Tag: israel

‘People’s Arms Embargo’ at Travis Air Force Base

Seventy-five protesters gathered under threatening skies at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California at 6:30 am on Wednesday, November 20. Their mission: to speak out and briefly interrupt the shipment of weapons to Israel from this air base.

For 90 minutes, they showed banners such as “Stop Arms for War Crimes” and “Stop Travis: No US Weapons for Genocide. ” They delayed traffic on the busy six-lane roadway into the base by frequently pressing the button to allow pedestrian crossing.  Fliers were handed out to receptive drivers. The flyers asked “Why are we blocking access to Travis Air Base and messing up your day?”.  It was explained that while November 20 is World Children’s Day, weapons to Israel from Travis are being used to kill children. Bombs loaded onto planes at Travis and other US air bases have killed many thousands of children.

David Vidmar grew up on Travis Air Base. He said, “I am participating in the People’s Arms Embargo to honor my father as he would have been sickened by the indiscriminate targeting, slaughter and starvation of Gazan children and women in Israel’s genocide.”

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Russia boosts presence near Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to help Syria ‘prevent escalations’

Moscow has reinforced posts located in the countryside of Daraa and Quneitra governorates near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where Tel Aviv has revived efforts to build a ‘separation wall’  along the disengagement zone similar to those erected along the borders with Lebanon, Egypt, Gaza, and throughout the West Bank.

Last week, the UN accused Israel of violating a 50-year-old ceasefire agreement with Syria by starting construction work on the wall. Satellite imagery published by AP confirmed extensive construction and road paving extending for 7.5 kilometers along the Alpha Line, with armored vehicles and tanks providing security. 

Israeli Knesset member and former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman warned last month: “If Syria continues to be used as a logistical base for our enemies, we will simply seize the Syrian part of Mount Hermon and will not relinquish it until further notice.”

The Israeli violations in occupied Syrian land come as the Russian and Syrian armies recently increased joint operations across the country, targeting western-backed extremist groups.

“Russian forces are conducting aerial and ground monitoring to enhance security, support displaced residents’ return, and maintain stability,” Al-Akhbar reports, adding that the region “previously housed Israeli-backed militants” before a Russia-brokered disengagement deal returned control to the government in Damascus.

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‘Legacy of Horror’- White House Staffers Slam Biden’s Policy towards Israel

Around 20 White House staffers have criticized United States President Joe Biden for not enforcing an ultimatum on Israel to take “concrete measures” to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or face potential restrictions on arms provisions, Politico reported.  

“You are running out of time to do the right thing, but decisive action could save precious lives in the next two months,” the staffers wrote, according to a letter obtained by the American news outlet.  

According to Politico, the staffers who signed the letter – on condition of anonymity for fear of career retribution – work across the White House executive office of the president but are not directly involved in Middle East policy.  

“One thing that drew me into this was legacy,” a senior White House staffer who signed the letter told Politico, stressing that, “if the course is continued, it will be a legacy of horror.”  

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UK Arms Exports Find Loopholes in Israeli Embargo

Britain has continued exporting components for use by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) because of gaps in the government’s restrictions on arms sales, it can be revealed.

At least two shipments of parts for IAF planes have been dispatched from Britain since September, when Labour suspended some arms export licences due to human rights concerns.

The information is contained within cargo documents reviewed by The Ditch and Declassified.

The documents show how items were dispatched by U.K.-based engineering firm Martin-Baker to an Elbit Systems factory in Karmiel, Israel, in October.

Martin-Baker specialises in ejection seats, which are found in military planes across the West, including in the cockpit of the IAF’s T-6 training fleet.

These aircraft are maintained by Elbit – Israel’s largest arms firm – under a $38m contract.

The revelation shows how British arms exports are continuing to support the IAF — a key player in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza — because Labour has not implemented a complete embargo.

Emily Apple, a spokesperson for Campaign Against Arms Trade, told Declassified: 

“The current arms suspension is a farce. This government is making up the rules as it goes, making a mockery of international law and prioritising the profits of arms dealers over Palestinian lives.

“There can be no excuses and no exceptions. The U.K. must impose an immediate, full, two-way arms embargo”.

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‘Record number’ of resistance drone attacks target Israel in November

About 1,300 drones were launched against Israel between 1 and 13 November in at least 40 different attacks from the different factions of the Resistance Axis, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 News.

Noting that drone attacks have become “a routine matter,” the Hebrew broadcaster said the army recorded a rate of 3.3 drone attacks per day since the end of October. This is a marked spike from the rate of 2.77 daily attacks in October and two per day in September when Tel Aviv expanded its war against Lebanon.

Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has launched daily drone attacks against Israel for the past several weeks, sparking chaos in the northern city of Haifa and reaching targets as far as 145 kilometers deep.

On Thursday night, a drone exploded in the Eliakim area near Haifa, where Hezbollah says its forces targeted the “Eliakim base, which houses training camps under the Israeli army’s Northern Command … with a squadron of attack drones,  achieving precise hits.”

Footage shared on social media shows another drone continuing toward Tel Aviv. 

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UN Committee Says Israel Is Carrying Out a Genocide, HRW Says Israel Is Committing War Crimes

On Thursday, a report published by a special UN committee said Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” while Human Rights Watch released a report saying Israel was committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing.

The UN report, released by the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, said Israel has used “criminal means” to achieve its military goals, including the use of starvation as a weapon.

“This included intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury, using starvation as a method of warfare, and intentionally directing attacks against civilians,” the report reads.

The committee, which was formed in 1968, also discussed the occupied West Bank, where it said Israel has an “apartheid system of injustice.” The report said the “killing of and serious bodily or mental harm caused to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are violations under international law.”

The HRW report focused on Israel’s forcible displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. “Israeli authorities have caused massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” HRW said. “There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times.”

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The West Buries a Genocide – by Making Victims of Israel’s Football Thugs

If the West was really worried about Europe’s Nazi past, it would be better advised to stop stoking an all-too-real new antisemitism: incitement against Arab and Muslim minorities

There has never been a harder time to do political and media analysis than right now. Each day, the western establishment unmoors itself further from reality. Its priorities are so inverted, so obscene, that the most appropriate response is ridicule.

The latest example was the reaction late last week to violent clashes in Amsterdam before and after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local team Ajax.

The ridiculous framing from western politicians, assisted by mainstream media outlets, was that the visiting Israelis were “hunted down” in what supposedly amounted to a “pogrom” by Dutch street gangs, comprising mainly youths of Arab and Muslim heritage.

According to this official narrative, the violence on Amsterdam’s streets was further proof of a rising tide of antisemitism sweeping Europe and imported from the Middle East. More, the attacks were presented as having disturbing echoes of Europe’s Nazi past.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden claimed the Israeli fans faced “despicable” attacks that “echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted”.

Israel, of course, helpfully stoked this idea by promising “emergency flights” to “rescue” its football fans – seeking to evoke memories of its airlifts in the 1980s of Ethiopian Jews to escape famine and reports of persecution, or possibly of the 1975 airlift of US embassy staff from Saigon.

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Israel ignores Biden ‘ultimatum’ over Gaza aid, but U.S. will continue sending weapons regardless

Last month the Biden administration announced that the Israeli government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza or else the country could lose access to some U.S. weapons.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin established the deadline in a letter to Israel’s ministers, in which it laid out 16 conditions that Israel would have to meet. “Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for U.S. policy,” it read.

When asked about the move during a press briefing State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller reiterated the need for Israel to act.

“The bottom line is we felt it was appropriate, if we are making clear to the Government of Israel that there are these changes that need to be implemented, that we give them an appropriate period of time to implement it – implement them,” he told reporters. “We didn’t think it was appropriate to send a letter and just say this has to happen overnight; we gave them a – made clear there’s a short window in which we want to see changes, because the humanitarian situation is so dire on the ground.”

That deadline has now passed and a group of aid organizations (including Oxfam and Save the Children) have published a detailed report showing that Israel has failed to meet any of the conditions mentioned in the Blinken/Austin letter.

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Rats scurry before the cat’s arrival: CIA official busted for leaking Israel’s plans for Iran attack online

Suddenly, they have standards again.

Playtime is over. Cat’s coming back.

What else can one conclude with this kind of news from the New York Times?

A C.I.A. official has been charged with disclosing classified documents that appeared to show Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack earlier this year, according to court documents and people familiar with the matter.

The official, Asif W. Rahman, was indicted last week in federal court in Virginia with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. He was arrested by the F.B.I. on Tuesday in Cambodia and brought to federal court in Guam to face charges.

The documents were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes images and information collected by U.S. spy satellites. It conducts work in support of clandestine and military operations.

Mr. Rahman, who worked abroad for the C.I.A., was set to appear in Guam on Thursday.

The information in the documents is highly classified and details interpretations of satellite imagery that shed light on a possible strike by Israel on Iran. They began circulating last month on the Telegram app.

That was quick.

Based on the sparse info in the story, he appears to have been a highly vetted CIA officer with responsibility abroad, and his absence of social media presence suggests a clandestine capacity. He was busted on U.S. Election Day in Cambodia, meaning, the lawmen had been working on the matter before that, probably dating from the leak itself reported on Oct. 19. The Cambodia locale was the kind of place they might lure someone for an arrest, so he could have been based pretty much anywhere within flying distance of Phnom Penh. But betting markets and polls had shown that Trump was the likely next president around the time of the leak, so they may have been motivated to get this guy based on what was coming. He may have been motivated to leak based on the same likelihood. The institution strives to save itself, preserving some kind of appearance of professionalism, which was hardly the case in the recent past.

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Section 12 means British police are treating their own officers as terrorists now

A police officer has been arrested by counter-terrorism police in Gloucester over social media posts regarding Israel and Palestine. It’s no longer just journalists and social media users that police are targeting, it’s their own officers now.

The officer is suspected of “supporting Hamas” in breach of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Police have explained they’re going through the officer’s devices for analysis and say we should not jump to conclusions.

This is fair enough, and given the details are sparse, I’m not going to discuss the ongoing investigation, or the officer’s potential guilt or innocence. I am, however, going to discuss how police have handled similar cases in which they appear to have overstepped the mark because there are concerns to be addressed. Those concerns involve whether the law is being followed in this and similar investigations.

Police recently visited the home of journalist Asa Winstanley and took his devices for analysis, even though he was not under arrest. It seems they wanted to look through his devices to find the excuse to arrest a journalist.

If police were correctly applying the law in this instance, this would tell us that our laws are authoritarian. If they were not correctly applying the law, this would tell us they are acting in an authoritarian manner. Either way, we would be witnessing a form of authoritarianism. It is therefore reasonable to ask in each case if police are correctly applying the law. We need clarity because we have the impression our rights are under attack. This is obviously unacceptable in a so-called free society.

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