (1/2):
Our people remain steadfast and unswerving, and will not deviate from continuing to resist the occupation.
The enemy aims with its crimes to pressure the resistance forces to succumb to the zionist dictates and conditions that the War Council is trying to impose to stop the aggression.
Our people will not bow, despite the thousands of martyrs, tens of thousands of wounded, and the destruction that affects homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals.
Salute to the fighting resisters who confront the enemy in all battlefields from Jabalia to Gaza to Khan Younis.
Our people carry the message of steadfastness and perseverance until the occupation ends.
The criminal leadership of the enemy and its War Council try to continue the killing operations it practices against our people, to protect its neck from prosecution.
The enemy believes that the operations of killing, genocide, and the policy of starvation could possibly undermine the resolve of our people.
Member of the General Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Comrade Maher Mezher, in an interview on Al Mayadeen TV (2/2):
There is a difference between the Qatari proposal and the Egyptian proposal, which aims for a ceasefire. The Qatari proposal was presented by the head of the Mossad, which was presented to the leadership of the Hamas movement, which stressed the need to remove the barriers and return the population to the cities of the north.
The Hamas movement presented a clear position emphasizing that negotiations will not take place until the aggression against our people stops and aid enters the Gaza Strip, after which the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip will be negotiated.
This proposal was rejected by the enemy, and then a different Egyptian proposal was presented based on several stages that begin with the release of civilian prisoners in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners.
This will be followed by a complete ceasefire in all the cities of the Gaza Strip, the redeployment of the “Israeli” forces penetrating into the Gaza Strip, and allowing the freedom of movement of citizens from the south to the north, including the movement of trucks and cars.
The proposal is also based on stopping all aerial activities of occupation aircraft, including drones, and intensifying the introduction of humanitarian aid.
The next stage includes the release of all female soldiers detained by the resistance in Gaza, in exchange for the release of an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners in the occupation prisons, and the handover of all bodies held by the resistance and the occupation since October 7, provided that this stage extends for 7 days.
The third stage of the Egyptian proposal: during which negotiations will take place for a month, regarding the resistance’s release of all “Israeli” prisoners in exchange for the occupation’s release of an agreed-upon number of prisoners in the occupation’s prisons.
The determinants of implementing the proposal relate to the fact that shooting will be suspended for 48 hours before starting to implement the proposal and agreeing on the names that will be released from the first and second stages, so that the transition to a stage will not take place until after the completion of the previous stage.
Once the proposal is agreed upon, implementation of the agreement will begin, with all parties adhering to the time limit for negotiation.
The proposal includes Egypt, the United States, and Qatar coordinating the formation of a factional or political “technocratic” unity government in Gaza and the West Bank, and announcing a comprehensive ceasefire, to be implemented with Egyptian, Qatari, and American guarantees and follow-up.
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Amid mounting war crime claims against Israeli troops, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights revealed Wednesday that it “has received disturbing information alleging that Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members” in the Gaza Strip.
Citing witness accounts shared by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and journalists, OHCHR said that while raiding a Gaza City building where multiple related families were sheltering on Tuesday night, “the IDF allegedly separated the men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men, mostly aged in their late 20s and early 30s, in front of their family members.”
“The IDF then allegedly ordered the women and children into a room, and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child,” added the office, which has confirmed the killings at Al Awda building—also known as the Annan building—but not the other details.
OHCHR noted that reporting on the killings in Gaza City’s Al Remal neighborhood “raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime” and “comes in the wake of earlier allegations concerning the deliberate targeting and killing of civilians at the hands of Israeli forces.”
“The Israeli authorities must immediately institute an independent, thorough, and effective investigation into these allegations, and if found to be substantiated, those responsible must be brought to justice and measures implemented to prevent any such serious violations from recurring,” the U.N. office declared.
Euro-Med Monitor said in a statement Wednesday that Israeli soldiers killed 13 people in the building and “kidnapped an elderly man, whose fate is still unknown,” according to “horrific testimonies” obtained by the Geneva-based group.
“My sister informed me that an Israeli force raided the house and executed the young men,” a relative of the victims told the monitor. “Thirteen persons were shot dead and several more were critically injured. The Israeli soldiers later threw shells at the women, who were being held in one of the rooms.”
“My mother, my sister, and my brother’s wife were injured along with several others,” the relative added. “If they are not saved right away, they might die at any time.”
The monitor noted that 27 women and children “trapped inside the house—many of whom with severe injuries or amputations—appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross to coordinate their evacuation and save their lives.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, responded to the allegations by demanding a United Nations investigation.
“While the Biden administration blocks all attempts to end the genocide in Gaza, real people are being slaughtered daily in ways that echo the darkest periods of human history,” said CAIR national communications director Ibrahim Hooper. “Our nation must call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end the killing, ethnic cleansing, and starvation of an entire people—the very definition of genocide.”
Israel’s “genocidal” war on Gaza—launched in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7 that killed over 1,100 people—has left more than 20,000 Palestinians dead, including 8,000 children, displaced the vast majority of the besieged strip’s 2.3 million residents, and devastated civilian infrastructure.
Separately on Wednesday, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) sent the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor a list of 40 IDF officers who had command responsibility over units involved in the assault and blockade of Gaza through mid-November.
While not comprehensive, DAWN said, “the list of identified Israeli officials serves as a repository of the prime Israeli suspects the ICC prosecutor (or any war crimes prosecutor) should consider in its ongoing investigation into violations of the Rome Statute in this war.”
Meanwhile, despite growing global calls for a cease-fire, the United States—which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and is now considering a $14.3 billion package for the war—delayed a U.N. Security Council vote on a Gaza resolution for the third time this week.
[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]
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This post has been updated with comment from CAIR.
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
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Keeping world maritime trade routes open is vital for the world economic balance.
The reason for the start of world wars was the struggle between continental powers and naval powers for control of the seas. When this struggle reaches the stage of armed conflict, the maritime transportation system begins to fail. In this context, in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, UK, then the USA until today, ensured their own hegemony and control of trade by directly and indirectly controlling maritime transportation on eight nodes and the routes connecting them. These nodes were Hormuz, Malacca, Bab El Mandeb, Gibraltar, Danish and Turkish Straits, and the Panama and Suez Canals. Germany in the First World War; The challenge of this order by both Germany and Japan in the Second World War triggered the war process. In both cases, the main factor that determined the inevitability of war was the decision of the hegemon at sea to intervene against the powers that wanted to go to sea. In both centuries, the Anglo-Saxon will did not want to share the seas with another power and wars became inevitable.
Node Points and Marine Transportation
In 2023, 12 billion tons of cargo carried over oceans and seas for world trade, or 86% of world trade, passed through these eight vital nodes. One of these straits and channels may be affected by war, civil war, natural disaster, accident, etc. Its closure for various reasons may disrupt global balances, especially energy markets. The Suez Canal was the longest closed of these nodes throughout history. It remained closed from the beginning of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, known as the 6-Day War, until 1975.
USA Is Having Difficulty in Controlling Sea Transportation Routes
In this century, China and Russia are the dominant naval powers, challenging the Anglo-Saxon maritime will. Both their maritime power and their nuclear navy enable them to meet this challenge. On the other hand, the quantity and quality problems of the US and UK navies and the record low shipbuilding capability of both countries play an important role in this challenge.
However, at least as important as these factors is the chain of mistakes made by the USA in the fields of global leadership and ocean gendarmerie after the Cold War. They quickly became ruthless on the end of history thesis and the assumption that American power would continue forever.
They disintegrated Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. They caused the trouble of illegal immigration and refugee problems in Europe, especially in Turkey.
They weakened these countries by shaping the government and opposition, especially in countries close to the nodes and on the edge (such as Turkey), through NATO expansion, Color Revolutions, and FETO-type structures. They recklessly announced that the borders of 22 states would be changed with the Greater Middle East and North Africa Project (GMNA).
Today, the USA is reaping storms in the seas and oceans after the destructive winds it sowed after 1990. Also today, the United States faces serious challenges in the areas where it is strongest, and its job is difficult. Because the conditions are against him in every field. Most importantly, developments in land armament and unmanned aerial vehicles have developed to a degree that will affect activities at sea. The gunboat diplomacy of the 19th and 20th centuries is no longer as effective against coastal states as it was 100 years ago. Asymmetrical armament and unorthodox war tactics can affect the freedom of action of a powerful naval force. For example, on July 14, 2006, during Israel’s intervention in Lebanon, the SAAR 5 class Israeli INS Hanit corvette was hit by Chinese-made CS 802 Silkworm missiles against a Hezbollah ship fired from the shore, while it was 10 miles off the coast of Lebanon. The world’s most advanced corvette nearly sank in great disrepute to Israel. As another example, let’s remember the sinking of the Moscow Cruiser, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, on April 13, 2022. Who would have thought that the Russians’ most powerful warship would be sunk by two Neptune missiles fired from land? Events at sea are now greatly affected by weapons on land.
Disturbed Balances
Russia’s intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and Israel’s Gaza operation on October 7, 2023 were the dates when the world maritime trade balances were disrupted.
Russia intervened in Ukraine due to the ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians of Russian origin living in the Donbas Region of Ukraine and the expansion of NATO to its borders. First Azov and then the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea coast became Russian military targets, and maritime trade there was cut off. Maritime trade, which had already decreased due to the Ukrainian mine threat in the region, came to a halt after July 17, 2023, when Russia and Ukraine declared maritime merchant ships as legitimate targets. Grain trade could continue only with a limited number of merchant ships.
On the other hand, Russia did not experience any interruption in its crude oil trade despite the heavy embargo and sanctions imposed on it. Especially with the Greek Ghost Fleets, Russian oil continued to reach world markets.
Imbalance in the Red Sea
The Israel-Palestine Conflict, which started on October 7, 2023, broke a new fault line in maritime trade routes a month later. The Iranian-controlled Houthis in Yemen, which has been experiencing a civil war since 2015, targeted ships carrying goods to Israeli ports in the Bab El Mandeb Strait, triggering the opening of a new front. Following these developments, many companies, including Danish Maersk, British oil giant BP and Chinese company OOCL, changed their routes to the Cape of Good Hope. This situation causes delays of 10-17 days in flights.
In an environment where Israel uses disproportionate force and carries out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, Yemen has opened a new front in an area that is the most sensitive in the world with its asymmetric strategy. After the Western Black Sea, the Red Sea routes have now become risky areas for maritime merchant fleets. On December 18, 2023, the Bahrain-based American Naval Task Force CTF 153 launched the multinational “Prosperity Guardian” operation to prevent Yemeni attacks on Israeli-focused ships in the Bab El Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea.
US Secretary of Defense Austin spoke of the ‘rules-based order’ when announcing the CTF coalition. But how will he explain the killing of nearly 20,000 people in just over two months? The operation was named ‘Prosperity Guardian’. Whose welfare? While women and children are being killed in Gaza with a brutality unseen even in the Middle Ages, giving this name to the operation reminds us of NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg’s statement, “We are the defenders of 1 billion people” at the last NATO summit in Lithuania in July 2023. Even if the remaining 7 billion is not for them, it is okay.
Wounded US Leadership
The operation was initially supported by the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Seychelles, Bahrain, Canada and Italy, under the leadership of the United States. However, later France, Italy and Spain stated that they would not come under US operational control. They declared that they would participate if there was an operation within NATO or the EU. (I evaluate that it will not be possible for Turkiye to approve such an operation when NATO proposes it.)
On the other hand, although CTF 153 was established by the USA and Egypt on April 17, 2022, under the Combined Naval Force (CMF), Egypt does not participate in the operation. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have the largest navies in the region, are also not participating. CMF has been very effective in combating Somalia-based piracy in the past. Türkiye also provided ships to this force in the past.
But this time the situation is very different. Now, the problem is geopolitics. There are Israeli, American, British, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, South Korean, Spanish warships and Iranian intelligence ships in the region. However, only the USA and the UK are in a position to allocate ships to CTF 153. In this context, the Australian Government’s announcement last week that it will not allocate warships to CTF 153 and the fact that Chinese warships did not respond to the call for help from merchant ships carrying cargo to Israel reveal how weak, complex and sensitive the situation in the USA is.
Asymmetric Capacity of the Houthis
While the Houthis in Yemen have a large number of cheaply priced drones, ballistic missiles and anti-ship guided missiles, the western navies have very expensive and limited ammunition. While this ammunition should be kept ready for the major conflict with Russia and China, it does not make sense to spend it on Israel. An alternative could be to pass merchant ships in the form of convoys in the Red Sea. However, these ships will have to comply with the slowest ship and increase the probability of being hit. (See this) Meanwhile, Yemen has small boats capable of carrying high-speed explosives. These boats have not been used yet. However, if the decision is made, there is a high probability that they will attack and damage merchant ships, especially in night conditions.
Possibility of Expansion of the Crisis
As long as the Gaza massacre continues, the Houthis’ attacks on maritime trade routes will continue.
On land, that is, on the coast of Yemen under Houthi control. These attacks will not stop without intervention by the USA. This would be tantamount to suicide for the USA.
An air or land attack on Yemen would suddenly escalate the Israeli-Palestinian war into the Iran-US crisis. In a conjuncture where major maritime trade companies have already given up on Suez and Bab El Mandeb, the world economy cannot handle such a crisis that will cause the Strait of Hormuz to be closed. In this context, American Rear Admiral James Stavridis, who was NATO’s Allied Commander in Europe in the past, suggested in his latest article that CTF 153 should hit Iran-backed arsenals in Yemen, which would be a move that Israel most desires. (See this) Let us add that this is a desirable situation not only for Israel, but also for American neocons who want a war with Iran. However, getting stuck in such a new quagmire will undoubtedly be a nightmare for the USA, which has a low number of ships, and will create a golden opportunity for China and Russia.
Israel Will Continue to Use the USA
The United States is not willing to stop Israel in the Gaza strip. The UN has no function anyway. It will be very difficult for the Red Sea route to return to normal in an environment where Israel decides to expand the operation, let alone stop it. The Pandora’s Box opened by Israel does not only kill innocent Gazans, it indirectly upsets the welfare and stability of the whole world. Unless Israel is stopped by the USA and the flow of weapons is stopped to Israel, the USA’s global leadership will be greatly damaged and its collapse will accelerate. Israel, on the other hand, will continue to use the power of the USA for its own geopolitical goals before it collapses.
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Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Writer, Geopolitical Expert, Theorist and creator of the Turkish Bluehomeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. He served as the Chief of Strategy Department and then the head of Plans and Policy Division in Turkish Naval Forces Headquarters. As his combat duties, he has served as the commander of Amphibious Ships Group and Mine Fleet between 2007 and 2009. He retired in 2012. He established Hamit Naci Blue Homeland Foundation in 2021. He has published numerous books on geopolitics, maritime strategy, maritime history and maritime culture. He is also a honorary member of ATASAM.
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The failure of the United States to convince the Australian government to send one vessel to aid coalition efforts to deter Houthi disruption of international shipping in the Red Sea was a veritable storm whipped up in a teacup. The entire exercise, dressed as an international mission titled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is intended as a response to the growing tensions of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
Washington has made no secret of the fact that it wants to keep Iran away from Israel’s predations by deterring any provocative moves from Teheran’s proxies. But Israel’s murderous war in the Gaza Strip is not exactly selling well, and a special coalition is being seen as something of a distracting trick. But even within this assembly of states, the messages are far from uniform.
France’s Defence Minister, for instance, has promised that its ships would remain under French command, supplementing an already pre-existing troop presence. Italy’s Defence Ministry, in sending the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea, has its eye on protecting the interests of Italian shipowners, clarifying that the deployment would not take place as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Likewise Spain, which has noted that EU-coordinated and NATO-led missions took priority over any unilateral Red Sea operation.
To that end, the Australian government has been unusually equivocal. In recent months, the tally of obedience to wishes from Washington has grown. But on the issue of sending this one vessel, the matter was far from certain. Eventually, the decision was made to keep the focus closer to home and the Indo-Pacific; no vessel would be sent to yet another coalition effort in the Middle East led by the United States.
The sentiment, as reported in The Guardian Australia, was that Australia would reduce its naval presence in the Middle East “to enable more resources to be deployed in our region.” In doing so, Canberra was merely reiterating the position of the previous Coalition administration.
In October 2020, the Morrison government announced an end to the three-decades long deployment of the Royal Australian Navy in the Middle East. Then Defence Minister Linda Reynoldsrevealed that Australia would no longer be sending a RAN ship to the Middle East on an annual basis, and would withdraw from the US-led naval coalition responsible for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz by 2020’s end.
It was good ground for Australia’s current Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to build on. In his words,
“We’ve actually consulted our Australian Defence Force heads about these matters and with our American friends. That’s why you’ve seen no criticism from the US administration”.
When pressed for further clarification about the allegedly inadequate state of Australia’s naval capabilities, the PM simply affirmed the already guaranteed (and dangerous) commitment of Canberra to “the Indo-Pacific, a fairly large region that we look after” with “our American friends.”
The warmongers were particularly irate at the modest refusal. Where there is war, they see no reason for Australia not to participate. And if it concerns the United States, it follows, by default, that it should concern Australian military personnel and the exercise of some fictitious muscle. This slavish caste of mind has dominated foreign policy thinking in Canberra for decades and asserted itself in an almost grotesque form with the surrender of sovereignty to the US military industrial complex under the AUKUS agreement.
The Coalition opposition, displeased with Albanese’s decision, had no truck for diplomacy. Lurking behind their reasoning were script notes prepared for them by the US-Israeli concern that Iran, and its Houthi allies, be kept in their box. “Is Mr Albanese seriously claiming that Australia can assert diplomatic influence over the Houthi rebels?” asked the Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie and the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor.
In the Murdoch press, two-bit, eye-glazing commentary on Australia neglecting its duties to the US war machine in distant seas could be found in frothy fury. Here is Greg Sheridan, more cumbersome than ever, in The Australian:
“We are saying to the Americans and the Brits – under AUKUS we expect you to send your most powerful military assets, nuclear submarines, to Australia to provide for our security, but we are so small, so lacking in capability and so scared of our own shadow, that under no circumstances can we spare a single ship of any kind to help you protect commercial shipping routes – from which we benefit directly – in the Red Sea.”
The Royal Australian Navy, Sheridan splutters, is simply not up to the task. One of its eight ANZAC frigates is almost never in the water. The RAN is short of crews and short of “specialist anti-drone capabilities.” The implication here is evident: the government must, in the manner of Viv Nicholson’s declaration on her husband winning the football pools in 1961, “spend, spend, spend.”
Paul Kelly, another Murdoch emissary also of the same paper, was baffled about the “character” of the Labor government when it came to committing itself to the Middle East. The Albanese government should have been more bloodthirsty in its backing of Israel’s war against Hamas. It dared back, along with 152 other UN member states, “an Arab nation resolution calling for ‘an immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ – a resolution, given its wording, that was manifestly pro-Palestinian.”
What struck Kelly as odd, suggesting the glaring limits of his understanding of foreign relations, was that Australia did not commit to the coalition to protect shipping through the Red Sea because it does not have the naval capability to do so. But armchair pundits always secretly crave blood, especially when shed by others. And to have members of the RAN butchered on inadequate platforms was no excuse not to send them to a conflict.
Aspects of Sheridan’s remarks are correct: Australian inadequacy, the fear of its own shadow. The conclusions drawn by Sheridan are, however, waffling in their nonsense. It is precisely such a fear that has led the naval and military establishment fall for the notion that Canberra needs nuclear-propelled boats to combat the spectre of a Yellow-Red Satan to the north. With a good degree of imbecility, an enemy has been needlessly created.
The result is that Australian insecurity has only been boosted. Hence more military contracts that entwine, even further, the Australian military with the US Armed Forces. Or more agreements to share military technology that give Washington a free hand in controlling the way it is shared. In history, Albanese’s refusal to commit the RAN to the Red Sea will be seen as a sound one. His great sin will be the uncritical capitulation of his country to US interests in the Indo-Pacific.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
Featured image: HMAS Perth, Anzac class (Licensed under the Public Domain)
It is believed that December 25 became the date for Christ’s birth “to coincide with existing pagan festivals honouring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra (the Persian god of light). That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.”
Today, we are “fraternizing” and acting in solidarity Worldwide with the People of Palestine against the hegemonic agenda of the U.S. and it allies which are waging an all-out war against humanity.
Although martial law and a decree on general mobilisation have been in force in Ukraine since February 2022, and men between the ages of 18 and 60 are now banned from leaving the country, the Ukrainian military said they did not know how to mobilise an additional 500,000 soldiers, as volunteers had “exhausted.”
This year, Bethlehem is sombre and quiet. There is no Christmas tree and there are no holiday lights or tourists to see them. Instead, the city of Jesus’s birth – which is in the middle of a war zone – is marking Christmas with a powerful and poignant message: solidarity with Palestine.
The book explains that the origin of the deep state is the Ashkenazi Jewish financial power elites formed in England centuries ago and expanded into a global network, a Huge Financial Empire in the world managed by the American financial network such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brother and other institutions.
The image of the pristine table arrangement in Tel Aviv graphically represents a western settler-colonial reality. The images of the frenetic scramble for food on top of humanitarian aid trucks by starving Palestinians only increased the grotesqueness of this image below and its associations in my mind.
One could argue that the horrors of what is happening in 2023 to indigenous Palestinians are once again faced with Zionist Israel’s unrelenting brutal aggression, and those Vichy elements that exist within governments throughout the world who also support the Zionist ideology within Israel and are willing to accept or contribute, in various different ways, to the massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
The urgency of getting food, water and fuel to more than a million displaced Palestinians has not deterred Washington from delaying a UN resolution repeatedly, insisting on the removal of calls for a ceasefire, watering down the demand that Israel open air, land and sea routes for humanitarian assistance and blocking a proposal for the UN rather than the Israeli military to approve deliveries.
As dozens of conflicts have ruthlessly robbed tens of thousands of children of their future, 2023 will be remembered as “one of the most difficult” years to be a child in, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Palestine’s Christian community is – not surprisingly – the oldest in the world, dating back to the first century. In Gaza, the community is now tiny, with just some 800 to 1,000 Christians remaining. But Gaza’s churches are some of the oldest in existence anywhere on the planet.
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An aid worker has described the “unprecedented scale” of human devastation in 2023 as he warned of the “intense trauma” likely to impact victims in Gaza for decades to come.
The British Red Cross has launched four separate emergency appeals this year, as well as continuing its work to support those affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The desperate situation brought about by conflict, earthquakes and floods across various parts of the globe can leave “deep trauma and psychological impacts on those affected”, especially children, Rory Moylan said.
Reflecting on the year’s events, the head of region for Europe and the Middle East at the British Red Cross told the PA news agency:
“2023 has seen human devastation on an unprecedented scale.
“As the conflict in Ukraine has continued, so has our Ukraine Crisis Appeal and this year we’ve launched our Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal, Morocco Earthquake Appeal, Libya Floods Appeal and Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory Appeal.
“The fact we’ve had cause to launch four emergency appeals this year gives you an idea of the scale of the humanitarian support that is needed right now.”
He described a “desperate situation” in Gaza, where colleagues in the International Committee of the Red Cross have told of children becoming sick as they face winter without proper clothing, having fled their homes to escape the bombing of the past two months.
Mr Moylan was part of a delegation of aid agencies who met the King at Buckingham Palace in October to brief him on the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
At the time the charity confirmed the King had made a “generous donation” to its fundraising appeal for the region.
Some 1.9 million Gaza residents – more than 80% of the population – have been driven from their homes since Israel began its retaliation for the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas.
As the Israeli military assault continues, the United Nations has warned that more than half a million people in Gaza are starving due to “woefully insufficient” quantities of food entering the territory.
Mr Moylan told the PA news agency:
“The conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory has created a desperate situation with staggering humanitarian needs and intolerable suffering.
“The people of Gaza need huge amounts of humanitarian support just to meet their most basic needs. Winter will only make it harder to meet those needs.”
He said the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), which the British Red Cross works with, has so far supported more than 27,000 people as the population endures “a desperate situation and many mourn loved ones”.
Mr Moylan spoke of the lasting impact likely to be felt by those living there, saying:
“If the fighting stops tomorrow, the reconstruction and the recovery will take a decade or more.
“Mentally, people won’t ever recover in some cases.”
Calls for a ceasefire have been growing, with thousands of Palestinian lives lost in the past two months.
Mr Moylan said many donations to the Red Cross now are spent meeting people’s basic needs during a conflict such as food, water, medicine and blankets.
But he added:
“Donations also help us support people dealing with the trauma of losing loved ones and homes during disasters and conflict.
“This psychological support means we’re there for people in the worst moments of their lives and allows us to help people as they slowly try to recover from disasters and conflicts.”
He added:
“Conflicts and disasters will undoubtedly have ongoing, long-term psychological impact on people and especially children across the world. These impacts will be felt long after our attention in the UK has shifted to other crises.
More than two months on, civilians continue to pay the highest price of the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“In Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the intense trauma will impact people for decades.”
He spoke of the trauma from Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack, which he said will be felt by communities in Israel “for years to come”, including the survivors and the grieving, as well as the trauma for the hostages and their families.
Mr Moylan said the charity is keenly aware of the financial pressure on the public, with multiple appeals in different countries, but said even small donations make a big difference to the organisation’s work helping people on the ground.
He said:
“I think often people can feel that when they look at the scale of a crisis, they think, ‘Oh, well then what I give doesn’t matter’.
“It does. Small amounts really, really do add up. We’ve received so much in that way and it’s all very flexible. So it allows us to give flexibility to partners to design the best response for people as they need it. So we are always really appreciative of that.”
Mr Moylan added:
“I want to thank everyone who has donated to any of these British Red Cross emergency appeals this year for your generosity.
“Across Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Libya, Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and beyond, thanks to your help we’ve been able to help people caught up in these awful disasters and endure the most difficult circumstances imaginable.
“I have seen on the ground the difference these donations have made and continue to make.”
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No eventual US green light to allow aid into Gaza — where a quarter of the population are starving — can disguise its wrecking role throughout the UN process.
The urgency of getting food, water and fuel to more than a million displaced Palestinians has not deterred Washington from delaying a UN resolution repeatedly, insisting on the removal of calls for a ceasefire, watering down the demand that Israel open air, land and sea routes for humanitarian assistance and blocking a proposal for the UN rather than the Israeli military to approve deliveries.
As with the security council ceasefire vote a fortnight ago — which the US alone opposed, with Britain alone abstaining — the mask has slipped.
Everyone in the world can see who facilitates Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza even while crying crocodile tears about civilian victims.
We know that Joe Biden’s reproaches to Benjamin Netanyahu for bombing hospitals and unleashing a wave of settler terror in the West Bank are accompanied by a steady flow of munitions to ensure the Israeli Defence Forces can keep killing.
We know too that the copycat expressions of regret from British leaders are meaningless while we permit the US to resupply Israel from the RAF’s Akrotiri airfield on Cyprus, which we can assume it is doing since ministers won’t answer questions on the flurry of US flights to Israel from that base.
Britain and the US stand isolated and exposed. There will be geopolitical consequences.
The brazen hypocrisy of supporting Israeli war crimes while condemning Russian ones in Ukraine has not gone unnoticed, and will further undermine efforts to convince the global South to abide by US and EU sanctions against Moscow, as European diplomats admit.
Normalisation of Israel’s relations with Arab states, a priority aim of US diplomacy in recent years, lies in tatters. Following the China-brokered Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and the invitation to five Middle East and north African states to join the Brics bloc of developing countries in 2024, this war could be catastrophic for US power in the region, accelerating a shift to Beijing already under way.
We have little influence over such developments. Not so the domestic political fallout. The medics’ vigils for Gaza, the hundreds of local demonstrations and fundraisers, the gigantic national peace marches, have changed British politics.
The British and US governments are not just exposed in the eyes of the world, but before their own peoples. In Britain, the Palestine movement has thrown open doors our whole Establishment have spent the last four years nailing shut — it is again possible to question Britain’s role in the world, its uniquely close alliance with the United States and the sinister character of our military operations and armaments industry.
As we learned in 2017, when Jeremy Corbyn pointed to the links between British foreign policy and terrorism and found a majority agreed with him, there is mass scepticism about our rulers’ claims about the world and an openness to building a different kind of Britain, one that promotes peace and co-operation instead of war and plunder.
The ruling-class response to Corbyn’s popularity was ferocious. The response on Palestine will be no less so.
Human Rights Watch has already pointed to Facebook parent company Meta’s complicity in a global censorship operation targeting Palestine solidarity work.
In Britain, we have seen off one home secretary trying to ban peace marches, but should the movement falter or the numbers dwindle the government will be tempted to revisit this.
Our movement must go on the offensive, ensuring politicians who will not back a ceasefire fear for their seats, and demanding a reversal of all the attacks on Palestine activism of recent years, including the bids to ban the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
This Christmas the traditional call for peace on Earth must be turned from an abstract seasonal aspiration to a practical mobilising demand.
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Palestine’s Christian community is – not surprisingly – the oldest in the world, dating back to the first century.
In Gaza, the community is now tiny, with just some 800 to 1,000 Christians remaining. But Gaza’s churches are some of the oldest in existence anywhere on the planet.
Now these churches are shelters for refugees, and Christians are targets of Israel’s genocidal violence.
On 19 October, the third oldest church in the world, the Church of Saint Porphyrius, was hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing 18 people.
Ibrahim Jahsan survived the strike and continues to shelter there with his family. He told Al Jazeera, “We were baptized here and we will die here.”
Two weeks later, the Israeli military bombed the Greek Orthodox Cultural Center in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa.
Food, blankets, gas cylinders and other much needed supplies were destroyed in the blast. The destruction of cultural centers and religious sites features as part of the definition of genocide.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem released a statement condemning the attack.
“Such attacks on civilians, particularly children, and the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, cannot be justified on rational or humanitarian grounds and are fundamentally at odds with even the most basic moral values.”
The World Council of Churches joined in condemning the attacks, calling them a “clear violation of international law.”
Gaza’s only Christian hospital was also bombed. A blast rocked Gaza City’s al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in October. Hundreds died in the explosion, hundreds were injured. Israel denied responsibility for the carnage.
In Cold Blood
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta described the scene to NBC News. He was in an operating room when the ceiling collapsed on him. He says he made his way to the exit where he witnessed “people carrying wounded and walking wounded with blood streaming down covered in dust.”
On 16 December, Nahida Antoun and her daughter Samar Antoun were shot to death by Israeli snipers as they walked inside the grounds of the Holy Family Parish in Gaza. At least seven other members of Gaza’s only Catholic Church were wounded by sniper fire.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said: “One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety.”
“They were shot in cold blood.”
The patriarchate posted photos of damage to the Church from missile attacks. The damage shows fires and extreme destruction to the convent. The tweet indicates that “deaths and injuries of a number of citizens in the Latin convent of Gaza” occurred and calls for an “end [to] this senseless conflict.”
Pope Francis condemned the attack: “Unarmed civilians are being bombed and shot at, and this has happened inside the Holy Family Parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, sick people with disabilities, nuns.”
The Pope continued, “Some say, ‘It’s terrorism, it’s war.’ Yes, it is war. It is terrorism.”
This is the second time the Pope has accused Israel of terrorism. On 22 November, the pontiff said Israel had gone beyond war: “This is not war. This is terrorism.”
Indeed, it is terrorism. It is terrorism against Palestinians, and some of the most vulnerable Palestinians are the minority Christian population now besieged in the few churches in Gaza.
Israel is targeting this small population of Christians and they’re doing it at Christmas.
The Israeli military is bombing churches, destroying Christian community centers, and sending snipers to shoot Christian women to death while the world watches, all part of the ninth stage of genocide: Extermination.
How many Christians will be left when Israel is done?
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Jennifer Welborn Williams has a postgraduate degree in history and is a freelance writer.
Featured image: People sheltering at the Saint Porphyrius Orthodox church which was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Thursday, killing 18 including several children [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
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***
Although martial law and a decree on general mobilisation have been in force in Ukraine since February 2022, and men between the ages of 18 and 60 are now banned from leaving the country, the Ukrainian military said they did not know how to mobilise an additional 500,000 soldiers, as volunteers had “exhausted.”
“We have run out of volunteers willing to voluntarily join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine… To say exactly when [the mobilisation of more than 500,000 people] will be and how high quality it is, is difficult to say … there is no understanding of how to do this physically,” said Major General of the Ukrainian forces Dmitry Marchenko in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
According to Marchenko, for every 100 soldiers who died at the front, only 20 will be mobilised to replace them. At the same time, the major general reacted positively to the proposal to lower the mobilisation age limit from 27 to 25 and try to obtain the extradition of those who fled the country, adding that “it is not worth filling the holes at the front with women when the mass of men is hidden abroad.”
At a press conference on December 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky first presented figures for a new large-scale mobilisation. He said that the chief of staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces approached him with a request to mobilise an additional 450,000-500,000 people. According to Zelensky, such a mobilisation would cost Ukraine around $13.4 billion.
Later, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), said that mobilising such a large number of people would take at least a year.
Military recruiting officers can serve subpoenas in public places, and videos of incidents on the streets, at gas stations and in cafes have been circulating on social media. The summons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces currently does not have to be presented by a representative of the Territorial Centre for Recruitment and Social Support — as military commissions have recently been called in Ukraine — but can also be served by directors of companies where recruits work, chiefs of Housing Committees and other officials.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Army is facing a serious shortage of ammunition, which is hampering its offensive operations, while Russia does not appear to have the same problem, The Washington Post reported on December 22, citing Ukrainian military personnel stationed on the frontline.
“Our gunners are given a limit of shells for each target,” said a member of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, which is fighting in the southeastern Zaporozhye region, adding that if the target there is smaller, for example a mortar position, they need five or seven projectiles in total.
“How long can we last? It’s hard to say, but it can’t be long. Everyone understands this,” he stressed.
Another Ukrainian soldier revealed that his unit now only fires 10 to 20 shells a day at Russian positions, whereas previously, it used to use an average of 50 shells and sometimes up to 90.
“What can you do with 10 shells per day? It is barely enough to respond to their advances — we are not even talking about attacking their positions,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, Ivan Zadontsev, press officer of the 24th Separate Assault Battalion, reported that the unit had reduced fire by 90% compared to mid-year. The Ukrainian military official interviewed also acknowledged that they have not detected any indication that Russia is facing a similar shortage of artillery shells.
Given the hopelessness of the war against Russia, compounded by an insufficient number of soldiers and artillery, Ukraine also faces the problem of desertion. Although the Kiev regime can forcibly recruit soldiers, it has been observed that Ukrainians are deserting the war when given the opportunity.
Ten Ukrainian volunteers who received permission to leave Ukraine in search of humanitarian aid took advantage of the permission granted to flee, the Kiev regime appointed head of the Kherson administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on December 23.
On his social media networks, Prokudin stated that the volunteers were part of the United Ukraine and Adjalyk organisations.
“I issued orders to allow representatives of the United Ukraine and Adjalyk organisations to cross the border. They left and brought the promised humanitarian aid. But after that, they decided to leave for the second time and did not return to Ukraine,” Prokudin wrote.
He added that law enforcement authorities are investigating the case and intend to bring the offenders to justice. The Ukrainian official also said he no longer intends to issue travel authorisation to these two organisations.
The number of Ukrainian soldiers has declined so much that the average age of recruits has risen to 43, according to Time magazine. Recently, the possibility of mobilising women has also been discussed, which, according to Western media, also indicates huge losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yet, despite the impossibility of pushing back the Russian military from captured territory or holding out against a major offensive, given the lack of manpower, equipment and morale, the Kiev regime chooses to continue destroying an entire generation of Ukrainians.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
This year, Bethlehem is sombre and quiet. There is no Christmas tree and there are no holiday lights or tourists to see them.
Instead, the city of Jesus’s birth – which is in the middle of a war zone – is marking Christmas with a powerful and poignant message: solidarity with Palestine.
The Holy Family Cave is a sculpture that depicts a harrowing tableau: a bombed-out version of the traditional nativity cave, which many Christians traditionally believe is where Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It is the site now of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The new mural draws a comparison with the journey of Christ and his family, when they had to flee Bethlehem under an oppressive ruler to Egypt, before returning to Nazareth two millennia ago.
The bombed-out nativity scene is surrounded by rubble and barbed wire [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera]
Surrounded by rubble and barbed wire, the Virgin Mary embraces the baby Jesus, while Joseph embraces her, offering solace. On one side of the family, the Magi holds out a white shroud. On the other side, the fourth shepherd carries a bag, a symbol of Palestinian displacement.
Angels, suspended around the rubble, represent the souls of children who have been victims of massacres on Palestinian land throughout history: the murder of children in Bethlehem by Herod at the birth of Jesus; various colonial attacks against the Palestinian people and their ancestors; and current massacres by Israel in Gaza.
Around the scene, multilingual panels call for a ceasefire and an end to the massacre against the Palestinian people.
Hana Hanania, the mayor of Bethlehem, said the sculpture aims to showcase Palestinian suffering everywhere. Churches, clergy and civilians in Gaza are being bombarded, and a blockade is enforced in the West Bank, particularly in Bethlehem.
The fourth shepherd carries a bag, symbolising Palestinian displacement [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera]
The sculpture, with its political, religious, and national symbolism, draws a comparison between what happened more than 2,000 years ago and what is happening today, she said. Just as Christ was tortured and children were killed by King Herod then, today, children and women are being slaughtered in a clear act of genocide.
The cave’s roof is a geographical map of Gaza. Its shape, together with a depiction of an explosion, form a star, inspired by the Star of Bethlehem that led the Magi to Jesus’s birth. This conveys a message of hope.
The artist, Tarek Salsaa, explained that the scene cannot fully express the immense destruction and systematic genocide against the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation. What Palestine is going through today is reminiscent of the years of colonialism, with all its allies throughout the ages and various historical epochs, he added.
“Christmas approaches this year, and we find ourselves living in the most challenging and difficult circumstances, a result of what our people in the besieged Gaza Strip and in all cities, villages, and camps of the West Bank and Jerusalem are enduring due to the Israeli continuous aggression against our people, said Rula Maayaa, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of tourism and antiquities.
“As we launch this symbolic initiative in Bethlehem … our people are confident that the message of Christmas, sent by the messenger of peace, will triumph over injustice and tyranny,” Maayaa said.
People light candles near the installation [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera]
We are in a constant state of mourning, especially during the days of mourning for the martyrs, said Father Ibrahim Feltz, the deputy custodian of the Holy Lands. “We have not witnessed such a scene in the square, and we have not seen the city in this condition. Bethlehem has never been sad like this before.”
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Featured image: A bombed-out version of the traditional nativity cave in Gaza is a symbolic comparison to the first family of Christ [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera]
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***
As dozens of conflicts have ruthlessly robbed tens of thousands of children of their future, 2023 will be remembered as “one of the most difficult” years to be a child in, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Another factor that made the year “one of the most difficult” was insufficient funds for humanitarian actors, harming children in need of life-saving assistance, especially in ongoing conflict zones, as “you cannot do more with less,” said the UNICEF deputy executive director.
“I think 2023 has been one of the most difficult years for children worldwide. And I think the things that have struck me the most is, firstly, the horrendous, unprecedented violence that we’ve seen in Gaza,” Ted Chaiban told Anadolu in an interview.
In Gaza, the proportion of children killed as a percentage of the total death toll is “over 40%,” Chaiban said, adding that this is “twice what we’ve seen in over 40 conflicts where we have this aggregated data.
“It’s something that’s unprecedented we’ve seen, an indiscriminate level of violence in Gaza,” he said. “And that’s just absolutely horrendous.”
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,424 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,036 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.
This has caused an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and immense damage to infrastructure, according to Palestinian and international sources.
Crises Before Gaza Are ‘Stain on Our Consciousness’
This is a world where conflict is profoundly affecting children, where climate is causing increased displacement, and where the humanitarian system is going to need to continue to be there to respond, Chaiban stressed.
He added that the magnitude of the ongoing hostilities in Gaza is overshadowing the other ongoing hostilities which needed to be remembered.
“It’s hard to think that the crises that were even before Gaza, you know, were a stain on our consciousness, and that’s what’s happened in Sudan,” he said, noting that he worked in the country 20 years ago when the Darfur crisis was at its height and what is occurring right now is a repeat of history.
“We’re seeing children and their families that are being pulled out of their villages, forced to go across the border in Chad, in what is community-based targeted violence, essentially,” he said.
Noting that this is not only happening throughout Darfur but the violence has spread to Kordofan and Khartoum, Chaiban said:
“The whole country is being dislocated. We’ve got the largest child displacement in the world occurring as we speak in Sudan.”
Then the world has an “almost forgotten” crisis in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is sexual and physical violence against children in a conflict that, frankly, has been going on since the 1990s, he said.
“How can something like that be forgotten?” he questioned.
2023 Appeal for Children ‘Roughly 50% Funded’
Although “every dollar counts,” Chaiban said, UNICEF’s 2023 appeal for children was “roughly 50% funded, leading to a reduction in 2024’s appeal by 16%.”
“Every one of those dollars made a difference,” he said. “And we’re going to do everything possible to raise the resources so that we can respond to children.”
In 2023, UNICEF appealed for $10.3 billion in emergency funding to reach more than 110 million children – including 54 million girls and 10 million children with disabilities – with humanitarian assistance across 155 countries and territories.
The appeal was focused on major crises including in Haiti, the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Horn of Africa, Pakistan, Ukraine, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
With the decreased appeal, Chaiban said UNICEF aims to be “more efficient” in the way it works with some of its sister agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) next year.
“We focus together on the treatment of severe acute malnutrition and we’ve come up with a simplified protocol which focuses only on those that are most at risk,” he said, adding they will target their supplies to those that are most in need.
“So through those kinds of steps, we hope to be able to reach those that are most at risk,” he said but argued that “you cannot do more with less.”
“We continue to appeal to the world’s donors and not to turn their attention away from children.”
“We’re in a world where the generosity of governments, individuals or foundations makes a difference,” he said. “It gives hope in the midst of tragic events. So let’s keep giving hope.”
Getting Into 2024 with ‘Very Difficult Situations’
Stressing that another distressing year is approaching as not the only world is entering the year but also many ongoing conflicts, Chaiban expressed hope in the work that UNICEF does.
“I think it’s very clear that we’re going into 2024 with very difficult situations in Gaza, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Sahel,” he said.
“We need to make sure we don’t forget crises like the displacement that came out of Syria, the Rohingya in Bangladesh and the situation in Haiti, where we’ve got gang violence that has been an upheaval in society.”
“But I also want to speak about situations of hope,” he said, drawing attention to Somalia, where a famine was averted in 2022 because of the concerted work of humanitarian agencies.
Then there is “the situation in the Horn of Africa, where over the years, systems have been set up. You know, the health system has been decentralized, (and) the food safety net put in place in places like Ethiopia, so that when the shock does happen, the population can withstand that shock,” he added.
He noted that UNICEF’s work has a positive impact in the targeted countries.
“We also have hope in the work that we do and know that it makes a difference — not just with lifesaving activities, but for example, with the work that we do in education.”
What to Expect from UNICEF in 2024
In its 2024 appeal, UNICEF launched a $9.3 billion emergency funding appeal to reach at least 93.7 million children in 155 countries.
The top five appeals by funding requirements for 2024 are for Afghanistan with $1.44 billion, Syrian refugees and other vulnerable populations with $860 million, Sudan with $840 million, the Democratic Republic of Congo with $804 million and Ukraine and the refugee response with $580 million.
Its plans include reaching 17.3 million children for vaccination against measles and 7.6 million children for treating their severe acute malnutrition.
Also among UNICEF’s goals are making formal or non-formal education accessible for 19.3 million children and making community-based mental health and psychosocial support accessible to 26.7 children.
According to the new appeal, the critically underfunded emergencies include Sudan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Haiti, Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Bangladesh.
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Featured image: Wounded Palestinian children, are taken to hospital after Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 23, 2023 [Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency]
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First published on December 18, 2023
***
We’ve been told repeatedly that the goal of Israel’s operation in Gaza is to “defeat Hamas”. But is that true? We don’t think it is. We don’t think that any reasonable person would attempt to eradicate a militant organization by laying to waste vast swaths of the country while killing tens of thousands of innocent people. That is not how one garners support for one’s cause nor is it an effective strategy for defeating the enemy. Instead, it is a policy that is guaranteed to horrify allies and critics alike greatly undermining the operation’s chances of success. And that’s why we don’t believe that Israel’s attack on Gaza has anything to do with Hamas. We think it’s a smokescreen that’s being used to divert attention from the real objectives of the campaign.
And, what might those “real objectives” be?
The real objectives relate to an issue that is never discussed in the media, but is the primary factor driving events. Demographics.
As we all know, Israel’s long-term plan is to incorporate Gaza and the West Bank into Greater Israel. They want to control all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The problem is, however, that if they annex the occupied territories without disposing of the people, then the Palestinian population will equal or exceed that of the Jews which would lead to the demise of the Jewish state. That is the basic problem in a nutshell. Check out this article that helps to explain what’s going on:
Demography is a matter of national security in Israel and a key indicator for Israeli-Palestinian relations and their outlook: demographic trends in Israel are rapidly shifting and this will impact prospects for violence and conflict resolution.
As of late 2022, over seven million Israelis lived in Israel and the West Bank, and seven million Palestinians lived in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel and East Jerusalem, a somehow integrated region referred to as “Greater Israel” by Jewish right-wing activists …
A demographic bomb is already ticking. Israeli Jews experience an existential fear to be outgrown by the Palestinian population,and this is further instrumentalized by right-wing nationalist political entrepreneurs. Demography lies at the core of the territorial dispute between Jews and Arabs, as the two nations are waging a major war on numbers, aimed at weaponizing fertility rates to turn them into a predictive assumption of victory.
As the current Israeli right-wing government is laying the ground for the de facto annexation of the West Bank’s Area C, demography has been one of the tools employed to reassure the Jewish public opinion that Judea and Samaria could still be integrated into Israel, while keeping a Jewish demographic majority. However, demography remains a struggle for survival and an uphill battle for Israel. This is especially true if Israel were to progress with the Palestinian Area C annexation. Israel: A Demographic Ticking Bomb in Today’s One-State Reality”,Aspenia
16k killed (7k kids),40k injured, 1.8ml IDPs, 60% civilian infrastructure gone. No food, water, medication. Just bombs dropping.
In the face of all this, Congresspeople of the only country who can stop this, legislated that antizionism=antisemitism.
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) December 6, 2023
As an American, diversity might not seem like such a big deal. But to many Israelis, it’s pure strychnine. Zionists, in particular, see growth in the Arab population as a “demographic time-bomb” that threatens the future of the Jewish state. And that’s what the Gaza fracas is really all about; getting rid of the people but keeping the land. In fact, the last 75 years of conflict can be reduced to just 8 words, “They want the land, but not the people.” Here’s more from the Times of Israel:
Jewish people make up less than 47 percent of all those living west of the Jordan River, an Israeli demographer warned Tuesday, claiming that most of the Israeli population is unaware of the democratic peril the country is sliding into by possibly becoming a ruling minority in the area.
Arnon Soffer, a professor of geography at Haifa University, told Army Radio Tuesday that in addition to the Jewish and Arab populations, he reached his figures by taking into consideration the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish people residing in Israel who are not citizens.
According to Soffer, there are 7.45 million Jews and others along with 7.53 million Arab Israelis and Palestinians living in what he termed the Land of Israel, meaning Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza Strip. When the number of non-Israeli nationals is taken into consideration, it leaves the Jewish proportion at between 46% and 47% of the total, he claimed.
According to Israel’s official Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2021, 9.449 million people live in Israel (including Israelis in West Bank settlements). Of those, 6.982 million (74 percent) are Jewish, 1.99 million (21%) are Arab and 472,000 (5%) are neither…. The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics puts the West Bank Palestinian population at a little over 3 million, and the Gaza population at just over 2 million.
Soffer explained to Army Radio that although the birthrate has been higher among the Jewish population in recent years, so too is the death rate, meaning the Arab population, which is far younger on average than the Jewish population, is growing faster. Jews now a 47% minority in Israel and the territories, demographer says, The Times of Israel
In just under two months, IDF bombs have destroyed a comparable percentage of buildings in northern Gaza as WW2 allied forces achieved in the space of two years of carpet bombing German cities pic.twitter.com/1qFEfpskAM
Imagine, for a minute, that you posted a number of articles on your social media sites that said you thought there were too many blacks or Asians in America. How long do you think it would take before you were either shadow-banned, censored or buried under an avalanche of death threats? But when we look at the contents of the article above, we see that a major newspaper in Israel breezily publishes an article which states in stark terms that the country faces “democratic peril” because there are too many Arabs in the areas earmarked for future annexation. How is that not racism?
But this is how the issue is discussed in Israel. Demographics are considered a national security issue, an existential issue, and an issue that will decide the future of the Jewish State. Is it any wonder why the reaction has been so extreme? Is it any wonder why people refer to the fact that there is a large population of Palestinians in Palestine as the “Arab problem”? And, of course, once the indigenous population is regarded as a “problem”, then it is incumbent on the political leaders to conjure-up a solution.
So, what exactly is the solution to the Arab problem?
Why fewer Arabs, of course. Which is why the idea of expelling the Palestinians has a long pedigree in Zionist thinking dating back a full five decades before the establishment of the Jewish state. As it happens, the Arabs were always a problem even when the Jews represented less than 10 percent of the population. Go figure? Check out this comment by the ideological father of political Zionism himself, Theodor Herzl, who wrote the following:
“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”
Shockingly, Herzl wrote those words in 1895, 50 years before Israel declared its statehood. And many of the Zionist leaders who followed him shared that same world view, like Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion who said:
“You are no doubt aware of the [Jewish National Fund’s] activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin.” He concluded: “Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.” (1948)
Given that the alleged “surge in anti-Semitism” over the past two months correlates perfectly with Israel’s ferocious destruction of Gaza, this strongly suggests the “surge” is driven by discontent with the actions of Israel, rather than some random outburst of hatred toward Jews https://t.co/ceepw6DtOb
And here’s Ben-Gurion again in 1938: “I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
See how far back this line of reasoning goes? The Zionists were tweaking their ethnic cleansing plans long before Israel had even become a state. And for good reason. They knew that the numbers did not support the prospects for an enduring Jewish State. The only way to square the circle was through compulsory resettlement, otherwise known as “transfer.” And while that policy might have been repugnant to a great many Jews, a far larger number undoubtedly believed it was a cruel necessity. The preservation of the Jewish State became the highest value permitting behavior that would otherwise be disparaged as unacceptable and immoral. Here’s how Ben Shapiro summed it up in an essay titled “Transfer is Not a Dirty Word”:
The time for half measures has passed…. Some have rightly suggested that Israel be allowed to decapitate the terrorist leadership of the Palestinian Authority. But this, too, is only a half measure. The ideology of the Palestinian population is indistinguishable from that of the terrorist leadership.…
Here is the bottom line: If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It’s an ugly solution, but it is the only solution. And it is far less ugly than the prospect of bloody conflict ad infinitum….
The Jews don’t realize that expelling a hostile population is a commonly used and generally effective way of preventing violent entanglements. There are no gas chambers here. It’s not genocide; it’s transfer….
It’s time to stop being squeamish. Jews are not Nazis. Transfer is not genocide. And anything else isn’t a solution. Transfer is Not a Dirty Word,Narkive
The importance of the Shapiro piece can’t be overstated. First, he explicitly links the future viability of the Jewish state to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Second, he acknowledges that transfer is “an ugly solution”, but supports the policy as a necessary evil. And, third, he justifies the implementation of the mass expulsion by putting the entire Palestinian population into the same category as the terrorists. (“The ideology of the Palestinian population is indistinguishable from that of the terrorist leadership.”) So, in essence, Shapiro is making our case for us. He is candidly admitting that the only policy that will preserve the Jewish state is ethnic cleansing. And judging by developments on the ground, we must assume the Netanyahu government arrived at the same conclusion. The people of Gaza are being bombed, starved and terrorized all with the explicit aim of herding them in the direction of the southern border where they will be forced at gunpoint to flee their historic homeland.
Bottom line: The strategic objectives of the Israeli operation in Gaza are entirely different than the stated goal of defeating Hamas.
All of the land west of the Jordan River is now being cleared of its native occupants so it can be incorporated into Greater Israel while maintaining a sizable Jewish majority.
The demonizing of the Palestinian people –which casts the victims of this onslaught as the perpetrators– is intended to conceal the underlying policy that is based on racial discrimination. There is no doubt that if the Arabs in Gaza were of Jewish descent, they would be spared the genocide they face today.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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***
“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.”—Howard Thurman, theologian and civil rights activist
The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.
The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.
Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later?
What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them?
Those nativity scenes were a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war, all driven by a manipulative shadow government called the Deep State.
The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do?
What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do about the injustices of our modern age?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer was executed by Hitler for attempting to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany.
Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation as well as his life when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds.
Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.”
Yet this is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love.
After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings.
When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.
Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state?
Consider the following if you will.
Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000.
Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.
Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.
From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.
Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone.
Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us.
Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”
While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies.
Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.
Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.
Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.
Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.
Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. More than 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.
Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.
Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error.
Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square.
Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.
Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebration of miracles and promise of salvation, we would do well to remember that what happened in that manger on that starry night in Bethlehem is only the beginning of the story. That baby born in a police state grew up to be a man who did not turn away from the evils of his age but rather spoke out against it.
We must do no less.
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Israel’s Gaza war and West Bank raids have stolen Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations this year. The little hill town where Jesus was born in a stable 2,000 years ago has grown dark this season. The Bethlehem municipality and the Jordan Council of Churches announced the decision to mark the season solely with religious services.
There are no coloured lights decorating tall pine tree on the edge of Manger Square and few decorations in shops. There will be no marching Palestinian Boy Scout bands on Christmas eve ahead of the religious service in Saint Catherine’s Catholic church. In spite of the crisis in Palestine, the church can be expected to fill with devout pilgrims for the midnight mass. Boy scouts will walk silently across Bethlehem, in mourning for the nearly 20,000 Palestinians who have died from Israeli bombing, shelling, and shooting during its ground offensive.
Visitors to the Evangelical Lutheran Church will find a nativity scene depicting the infant Jesus wrapped in a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh lying on a pile of rubble beneath an olive tree, the symbol of Palestinian determination to remain in their century-long occupied country.
The prelates of the Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian and Protestant churches in Jerusalem, which has joined Bethlehem in the boycott of celebrations, called upon their “congregations to, stand strong with those facing such affiliations by this year foregoing any unnecessary festiveactivities”.
The Gaza war is costing Palestinian tourism $2.5 million a day. This will amount to $200 million by the end of the year, according to the Palestinian Tourism Ministry. Seventy hotels in Bethlehem have closed duringthe normally heavily booked holiday season, leaving 6,000 employees without work.
Bethlehem Mayor Hana Haniyeh told the Associated Press,
“The economy is crashing. But if we compare it with what’s happening to our people and Gaza, it’s nothing.”
Bethlehem depends on tourists and pilgrimages for 70 per cent of income.
Haniyeh said,
“Bethlehem is an essential part of the Palestinian community. So at midnight mass this year, we will pray for peace, the message of peace that was founded in Bethlehem when Jesus Christ was born.”
Since Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7, Israel has multiplied checkpoints prolonging journeys to Bethlehem and other West Bank cities, towns and villages.
At the end of November, a Bethlehem delegation of church elders flew to Washington to deliver a letter to US President Joe Biden demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and arguing that there can be no peace in this region without justice, equal rights and dignity for all. The letter was handed to his advisers as Biden did not meet the envoys.Instead, Biden met with relatives of Israelis captured by Israel, cast the sole veto against a ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council and voted against a similar General Assembly resolution. As these resolutions were supported by the Arabs, Biden’s rejection amounted to an insult to the Arab region and its people.
As Israel ramped up its Gaza campaign, Biden compounded the damage his anti-ceasefire stance has done by using an emergency measure to avoid Congressional oversight in to provide to the Israeli military 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $100 million. The Biden administration has also supplied white phosphorus incendiary shells which Israel has used to target urban areas in Gaza and Lebanon in violation of international law which specifies that that these munitions can only be used in open battlegrounds. White phosphorus causes severe burns deep into human skin tissue. Israel fired these shells into Gaza during the 2008-2009 war which then ruined Christmas for Palestinians.
After a three-year COVID-19 suspension of Christmas festivities, Bethlehem resumed celebrations in 2022. Lights on the towering Christmas tree were switched on early late in November. Bethlehem’s 5,000 hotels were fully booked. Some 120,000 local and foreign visitors returned. This figure nearly reached the 150,000 high in 2019, before COVID struck.Like Israel’s Gaza war, the pandemic wrecked the Bethlehem economy.COVID closed hotels, restaurants, workshops and souvenir shops. The latter alone suffered losses of $200 million.
Palestinian Christians are among world’s oldest Christian communities, although their number is shrinking. Decades ago Christians were 20 per cent of the population of Palestine, today they are 2 per cent of the total. As many Christians had formed connections with relatives who had emigrated, there have been many additions to the global Palestinian diaspora. Palestinian Christians live largely in Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem.
Since Israel besieged and blockaded Gaza after Hamas took control in 2007, around 2,000 Christians left due to Israeli attacks in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2023. Gaza’s Christians now number between 800-1,000 and account for less than 1 per cent of the population of the bombed and starved coastal strip but have been targeted by Israeli bombs and drones while they have sheltered in their churches, including in Gaza’s oldest built in 1150, the church of St Porphyrius where 16 Christians died and many were wounded during a bombing in October.
Last Saturday, December 16, an Israeli sniper killed two Palestinian women, a mother and daughter, and wounded seven others sheltering in the Catholic church of the Holy Family. At the time of the shooting the women were in the courtyard of the church making their way from the convent attached to the church. There were no armed men or weapons in the church although it has been repeatedly targeted by snipers, shells, and white phosphorus. Responding to this incident Pope Francis said, “It is war. It is terrorism.”
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Featured image: A priest walks at the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023. World-famous Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem have been put on hold due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
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The 1914 Truce: “The Power of Peace in the Time of War”.
In 2023, “Let It Happen Again” in Solidarity with Palestine.
Abolish All Wars
By Michel Chossudovsky
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This Christmas, I have Tears in my Eyes
Let us have tears to our eyes in solidarity with the People of Palestine, in building a Christmas mass movement Worldwide, which confronts the ongoing mass slaughter before our very eyes.
Let us recall The Christmas Truce of 1914, 109 years ago this Christmas Eve:
“Something happened in the early months of the “War to End All Wars” that put a tiny little blip of hope in the historical timeline of the organized mass slaughter that is war. The event was regarded by the professional military officer class to be so profound and so important (and so disturbing) that strategies were immediately put in place that would ensure that such an event could never happen again.” (Dr. Gary G. Kohls)
“The ordinary soldiers developed more and more antipathy and even hatred toward their own officers. Simultaneously, they started to empathize and even sympathize for the men facing them on the far side of the no man’s land.
The authorities condemned and prohibited all forms of fraternization and “live-and-let-live” in general. The officers sometimes put snipers to work when they suspected that fraternizations “threatened” to take place.
The men learned in many ways that the official enemy was in fact not the real enemy, that the soldiers on the other side were human beings just like themselves.” (Dr. Jacques Pauwels, Excerpt from his book, See below)
Today, we are “fraternizing” and acting in solidarity Worldwide with the People of Palestine against the hegemonic agenda of the U.S. and it allies which are waging an all-out war against humanity.
Crimes against the Peace, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity
Both Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu as well as President Joe Biden are responsible for “war crimes”, “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity” as defined under Principe VI of the Nuremberg Charter:
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill- treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are
“The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S.soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him [her].”
Let us make that “moral choice” possible, to enlisted Israeli, American, and NATO servicemen and women.
Disobey unlawful orders! Abandon the battlefield! … Refuse to fight in a war which violates Nuremberg Principle 6, The U.N. Charter and The Geneva Convention.
Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza
Let the World War I “Power of Peace in the Time of War” “Happen again”.
Confront corrupt politicians.
The Tears in Your Eyes
May the tears of humanity in your eyes in December 2023 be conducive to a Worldwide movement to abolish and “criminalize all wars”.
Let us break the insidious narrative of a handful of Wall Street billionaires who finance America’s “humanitarian wars”, unseat the West’s “Classe politique” and establish the foundations of “Real Democracy by the People for the People”.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, December 23, 2023
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An excerpt from Dr. Jacques Pauwels’ book The Great Class War, 1914-1918
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The Great Class War (1914-1918)
Remember the 1914 Christmas Truce
by Jacques R. Pauwels
The situation in the fall 1914, after the “war of movement” has given way to the infamous stationary “trench warfare”:
The ordinary soldiers developed more and more antipathy and even hatred toward their own officers. Simultaneously, they started to empathize and even sympathize for the men facing them on the far side of the no man’s land. The official enemy – the Germans, Russians, French, whatever – were demonized by the authorities but the soldiers had little or nothing against them. In many cases, they hardly knew the people they were supposed to hate and kill. Furthermore, they soon found out that they had much in common with “the enemy,” first and above all a lower-class social background, and second, the same exposure to danger and misery.
The men learned in many ways that the official enemy was in fact not the real enemy, that the soldiers on the other side were human beings just like themselves. This lesson could be learned, for example, by reading letters and looking at pictures found on taken from prisoners. The contempt for the “other,” deliberately fabricated by the military and political superiors, thus soon gave way for mutual respect and the feeling “that we are all the same,” for a “reciprocal respect and even sympathy.” In January 1915, a French poilu commented as follows on letters he had found on a prisoner:
“The same as on our side. The misery, the desperation, the longing for peace, the monstrous stupidity of this whole thing. The Germans are just as unhappy as we are. They are just as miserable as us.”
This kind of lesson was also learned by physical meetings with the enemy. What is meant is obviously not hand-to-hand combat, which was actually far less frequent than we have tended to believe, but encounters with prisoners of war. About German captives a British officer reported that “they were pleasant chaps, who generally behaved like gentlemen.” And in 1916 a Scottish soldier, Joseph Lee, expressed his pity and sympathy for German prisoners as follows:
When first I saw you in the curious street,
Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,
My mad impulse was all to smite and slay,
To spit upon you – tread you ’neath my feet.
But when I saw how each sad soul did greet
My gaze with no sign of defiant frown,
(…)
I knew that we had suffered each as other,
And could have grasped your hand and cried, ‘My brother!’
Sympathy for German prisoners was also reflected in the poem “Liedholz,” written by the British officer Herbert Read. He may have been an officer but he happened to be a convinced anarchist. Read captured a German named Liedholz, and already before they reach the British trenches, “werden de versperringen van formele vijandschap weggenomen,” to use the words of a literary commentator:
Before we reached our wire
He told me he had a wife and three children.
In the dug-out we gave him a whiskey.
(…)
In broken French we discussed
Beethoven, Nietzsche and the International.
In “Memoirs of an Infantry Officer,” published in 1930, Siegfried Sassoon was to write that, during the war, the Germans were generally hated by British citizens, but not, or certainly far less, by British soldiers. He himself, he added, “had nothing against them.” Countless French soldiers likewise failed to develop feelings of hatred with respect to their German “neighbours on the other side.” “We don’t hate the Germans,” wrote a poilu in a letter that was intercepted by the censors.
The French soldier Barthas soon felt sympathy for the German prisoners he escorted on a train travelling from the front to a camp somewhere in southern France, and who were verbally abused by civilians in railway stations. He and his comrades shared the wine and the grapes those same civilians had offered them with their prisoners in a gesture of camaraderie. “Those who has seen the dreadful realities of war,” observes Max Hastings, “recoiled from displays of chauvinism.” The soldiers loathed the civilians, journalists, and politicians who could or would not understand their miserable fate. Conversely, they found it impossible to hate a so-called enemy who shared their misery. “The soldiers of the rival armies felt a far stronger sense of community with each other than with their peoples at home,” writes Hastings.
The “no man’s land” that separated the armies revealed itself to be less wide than the gap that separated the soldiers from the officers of these armies. During the late summer and fall of 1914, two different wars had thus actually started to ravage Europe. First, a highly visible “vertical” war, a conflict between groups of countries, in which all uniformed men of the one side were enemies of all uniformed men on the other side. Second, below the surface, so to speak: a “horizontal” war, an explosion of class conflict, a conflict in which the officers of each army were the enemies of their own subordinates, while a high degree of solidarity united the ordinary soldiers of both sides. In the first war, a geographic (or topographic) frontline separated friend and foe. In the second war, a social gap separated the antagonists.
In the autumn of 1914, when on the western front the “war of movement” petered out and gave way to a “stationary war,” the soldiers discovered that their enemies were human beings just like themselves, with whom they happened to have a lot in common. They were overwhelmingly of a lower-class origin and they all experienced an urgent need to curb the mutual massacre as much as possible. Practices emerged that have been described as “live-and-let-live.” For example, the soldiers often deliberately refrained from firing their weapons, especially during mealtimes, hoping that the enemy would do the same, as usually turned out to be the case. When, during such a pause, a mortar did suddenly get fired, a German voice loudly offered excuses to the British “Tommies,” which prevented an escalation of the firing. When specific orders arrived from “above” to open fire, the men deliberately aimed too high, and the enemy did the same. The artillerists also often opened fire at the same time of the day, aiming at the same target, this in order to give the enemy a chance to withdraw to a safe area.
Quiet sectors thus originated along the front, areas where the casualty rate was noticeably lower than elsewhere. In the vicinity of Ypres the British and Germans thus agreed to let the men on both sides sit on the parapet of their muddy and frequently flooded trenches, in full view of each other, in order to stay dry. Yet another form of “live-and-let-live” consisted in the conclusion of inofficial ceasefires, unauthorized by the superiors, after heavy fighting, which allowed both sides to recuperate the wounded and bury the dead. Those opportunities were often used to start a conversation with the enemy and to exchange small presents such as tobacco and insignia, in other words, to “fraternize.” Occasionally this even involved visits to the trenches on the other side of no man’s land! A German soldier later remembered such a pause in the fighting in France toward the end of November 1914: “French and German soldiers walked around, fully visible in the bright daylight. Nobody fired their weapons. It was said that some brave men even visited the enemy trenches.” The same soldier related how even later, for example in February 1915, “it was silently agreed to leave each other in peace as much as possible.” And a French poilu, Gervais Morillon, described in a letter how on December 12, 1914.
Frenchmen and Germans shook hands after unarmed Germans came out of their trenches, waving a white flag…We reciprocated, and we visited each other’s trenches and exchanged cigars and cigarets, while a few hundred metres further they were shooting at each other.
In some sectors such fraternizations developed into an almost daily routine. In the area of the town of Pont-à-Mousson French as well as German soldiers started in November 1914 to fetch water daily at the Fountain of Father Hilarion (Fontaine du Père Hilarion), a spring situated in a ravine in the middle of no man’s land. Normally, they took turns to go there, and no shots were fired while water was being collected. But it frequently came to meetings and conversations. According to a report that appears to refer to that site, Frenchmen and Germans exchanged “bread, cheese, and wine,” ate together, showed each other pictures of wife and children, amused themselves together, sang songs, played the accordion. That sociability abruptly ended when, on December 7, heavy fighting erupted in the area.
The soldiers were supposed to hate each other, but something very different actually happened: on both sides many men, though admittedly not all, developed a considerable measure of empathy for, and solidarity with, their counterparts on the other side of the no man`s land. The outbreak of war had produced an explosion of nationalism and had dealt a heavy blow to the ideal of internationalist solidarity among proletarians, exactly as the elite had hoped. But it now appeared that the vagaries of war caused the uniformed proletarians to rediscover and re-appreciate internationalist solidarity. The military elite did not approve. Of the war it was indeed expected that it would bury internationalism once and for all instead of resurrecting it. According to Adam Hochschild, such an “outburst of spontaneous solidarity among ordinary, working-class soldiers…outraged higher-ups and militarists on both sides.”
` `The ordinary soldiers were keenly aware that their superiors had their reasons for execrating all forms of “live-and-let-live,” even though it sometimes proved possible to persuade or even force them to participate, as we will see later. It is therefore understandable that these activities often occurred when the officers were not present, which was often the case in the dangerous first lines. The fraternizations were immediately aborted whenever it was signaled that officers were on their way. Barthas describes such an occurrence that took place in rhe Champagne region in the summer of 1916. The French had to inform the German soldiers with whom they were socializing that their officers had become suspicious, so that they had to suspend the meetings. “The Germans were deeply moved and thanked us cordially. Before they disappeared behind their sandbags, oone of them lifted his hand and called out: ‘Frenchmen, Germans, soldiers, we are all comrades!’ Then he made a fist: ‘But the officers, NO.’ “ Barthas commented as follows:
God! That German was right. One should not generalize, but the majority of the officers were morally farther removed from us than those poor devils of German soldiers who are being dragged against their will to the same slaugherhouse.
The officers did indeed abominate any arrangements reflecting solidarity between their own subordinates and the “enemy.” Charles De Gaulle, for example, the progeny of a Catholic bourgeois family in Lille, a young officer during the First World War, condemned each form of “live-and-let-live” as “lamentable.” But there were also many ordinary soldiers who did not approve of such gatherings, since they had internalized the elite’s nationalist and militarist ethos and thus genuinely hated the enemy. Hitler was one of them.
The authorities condemned and prohibited all forms of fraternization and “live-and-let-live” in general. The officers sometimes put snipers to work when they suspected that fraternizations “threatened” to take place. However, the spontaneous truces and fraternizations also reflected the need of all warriors to maintain and display a semblance of humanity even in the middle of an unprecedently bestial war. This explains why officers too sometimes chose to participate. The French soldier Gervais Morillon described how an officier walked at the head of a group of Germans who came out of their trenches. Sometimes superiors with a rank as high as that of colonel participated.
The fact that fraternizations were officially strictly prohibited, apparently made them even more fascinating and appealing to soldiers. It is probably thus that we can interpret a myth that enjoyed an inordinate amount of success among soldiers of both sides throughout the war. Countless soldiers were convinced that, somewhere in the no man’s land, in abandoned trenches and preferably deep under the ground, and thus beyond the reach of projectiles and of officers, beastlike deserters of all armies dwelled together in a kind of permanent state of fraternization. By night they would rob the dead and wounded, seek food, etc. They became such a threat to the troops that eventually the army brass ordered them to be exterminated with gas. This myth was a cocktail of many ingredients. It amounted to a modern version of the Medieval theme of the simultaneously feared and admired “wild man.” But is was also a commentary of the soldiers on their own beastly existence in the trenches and a fantasy about disobedience. Last but not least, it vaguely reflected the soldiers’ solidarity with the men on the other side of the no man’s land, combined with the ardent desire to wave adieu to their own superiors and the miserable war. “An anti-establishment smell was attched to this myth,” writes Tim Cook, it was “a form of disobedience.” Indeed, the generals could prohibit fraternizations in the real world, but they proved powerless in the face of such mythical fraternization – this clearly to the satisfaction of the soldiers who wished to believe in this myth.
In any event, the authorities were also unable to prevent the wave of fraternizations that took place on Christmas Day, 1914. In the vicinity of Ypres, the sector of the western front that was held from September-October of that year by the British and became known to them as “Flanders’ Fields,” it already started on Christmas eve. The Germans decorated trees near their trenches with burning candles and started to sing Christmas songs such as Stille Nacht, “Silent Night.” The British reacted by lighting bonfires and singing English Christmas carols. Then the soldiers on both sides started to loudly call out Christmas wishes. The Germans arranged to deliver a chocolate tart to the British, accompanied by an invitation to conclude a truce. Shortly thereafter soldiers crawled out of their trenches in order to fraternize in no man’s land and in each other’s trenches. That sort of thing continued on Christmas Dayitself, and in some sectors even on Boxing Day. Presents such as tobacco, whiskey, and cigars were exchanged, and the two sides helped each other to bury the dead. In the no man’s land a soccer game was also played, which the British claimed to have won. An English soldier wrote in a letter that this was “the most remarkable Christmas” he had ever experienced, and that he “had had the pleasure to shake hands with numerous Germans,…to smoke together and to enjoy a friendly chat.” A favourite conversation topic was the madness of ta war of which both sides had had more than enough.
Between the British and the Germans the unofficial Christmas truce affected virtually the entire front of approximately forty kilometers along which they faced each other. In some sectors of that front the truce dragged on until New Year’s Day. Some historians claim that the Anglo-German fraternizations of the end of December 1914 were nothing less than “massive.” But on Christmas Day similar truces and fraternizations also occurred between the Germans and the French. Barthas confided to his diary that, in their sector, the morning of Christmas witnessed “singing and shouting and the firing of flares” and that no shots were fired. And it is known that poilus met boches to sing and exchange tobacco, cognac, postcards, newspapers, and other presents in the vicinity of Soissons and in villages of Picardy such as Cappy and Foucaucourt. A poilu later remembered that
The boches signalled us and indicated that they wanted to talk to us. I approached to three or four meters from their trench in order to talk to three of them who had surfaced…They asked that we would refrain all day and night from shooting and said that they themselves would not fire one single shot. They had enough of the war, they said, they were married and had nothing against the French, only against the English. They gave me a box of cigars and a package of sigarets, and I gave them a copy of [the magazine] Le Petit Parisien in exchange for a German newspaper. Then I withdrew to the French trench, where many men were keen to try my German tobacco. Our neighbours on the other side kept their word, even better than we did. Not even one single rifle shot was fired.
There were many other sites along the front where groups of French soldiers visited the German trenches in order to enjoy a drink, or where Germans came to offer cigars to the Franzosen. Christmas carols were performed in both languages, for example Minuit chrétien and O Tannenbaum. Belgians and Germans, who faced each other in the lowlands of the Yser River estuary, allegedly also fraternized on Christmas 1914. The Germans agreed to mail letters from Belgian soldiers to family members in occupied Belgium. At the eastern front it also came to fraternizations. The Russians met their Austrian-Hungarian enemies in the no man’s land in Galicia and exchanged the usual tobacco, but also schnapps, bread, and meat.
The superiors were far from enchanged with the Christmas truces, but could not prevent them. On the British side an officer rushed to the scene with this intention, apparantly from the safety of the rear, but he arrived too late. His men had already started to socialize with Germans in the no man’s land. He could only resign himself to the fait accompli. He himself and a handful of other officers ended up joining their subordinates and went to greet the German officiers. One of the latter ordered beer to be fetched for everyone, and the officers courteously drank to each other’s health. A British officer reciprocated by treating those present with pieces of a traditional English plum pudding. It was finally agreed that the inofficial truce would last until midnight, so that everyoone would have to be back in their own trenches by midnight. The “damage” done by the fraternizations, at least from the viewpoint of the superiors, was thus limited somewhat, at least in that sector.
The higher the rank of the superiors, the less they liked this strange Christmas idyll. The British commander in chief, Generaal French, who on Christmas Day enjoyed a gourmet dinner, featuring turtle soup, with as digestif a brandy from 1820 offered by the Rotschilds, issued a specific order to nip in the bud any future attempts to fraternize. One year later, the artillery would be made to fire into no man’s land all day, starting on Christmas Eve, in order to prevent any meetings there. However, it proved impossible to prevent fraternizations to occur here and there and from time to time.
In the 1980s, the strange events of Christmas 1914 inspired the song Christmas in the Trenches, 1914, written and put to music by the American folksinger John McCutcheon. It features the following lines:
’T was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung,
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.
(…)
There’s someone coming towards us!’ the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one lone figure coming from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man’s land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave ’em hell.
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men.
(…)
’T was Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they’d kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone for evermore.
My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I I’ve learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
Comments Off on Remember World War I, The 1914 Christmas Truce. “The Power of Peace in the Time of War”. In 2023, “Let It Happen Again” in Solidarity with Palestine. Abolish All Wars
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First published on December 27, 2022
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I was born into a Palestinian Muslim family where celebrating Christmas was always a natural practice for us.
From an early age, I was often told “Jesus is Palestinian, just like you” – a fact that would give me tremendous pride.
This ecumenical outlook was something my Palestinian refugee parents had instilled in me. Before the Nakba, they were living in Jerusalem and its surrounding towns.
According to the Christian tradition, that is also the place where the resurrection took place.
Not far from their home was the Church of Holy Sepulchre, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. To this day, as a faithful Muslim, I have passed on what I learned from my family to my children.
It is impossible to understand Palestinian national identity without recognising its integral Christian component that exists side by side with the Muslim component.
Palestinians suffer equally
Palestinian Christians have not just been an integral part of our nation but also our liberation movement. Israel knows that well: under Israeli colonial-settlement policies, racist legislation and daily attacks, Palestinians of all faiths are subjected to the same human rights violations.
This goes for the land and the people. On one end, Israel continues its racist policy of preventing Palestinian family reunification while making it almost impossible for thousands of Palestinians and foreign passport holders to even visit Palestine, let alone invest, study, teach, or volunteer.
On the other, it has pushed for the expansion of its colonial-settlement projects including in East Jerusalem in an attempt to change its Palestinian identity.
Additionally, settlement projects such as the construction of “Giv’at Hamatos” around Mar Elias Monastery between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the transformation of church property in Jaffa Gate into new colonial settlements, as well as the attempts at turning the Mount of Olives into an Israeli national park, among others.
Such acts of aggression are part of an ongoing process of annexation that, in light of the Jewish supremacist ideology of some of those leading Israel, will not stop until their “Greater Israel” is consolidated, with full annexation over the occupied West Bank.
Under this perspective, there will be continued attempts to change the status quo of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a move that is rejected by Palestinians, Arabs and the international community.
Such attempts have been understood by the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem as an attack against the concept of the status quo that has provided some of the most important Christian and Muslim religious sites in Palestine with clear regulations for centuries – way before the State of Israel was even established.
Despite violations committed against our people, we shall not surrender or give up on the message of hope delivered from a humble grotto in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. We also cannot be blind to the realities of the ongoing violations of Palestinians’ rights since the Nakba 75 years ago.
Keeping hope alive
Changing course is possible. However, it would need a significant change in how things have been dealt with up to this point.
The Israeli government must halt all unilateral actions and recognise and implement its obligations under signed agreements and international law.
The European countries, the US and others that believe in the importance of protecting the two-state solution must immediately recognise the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital and accept its full membership in the United Nations.
It is worrying to see how certain parties that claim to care about Christianity worldwide have chosen to remain silent on the steps that Israel is taking on the ground; steps which are directly affecting the present and future of Christianity in Palestine, particularly in and around occupied Jerusalem.
Those same “friends of Israel” that celebrate their “pilgrimages” should think a bit about the millions of Palestinians, including hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Christians that are banned by the occupying power, Israel, from celebrating Christmas at their holy sites.
We will continue to celebrate Christmas in Palestine, the birthplace of Christianity. It is part of our identity and our responsibility to preserve our traditions that certainly include celebrating Christmas, which I love to consider a Palestinian gift to the world.
Part of our resilience is to keep our cultural heritage alive, to feel proud of our traditions, and to make sure, no matter the years of exile, oppression and occupation, that our people protect their right to live in freedom and independence, peace and prosperity, like all peoples worldwide.
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Ambassador Majdi Khaldi is a member of the Palestinian National Council and the Senior Diplomatic Advisor to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.