Tag: israel

US B-52 Bomber Flies With Israeli Jets Over Eastern Mediterranean

A US B-52 Stratrofortress bomber flew over the eastern Mediterranean Sea on March 4, marking the third US flyover of the Middle East in the past month, shows of force that are meant as threats toward Iran and its allies in the region.

“Israeli F-35i and F-15i aircraft flew alongside an American US B-52 strategic bomber,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Thursday. “During the flight, the forces practiced operational coordination between the two militaries to enhance their ability to address various regional threats.”

US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that it conducted a “Bomber Task Force Mission in the Middle East.” It said the B-52, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, took off from a base in the UK and flew across Europe on its way to the Middle East.

According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, the US bomber “orbited off the coast of Israel,” meaning it likely flew near the besieged Gaza Strip.

The flight came just two weeks after the US sent two B-52 bombers over the Middle East on February 20. CENTCOM said the two bombers “flew across Europe and six partner countries in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility during their mission, which included aerial refueling and training missions at ranges.”

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Israel Cuts Electricity to Gaza, Ramping Up Collective Punishment

Israel on Sunday said it was cutting off electricity to the Gaza Strip as it ramps up the collective punishment of the civilian population to pressure Hamas to release Israeli hostages, violating the ceasefire deal reached in January.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen made the announcement, saying he instructed the Israel Electric Corporation to immediately stop selling electricity to power stations in Gaza.

“We will employ all the tools available to us so that all the hostages will return, and we will ensure that Hamas won’t be in Gaza on the ‘day after,’” Cohen said. The move is expected to impact Gaza’s water supply since electricity powers desalination plants that produce drinking water.

Since March 2, Israel has blocked the entry of aid, medicine, fuel, and all other goods into Gaza. The UN’s World Food Program has warned that it’s running out of food supplies in Gaza, and Palestinians report a sharp rise in prices since Israel imposed the total siege.

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Rubio Revokes Student Visa For Alien Who Was Cited For Criminal Behavior in Connection with Hamas Protests

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the State Department has revoked the first visa for an alien cited for criminal behavior in connection with “Hamas-supporting disruptions.”

This marks the first such case since President Trump’s order to expel foreign Hamas supporters studying in the U.S. on student visas.

Since the Hamas terror attacks on civilians in Israel on October 7, Hamas sympathizers have taken to the streets and taken over college campuses to cheerlead for the terrorist organization.

In a fact sheet issued by the White House, President Trump made it clear that terror supporters who are guest in America are not welcome.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.”

“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

Reporter Bill Melugin reports the individual cited was “a university student,” and “ICE will proceed with removing this person from the country.”

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State Department To Use AI To Revoke Visas of Students Who ‘Appear Pro-Hamas’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-driven effort to revoke the visas of foreigners in the US who “appear pro-Hamas” in a crackdown targeting pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Axios reported on Thursday.

The report said the effort will involve AI-assisted reviews of social media accounts of tens of thousands of foreign students in the US on visas that will look for “evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.”

The language in the report suggests that any foreign students who attend pro-Palestine demonstrations or express sympathy for Palestinians online could be swept up in the crackdown since opponents of the Israeli siege on Gaza or US military support for Israel are often labeled “pro-Hamas.”

Civil liberty groups have strongly criticized President Trump’s promises to deport foreign students who attend pro-Palestine protests since the speech of foreigners inside the US is supposed to be protected under the First Amendment.

“If we open the door to expelling foreign students who peacefully express ideas out of step with the current administration about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we should expect it to swing wider to encompass other viewpoints too,” Sarah McLaughlin, senior scholar at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said in an op-ed for MSNBC in January.

“Today it may be alleged ‘Hamas sympathizers’ facing threats of deportation for their political expression. Who could it be in four years? In eight?” McLaughlin added.

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Yves Engler: My 5 Days in Jail as Political Prisoner for Criticizing Israel

I recently spent five days in jail for social media posts critical of Israel and police charges brought against me. It was an unpleasant, though interesting, experience that culminated in a small victory for free speech and Palestine campaigning.

On Thursday February 20 at 9:30 a.m. 30 rallied at the detention centre where I turned myself in for charges related to ‘harassing’ a Zionist influencer and the Montreal police. I told the crowd the charges and conditions brought against me were police and judicial harassment.

More than a dozen police were on hand to monitor those accompanying me at the detention centre. As I crossed over into the police precinct, we chanted “Free Palestine”.

Two inspectors were waiting for me near the door. I was searched twice and only allowed one shirt and pant. They also made me remove my glasses, which was disorienting.

The police inspectors sought to question me, but I refused to talk. I have no problem ‘incriminating’ myself by speaking publicly about state/Zionist abuses, but it should serve a political aim.

Another officer asked the two inspectors if I was to be released, which is common when you present yourself to be arrested. Instead, I was sent to the detention area because the police were seeking stifling conditions for my release and wanted to punish me. There was a lot of yelling from those locked up in adjacent cells. There was nothing except for two benches and a toilet (no seat) with water fountain in the cell. I slept using my boots as a pillow. Five hours and a bad oatmeal cookie later I appeared before a judge by video. The Crown objected to my release, so I was sent back to my cell where I exercised and played imaginary football with a cup. They gave me another oatmeal cookie and bad cheese sandwich. Around 7 p.m. a bunch of us were given our jackets, handcuffed and sent to the Bordeaux prison. Initially, the paddy wagon induced a sense of claustrophobia and it was cold. A man next to me and someone in the wagon ahead repeatedly yelled for heat, which made for a bizarre experience. It was nice to have my first conversation in 10 hours with a Newfoundlander related to former NHL player Michael Ryder, who I played with briefly when I tried out for the Hull Olympiques in the Quebec Junior Hockey League.

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Jailing Canadians Is Just One Way Government Supports Israel

Canada supports Israel’s violence and apartheid in innumerable ways. Targeting critics of Israel has long been a way Canada assists Palestinian dispossession.

I was recently arrested for social media posts critical of Israel and spent five days in jail to win the right to discuss social media influencer Dahlia Kurtz who pursued charges against me. My experience fits a long history of Canadian police and intelligence services targeting critics of Israel and includes close ties to their Israeli counterparts.

Over the past 16 months Canadian authorities have responded to the popular uprising against Israel’s horrors in Gaza by greatly escalating their assaults on critics of Israel. As I’ve written or discussed, dozens of individuals have been jailed or had their residences raided. In the most egregious abuse of state authority, Ottawa listed the grassroots Vancouver-based Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoners Network a terrorist organization.

While the suppression has escalated in parallel with the upsurge in activism, it’s been going on for a long time. In recent decades the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) has demonized and targeted critics of Israel. In one of the rare cases that was publicized, at least seven friends of Stefan Christoff were visited by CSIS agents over an 8-month period in 2009 and 2010. They arrived unannounced early in the morning and asked detailed and sometimes menacing questions about the Montreal activist’s work with Artists Against Apartheid or trips to the Middle East.

As Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) engaged in negotiations during the 1990s many Palestinian Canadians accused CSIS of intimidating opponents of the Oslo accords. CSIS allegedly offered cash in exchange for information on those opposed to the PLO’s compromise. A 1994 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs article explained, “CSIS is carrying out a political agenda by targeting only those who are aligned with non-Fatah groups of the PLO — those who oppose the accord signed by the PLO. More than 20 PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] supporters have come forward alleging that they have been interrogated by CSIS.”

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Rubio Expedites Shipment of $4 Billion in Military Aid for Israel

On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had expedited the shipment of $4 billion in military aid for Israel, a strong show of support for Israel as it is threatening to restart its genocidal war on Gaza.

“I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel,” Rubio said in a statement.

He claimed that President Biden had imposed a “partial arms embargo” on Israel, although Biden provided more military aid to Israel in a single year than any US president in history.

“The decision to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo, which wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel, is yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump,” Rubio said.

Rubio said that since President Trump came into office on January 20, his administration has approved $12 billion in arms deals for Israel. “The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats,” he said.

The statement came a day after the statement department approved three separate arms deals for Israel worth nearly $3 billion, which includes a huge number of 2,000-pound bombs. The biggest sale, which will likely be funded by US military aid, includes 35,529 MK-84 or BLU-117 2,000-pound bombs and 4,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads.

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ICC Urged to Investigate Allegations of War Crimes in Gaza Involving Biden & Blinken

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been requested to conduct an investigation into allegations of war crimes involving President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for their role in facilitating Israel’s genocide of the native Palestinian population in Gaza.

This marks a significant precedent, as it is the first instance in which a United States-based entity has sought a judicial inquiry into a former president’s potential involvement in purported war crimes and crimes against humanity…

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) published a 172-page report outlining their request and communications to the International Criminal Court (ICC), in which they have alleged former President Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – played an accessorial role in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

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Manifest Destiny in the Histories of the US and Israel

For Palestine and Palestinians, 14 May 1948 was a fateful day in its 4,000-year history.   It was also historically pivotal for the United States.  Paraphrasing British author, George Orwell, it is essential to rediscover the past in order to gain control of the present and save the future.

Eleven minutes after David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency, declared Israel a state in May 1948, President Harry S. Truman recognized his claim, giving legitimacy to Ben-Gurion’s bogus declaration.

In 1947, thirty-three members of the newly-created United Nations General Assembly (57 then) voted in favor of Resolution 181, recommending the partition of historic Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian states.  Truman, undeterred by the fact that the UN Security Council had not voted on the resolution, which would have made it binding on all members, threw the full weight of the United States behind it.

Truman’s decision to position Israel as a citadel of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East has boomeranged and has resulted in the United States being despised in much of the world.  Rather than protect U.S. interests in the region as planned, Israel has imperiled them.

As we have seen since the 7 October 2023 insurrection, there are no limits on U.S.-Israeli brutality and on the suffering they have been willing to inflict on the Palestinians in order to preserve their imperium in the region.

Imperial arrogance on the part of American presidents is, of course, not new.  It reached new heights, however, when President Donald J. Trump threatened to take over, “to own” Gaza and remove (euphemism for ethnically cleanse) Palestinians from their ancestral land to foreign destinations. The Zionist colonizing baton in Gaza would essentially be passed to American imperialists.

Trump revealed his illegal plan for Gaza during a recent (11 February) White House press conference.  As humiliated King Abdullah of Jordan looked on, he said:  “We’re going to hold it; we’re going to cherish it… It’s fronting on the sea. It’s going to be a great economic development job.” When asked by a reporter under what authority are you permitted to take the sovereign territory of Gaza; he smugly responded, “U.S. authority.”

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Turkey Warns That Netanyahu Will Resume Gaza War Once All Captives Released

The first phase of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire is coming to a close, with Hamas Thursday night expected to handover the bodies of four more deceased Israelis. This time there won’t be a handover ceremony, after outraged Israeli officials threatened it could collapse the deal and all progress made.

Negotiations for the second phase don’t really appear to have gotten of the ground as yet. The first phase took effect Jan.19 – and has resulted in the release of 25 living hostages by Hamas, as well as the bodies of four more.

The deal called for the exchange of some 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners held by Israel. Over 60 Israeli hostages still believed to be held in Israel, but some half are suspected to be dead at this point.

Conditions in the Gaza Strip continue to deteriorate amid winter conditions. “Sila Abdul Qader is the seventh child confirmed to have died from the cold in Gaza in just 24 hours,” Al Jazeera reports Thursday.

Meanwhile, Turkey is warning that once Israel gets all its citizens back, Prime Minister Netanyahu will simply resume the war, also as the White House has been vocalizing plans for a total displacement of the Palestinian civilian population there:

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says he fears Israel will resume the war on Gaza after all the captives are released.

“As it is known, an ethnic cleansing war was witnessed by the whole world; almost 60,000 civilian Palestinians were killed, most of them were women and children. This must never reoccur,” Fidan said.

“However, it is feared that once all Israeli captives are released, Netanyahu will resume the war. There are deep concerns in this respect and they give rise to constant threats within the region,” he said.

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