Tag: israel

Spain cancels arms deal with Israeli company worth billions

The Spanish government has canceled a contract to buy ammunition for its Civil Guard police force from an Israeli defense company, Madrid announced in a statement on 29 October.

“The Spanish government maintains the commitment not to sell weapons to the Israeli state since the armed conflict broke out in the territory of Gaza,” Spain’s Interior Ministry announced. 

“Although in this case it is an acquisition of ammunition, the Interior Ministry has initiated the administrative procedure to cancel the purchase,” it added. 

It also said Israeli firms will be excluded from any outstanding tenders. 

The Cadena SER radio station reported earlier that Spain’s Civil Guard police force had agreed to a sale of over 15 million nine-millimeter rounds for $6.48 million from Guardian LTD Israel. 

The announcement comes the week after the Spanish Defense Ministry told local media that it had halted the purchase of weapons from Israel. The European country had said it would stop arms sales to Israel after the start of the war on 7 October 2023.

This decision marks the first signal that the Spanish pledge will include purchases from Israel and not just sales.

Spain has been vocal about Israel’s genocide and continuous war crimes in the Gaza Strip, as well as in Lebanon. 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the EU on 14 October to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel. 

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Why the Democrats were Israel’s perfect partners in genocide

Over the last year, we have witnessed President Joe Biden elevate the U.S.-Israel “special relationship” to new heights. From replenishing Israel’s weapons stocks and shielding it from accountability on the international stage, to deploying U.S. assets and personnel in Israel’s defense, the Biden administration has gone above and beyond to ensure that Israel not only could sustain its unprecedented assault on Gaza, but that it wouldn’t have to bear the full cost of war.

Biden went into his reelection campaign wrestling with Donald Trump for the title of “Israel’s best friend” — a grotesque race to the bottom that has become a tradition during U.S. election seasons. So when the president ultimately decided to drop out, some were hopeful that Vice President Kamala Harris would release us from this downward spiral. They were soon disappointed.

Media outlets eagerly insisted that Harris seemed to show “greater understanding and empathy for Palestinians,” and surmised that such a difference in perspective might lead to a change in policy. But in the months since assuming the head of the Democratic ticket, Harris has made it clear that she is ready and eager to carry on Biden’s catastrophic legacy for the next four years.

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Israel’s parliament votes to ban UNRWA, the UN’s Palestine aid agency

The Israeli parliament has approved two controversial bills to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating on Israeli territory and areas under Israel’s control.

The legislation, passed on Monday, risks collapsing the already fragile aid distribution process at a moment when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening and Israel is under increased pressure to allow in aid supplies.

The ban is set to take effect in 90 days and lead to the closure of UNRWA’s premises in the occupied Palestinian territory – the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem – and Gaza, effectively paralysing the agency’s ability to fulfil its mandate as set out by the UN General Assembly in 1949.

UNRWA is the leading agency running humanitarian aid in Gaza, which has been devastated by more than a year of Israel’s war. Hundreds of UNRWA workers have been killed in Israeli strikes, making it the deadliest conflict for UN workers.

The first law, which bans UNRWA from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel, passed 92-10 following a fiery debate between supporters of the bill and its opponents, primarily members of Arab parliamentary parties.

The second legislation, which declares UNRWA a “terror” group and bans Israeli officials from any contact with the agency, passed 87-9.

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INTEL DROPS: Huge Iranian Geopolitical Error on Alliance with HAMAS’ Terrorists stealthily led by CIA-Mossad

An Iranian reader wrote that Tehran does not have nuclear warheads but is satisfied with the powerful Intercontinental hypersonic ballistic missiles, as Fattah.

Those that have already heavily hit American bases in Iraq on 2020 as revenge for the shameful assassination of General Qasem Soleimani (the commander of Quds Force, Iranian special unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – IRGC or Pasdaran), ordered by the then US President Donald Trump (in memory of those who think he is the candidate for the next November elections for Peace…), despite the Iranian late general defeated the Isis in Syria and Iraq.

All the sources I have, as well as many official signals that have been leaked, lead one to believe that Tehran already has at least some nukes.

It would be an act of ignorant presumption to be able to build them thanks to the uranium enrichment program that has been increasingly strengthened in recent years and decide not to do them at a time when the ONLY REAL DETERRENCE in the world military field is precisely the NUCLEAR POWERS.

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Israel fails with ultra-Orthodox draft as only four percent show up for service

Less than four percent of the 3,000 Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Israelis who received recruitment orders since July to join the military have done so, Israeli army radio reported on 28 October.

The head of the Israel Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, criticized the Haredi community for its failure to participate in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon.

Lieberman criticized the government for failing to enforce conscription orders, stressing that “the army is violating the law” and that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “must ensure that the law is applied to everyone.”

“The government has extended regular service by four months and reserve service by a year,” Lieberman told Yedioth Ahronoth, adding: “No more quotas, targets and exemptions – one people, one conscription,” stressing that “the whole story of quotas must end.”

Members of the Haredi community who are studying at Jewish religious schools are currently exempt under the law from army service. In practice, the exemption has extended even to Haredi men not actively engaged in religious study.

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox argue that by studying the Torah, its young men are doing a greater service to the state of Israel than by fighting.

The Haredi parties in Israel’s Knesset threaten to block the passage of regular laws, including the general budget, until the law exempting Haredim from military service is enacted.

The Haredi parties said that no law not related to war would be promoted until the conscription law was enacted and the budget for housing religious students was settled.

The Israeli media reported that Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir was siding with the Haredi Jews, saying: “Against coercion, for military service.”

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Israel traps 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza extermination zone

Israeli tanks thrust deeper on Monday into northern Gaza, trapping around 100,000 civilians, while the air force carried out airstrikes that brought the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since last October above 43,000.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were stuck in Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies as a result of the siege imposed by Israeli forces.

The emergency service said it was forced to end its operations because of the three-week-long Israeli assault on Gaza’s north.

The Israeli military says it seeks to destroy Hamas and claimed it had captured 100 “suspected Hamas militants” during a raid of the Kamal Adwan hospital in the Jabalia camp in recent days.

Hospital officials said that Israeli forces detained members of the hospital staff, patients, and Palestinians sheltering in the hospital complex.  

Since the start of the war, Israel has claimed that Hamas uses hospitals as command centers as a pretext to deliberately destroy Gaza’s hospitals and health system.

Israeli forces carried out multiple airstrikes across Gaza on Monday, killing five people and bringing the number killed by Israel during the war on Gaza to more than 43,000.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that an Israeli drone struck a group of people in the Beit Lahia area Monday, killing one and injuring several others.

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Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic who compared Trump to Hitler was a prison guard at IDF facility known for abusing prisoners

The Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic who recently compared former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler has a disturbing past as a prison guard for the Israel Defense Forces at a facility that is known for torturing prisoners and sexually abusing them.

Jeffrey Goldberg penned the piece entitled “Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’” published earlier this week. It was filled with claims such as: “Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice.”

Even more outrageously, Goldberg went on to claim that Trump grew “more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”

Trump spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer has categorically denied this, writing in an email that Trump “never said this.”

While this attack came directly from Goldberg, there has been a pattern of anti-Trump articles under his leadership, including recent examples such as “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini” and “Hypocrisy, Spinelessness, and the Triumph of Donald Trump.”

It’s all part of a smear campaign from an editor who doesn’t exactly have a spotless past.

Goldberg, who is Jewish and was raised by “very left-wing parents,” is a dual American-Israeli citizen who left college to move to Israel and serve for the IDF during the First Intifada.

The facility where he worked, Ketziot prison camp, was a holding place where Palestinians who were arrested for participating in the uprising were held. The prison camp was condemned by human rights groups during the time Goldberg served there for violating the Geneva Convention.

Goldberg later recounted in his book that he observed one of his fellow IDF prison guards beating up a Palestinian prisoner after he talked back to him. According to Goldberg, he did try to stop the guard from abusing the man but then later helped him cover it up, writing: “’He fell,’ I lied.”

After returning to the U.S., he became one of the most well-known reporters on the Middle East, working for outlets such as the Washington Post, Slate, New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker before ending up at The Atlantic. He has interviewed everyone from Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah to Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton.

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What Explains Israel’s Surprisingly Restrained Retaliation Against Iran?

It’s becoming very difficult for Israel and Iran to balance their own hawks’ demands, domestic public perception, and the perception of their opponent’s policymakers (which include hawkish elements).

Israel finally retaliated against Iran on Friday for Iran’s own prior retaliation against Israel earlier this month, which the Islamic Republic carried out against the self-professed Jewish State in an attempt to restore deterrence, in the second round of their dangerous tit-for-tat that first began in spring. Unlike Iran’s retaliation against Israel, Israel’s retaliation against Iran wasn’t widely filmed. It was also surprisingly restrained despite lots of earlier hype and concerns about an uncontrollable escalation.

No critical infrastructure, including Iran’s sole nuclear reactor and its oil refineries, was directly targeted but the New York Times cited unnamed sources from both countries to report that Israel destroyed surrounding air defenses in order to leave Iran open to a more painful attack if it retaliates to this one. Axios also reported that Israel warned Iran about its attack in advance via third parties in an attempt to deter retaliation that could risk everything spiraling into a larger conflict depending on how it plays out.

Iran announced that four of its soldiers had been killed and reaffirmed its right to respond. A high-ranking source reportedly told Tasnim that Iran is ready to do precisely that, though Sky News Arabia cited an anonymous source to report that Iran informed Israel via third parties that it won’t do so. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel does indeed expect retaliation, but it might be carried out via Iran’s regional allies in the Resistance Axis. It’s therefore unclear what’ll happen next.

In any case, Israel’s surprisingly restrained retaliation deserves to be analyzed. Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu’s office denied reports that Israel changed its targets under US pressure to avoid an uncontrollable escalation like what could have followed if it hit Iran’s critical infrastructure. Even so, it’s difficult to imagine that the US’ resistance to this didn’t play a role in Israel’s retaliation. After all, in the event of a massive Iranian retaliation, Israel would depend on US support then and afterwards.

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Holocaust Survivor Absolutely Wrecks Kamala Harris for Pretending Donald Trump Is Hitler

The Democrats’ billionth attempt to paint former President Donald Trump as the second coming of Adolf Hitler may have backfired in a big way. In a powerful video clip circulating on social media, Jerry Wartski, a Holocaust survivor, blasted Vice President Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats for constantly comparing Trump to Hitler and his supporters to Nazis.

Harris and others, in recent days, have ramped up their rhetoric about Trump and his supporters being fascists seeking to take over the country and oppress marginalized communities. Wartski, a 94-year-old Jewish man who was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, explained why this rhetoric is an insult to those who experienced Nazi Germany.

“Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was nine years old. He murdered my parents and most of our family. I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes,” he stated, rolling up his sleeve to show his prisoner number tattooed on his arm. “For [Harris] to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my 75 years living in the United States.”

Wartski continued, saying Harris “owes my parents and everybody else who was murdered by Hitler an apology for repeating this lie.”

When asked why Jewish people should support Trump, he replied, “Because he’s a mensch. I believe that President Trump is definitely going to be good for Israel because everything that he’s done up to now was in favor.”

He concluded: “He has always stood with the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”

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Israel attacks north Gaza’s last working hospital after carpet-bombing Jabalia

Israeli forces stormed the last operational hospital in the besieged northern Gaza on Friday after laying waste to a densely packed refugee camp in a bombing campaign that killed scores of Palestinians.

The attack on the Kamal Adwan hospital, located in Beit Lahia, was launched around 2am local time, shortly after Israeli fighter jets carpet-bombed residential buildings in the nearby Jabalia camp and southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

The assault on the hospital began with air strikes that hit the hospital and its courtyards, including the medical oxygen generator, said Dr. Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza. 

The bombing of the oxygen supply led to the death of children in the hospital and wounded medical staff, Bursh said.

“Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks… which are shelling the [hospital] building,” Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital, said in a video published on his social media pages shortly after the bombing. Contact with him has been lost since. 

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