Tag: israel

Stealing Credit for the Gaza Ceasefire

Shortly after the ceasefire in Gaza was announced on Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued a statement taking credit for the deal, never mentioning who is really responsible for it.  Biden said: 

“I laid out the precise contours of this plan on May 31, 2024, after which it was endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council. It is the result not only of the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran — but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy. My diplomacy never ceased in their efforts to get this done.”

In an eight-minute address Wednesday night from the White House, Biden again never mentioned Trump, giving all the credit to himself and his team.  When a reporter asked him who the history books would credit, Biden replied, “Is that a joke?”

“This plan was developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. That’s why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed,” Biden said.

Actually, it wasn’t Biden’s ceasefire plan at all, according to Israel journalist Ben Caspit:

“In fact, the deal being finalized now could have been achieved last May, and was actually formulated by Netanyahu. It was Biden who unveiled Netanyahu’s plan at the time. … ‘Trump forced Netanyahu to finally accept Netanyahu’s plan,’ an Israeli diplomatic source familiar with the events told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.”

Biden at no time seriously sought any ceasefire. Instead he unceasingly facilitated Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a 15-month crime spree, punctuated by pro forma attempts at “ceasefires,” which Biden allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sabotage every time. 

Biden’s “attempts” at “ceasefires” were actually electoral stunts to try to con voters, who were opposed to his genocidal policy, into thinking he was really concerned about thousands of innocent lives being systematically snuffed out with American bombs.

He was also trying to make Americans believe he was earnestly attempting to stop the daily massacres. But a majority of voters knew all along that he, and his replacement Kamala Harris, had no intentions whatsoever of forcing a ceasefire.

Biden had all the leverage over Netanyahu. But instead of using it to force him to accept a hostage exchange at anytime over 15 months to stop the killing, he instead pushed the lie that Israel was merely defending itself. 

This war was never about the hostages, defeating Hamas or defending Israel. It was about ethnically cleansing Gaza in a genocide to further the 1948 project to establish Greater Israel on all of historic Palestine, and the Biden administration was on board with it. 

If Biden had really wanted a ceasefire, like the one he’s now trying to take credit for, all he had to do was telephone Netanyahu and tell him no more guns, no more ammo, no more diplomatic cover and Israel would have been forced to cease its fire.

But Biden never did that.

In his dwindling days in office he fraudulently wants to be remembered as a peacemaker and a statesman, just like he waited until the very end in another stunt to take Cuba off the terrorism list but never restored relations with Havana the way Barack Obama did. 

That Trump is the one instead who forced Israel to accept this ceasefire is beyond doubt, based on credible sources. 

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Joe Biden’s Legacy: Waging Proxy Wars, Spreading Terrorism and Killing Diplomacy

As the sun sets on Joe Biden’s presidency, the Commander-in-Chief and his top staffers are using their final moments in power to convince the American people that we live in a safer and more stable world.

“The United States is winning the worldwide competition compared to four years ago,” Biden declared Monday. “America is stronger. Our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker.”

The claims that America is winning and strong are as laughable as when the mainstream media repeatedly attempted to convince the American people that Biden is as “sharp as a tack.”

Americans have witnessed Joe Biden’s physical and cognitive decline over the past four years, which perfectly personifies the American empire. Rather than becoming stronger, the treasury and arms depots were exhausted for the benefit of Ukraine and Israel. America is bankrupt; economic prosperity is increasingly elusive for the average citizen and enjoyed only by an exclusive class with access to government power.

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Arab Officials Say Trump’s Team Did More for Hostage Deal in a Single Meeting Than Biden Admin Did in a Year

An official appointed by President-elect Donald Trump for his next administration was the deciding factor in securing a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, but President Joe Biden nevertheless took a victory lap over the breakthrough on Tuesday.

Steve Witkoff, who Trump appointed as his Middle East envoy for his second administration, emerged successful from a critical meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, according to The Times of Israel.

Witkoff apparently did more to move Netanyahu toward a ceasefire in a single meeting than Biden did in the past year, according to two Arab officials who spoke with the outlet, which is based in Jerusalem.

Witkoff, a real estate attorney and investor, was in Doha, Qatar, last week to take part in the talks, capping the trip with the stop in Jerusalem to meet with Netanyahu.

Two days later, negotiators from Israel and Hamas confirmed that they accepted the ceasefire agreement in principle.

“A deal could have been reached much earlier, but both sides led to talks falling apart at various times,” one Arab official told the Times.

But the Biden administration was swift to take credit for the ceasefire, overlooking the fact that the approaching Trump administration seems to have been the catalyst for the deal.

Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement from the White House that the ceasefire was reached “thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden.”

“President Biden and I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans, and are determined that all the American hostages be returned home as part of this deal,” she insisted.

Harris also appeared to pat herself on the back for the deal.

“In my many conversations with leaders in the region, my unwavering focus has been to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination,” Harris said.

“I will never stop working to achieve a future of greater peace, dignity, and security for all people in the region,” she continued.

The play here from Biden and Harris is rather obvious.

Biden is concluding a dismal four years in the Oval Office.

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Israel Destroyed Gaza ‘for Generations to Come’ and the World Stayed Silent

The first official reference to Gaza becoming increasingly uninhabitable was made by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 2012, when the population of the Gaza Strip was estimated at 1.8 million inhabitants.

The intention of the report, “The Gaza Strip: The Economic Situation and the Prospects for Development,” was not merely to prophesize, but to warn that if the world continued to stand idle in the face of the ongoing blockade on Gaza, a humanitarian catastrophe was imminent.

Yet, little was done, though the UN continued with its countdown, increasing the frequency and urgency of its warnings, especially following major wars.

Another report in 2015 from UNCTAD stated that the Gaza crisis had intensified following the most destructive war to that date, the year before. The war had destroyed hundreds of factories, thousands of homes, and displaced tens of thousands of people.

By 2020, though, based on the criteria set by the UN, Gaza should have become ‘uninhabitable.’ Yet, little was done to remedy the crisis. The population grew rapidly, while resources, including Gaza’s land mass, shrank due to the ever-expanding Israeli ‘buffer zone’. The prospects for the “world’s largest open-air prison” became even dimmer.

Yet, the international community did little to heed the call of UNCTAD and other UN and international institutions. The humanitarian crisis—situated within a prolonged political crisis, a siege, repeated wars, and daily violence—worsened, reaching, on October 7, 2023, the point of implosion.

One wonders if the world had paid even the slightest attention to Gaza and the cries of people trapped behind walls, barbed wire, and electric fences, whether the current war and genocide could have been avoided.

It is all moot now. The worst-case scenario has actualized in a way that even the most pessimistic estimates by Palestinian, Arab, or international groups could not have foreseen.

Not only is Gaza now beyond “uninhabitable”, but, according to Greenpeace, it will be “uninhabitable for generations to come”. This does not hinge on the resilience of Palestinians in Gaza, whose legendary steadfastness is hardly disputed. However, there are essential survival needs that even the strongest people cannot replace with their mere desire to survive.

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Israel Bombs, America Yawns and Gatekeepers Con

As gatekeepers of the corporate information bazaar, you have served Israel well.  Echoing the propaganda of Tel Aviv and Washington has become mainstream fare, with omission at the heart of the campaign.  

Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, judiciously wrote in 1789: “Whenever the people are well informed, they may be trusted with their own government.”  Unfortunately, today’s media mind managers have forgotten that.  The public’s right to know the truth about Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians, supported by the United States, has been subordinated to currying the favor of special interest groups and monied interests.   

You have been tranquilized by your intimate relationship to the national security state, ever willing to espouse the pro-Israel views of the White House, State Department, the Pentagon, and most, if not all, members of the American political class.

British novelist, George Orwell, in a passage from his prophetic novel, 1984, aptly described the relationship that has evolved between the establishment media and Israel; he wrote:  “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”  

There is a tendency among journalists to believe in their individual autonomy, although most work in large, hierarchical, corporate media organizations.  Many have convinced themselves that they are engaged in watchdog journalism, when they are, in fact, acting as stenographers for the powerful.  

In the case of Israel, journalists quickly learn compliancy, what can and cannot be said to protect careers.  While pro-Israel reporting and editorializing are rewarded, exact narratives and historical perspectives suffer repercussions.   

Censors have become unnecessary because an ideological self-censorship has formed and congealed.  Many of them can recall instances when they were told not to antagonize powerful interests and advertisers, and can name principled  journalists, like the late Helen Thomas and John Pilger, who were banished for saying the “unacceptable.” 

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‘Deadly Exchange’: How US Police Learn Their ‘Worst Practices’ From The IDF

It is not uncommon for police to drive around with their lights flashing in Black and working-class neighborhoods in Atlanta. This is a tactic used to intimidate and make their presence known; for residents of these neighborhoods, it can feel like psychological warfare. US law enforcement learned this strategy from Israeli forces.

Thousands of law enforcement officials have traveled to Israel to learn new repression strategies and surveillance techniques from the Israel National Police, Israel Defense Forces, and the Shin Bet, who inflict violence, crowd control, and surveillance onto Palestinians. Anti-imperialist advocates say the tactics being taught to US law enforcement were battle-tested on Palestinians and spread to the US to target Black and Brown communities through a training relationship that grants Israeli forces more power and profit, causing further harm to Palestinians.

These programs are facilitated by the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, and the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Program—the latter of which was started in 1996. US leaders sought Israel’s guidance to curb terrorism, and a ‘deadly exchange’ of worst practices between US and Israeli forces was born. Federal, state, county, and municipal law enforcement executives including local police departments, the FBI, and ICE have traveled to Israel, while thousands of officials have attended conferences with Israeli experts in the US. An inaugural “US-Israel Security Conference” by JINSA occurred last month, where a former Israel Defense Forces commander was included as a guest speaker.

“Within these programs, worst practices are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing practices that already exist in both countries,” said Rania Salem, an organizer with the US Palestinian Community Network. “US forces take whatever is working in Israel and they bring it here and inflict it on Black and Brown people.”

Police departments in New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Atlanta, among others, have close ties with Israeli forces. Salem said that the increasing militarization of US police in recent decades is due in large part to the “funding and support of Israel’s brutal military occupation.” She said that in return for these trainings the state of Israel gets in good standing with the US for future support, and its forces learn new tactics in return—Salem said that Israel learned stop-and-frisk and racist traffic stop techniques from US law enforcement.

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House Passes Bill To Sanction Cooperation With The ICC Following Netanyahu Arrest Warrant

When newly re-elected Speaker Of The House Mike Johnson was first elected to the chair in 2023, his first act of business was to advance a bill providing an additional $14.3 billion in aid to Israel to fund its war in Gaza. This came after the House Of Representatives entered into a period of stasis following the historic success of the Motion To Vacate filed against Kevin McCarthy that would depose him as Speaker Of The House and replace him with Johnson. Despite the backlog of work Congress faced, Johnson’s decision to prioritize aid to Israel over the interests of the American people served as an ominous portent of things to come under his leadership.

Given the legacy that Johnson forged immediately after ascending to the role of Speaker Of The House, it comes as no surprise that the House Of Representatives would pass a bill sanctioning the International Criminal Court following his re-election. The impetus of the bill was to serve as a response to the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Although neither the United States nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute that gives the ICC jurisdiction over them, other nations who are party to it can enforce those arrest warrants. The mere possibility of any of those countries doing so was enough for Congress to go DEFCON 1 in order to protect the Netanyahu regime.

The name of the bill, The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act (H.R. 23) reads as if were the title of a polemic, leaving little doubt about the political motives behind it. Under its parameters, any foreign party that investigates, arrests, detains, or prosecutes citizens of the United States or its allies (namely Israel) who are not signatory to the Rome Statute under the directive of the ICC will face severe sanctions. The bill passed the House as one of the first acts of the 119th Congress by a vote of 243-140 without any Republicans voting against it. Sanctions under the present text of H.R. 23 include prohibiting the transaction of any property in the US by those seemed to be assisting the ICC and revocation of their US visas with immediate effect. Additionally, the bill rescinds any existing funds appropriated for the ICC and bars any future appropriations for them.

While the bill has yet to pass the Senate, newly appointed Republican Majority Leader John Thune, the senior senator from South Dakota, has pledged to bring it to a vote in expedited fashion. Given the unconditional support of House republicans for the bill and the majority they hold in the Senate, its passage appears to be an inevitability as does incoming president Donald Trump’s decision to subsequently sign it into law. Given that Trump will not be inaugurated until January 20th and lame duck/brained president Joe Biden has voiced his opposition to the act, a Senate vote will likely coincide with the new administration taking office.

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Former Israeli Military Officials Float Audacious Plan To Strike Iran in Final Days of Biden Presidency

Two prominent Israeli national security analysts have proposed that the Jewish state go it alone with major attack on Iran in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Kobi Michael and Gabi Siboni, both former senior Israeli military officials, argued in a policy paper published last month that only a series of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear, military, economic, and government infrastructure can prevent the regime from rebuilding its regional terrorist network, which Israel has degraded over 15 months of war. Israel should start the attack just ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, according to the analysts—thereby minimizing the risk of diplomatic retaliation by Biden and forcing the hand of the president-elect.

“With this attack, Israel will demonstrate to the United States … its absolute refusal to accept the continuation of the Iranian nuclear program and its unwillingness to risk Iran’s breakout to a bomb,” Michael and Siboni wrote for the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a think tank in Jerusalem where they are researchers. “As several rounds of attacks on Iran will be required, [the subsequent rounds] will take place after Trump takes office and under a U.S. administration that is more sympathetic than Biden’s.”

Few Israeli politicians would contemplate such a move in public, and even in the think tank world, Michael and Siboni’s proposal stands out as audacious. But their paper, which has been discussed in Hebrew media, comes as Israeli leaders signal new willingness to go it alone against Iran if necessary.

When prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for a strike on Iran’s nuclear program more than a decade ago, he was repeatedly blocked by his powerful security chiefs and criticized by his political rivals. Today, Israel’s security establishment has reportedly advocated such a strike, as have leading politicians across the Zionist political spectrum.

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Israel, US, UK Launch New Airstrikes On Yemen Amid Efforts To ‘Hunt’ Houthi Leaders

On Friday Israel has launched new major strikes on Yemen, amid ongoing vows to ‘hunt’ down Houthi leaders and kill them.

A new Israeli military (IDF) statement said fighter jets struck “on the western coast and inland Yemen” in response to the day prior Houthis having launched three drones at Israel. It also follows a Pentagon-ordered air raid on Yemen earlier this week. The fresh strikes further targeted the port city of Hodeida, Ras Isa Port, Sanaa, as well as North Western Amran province – and reportedly had participation from the US and UK.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that the latest air assault means Houthis will continue to pay a price for attacking Israel. 

He said that twenty Israeli Air Force jets participated in the new strikes against the Houthis, which followed on the heels of another new US-led coalition assault.

Times of Israel has noted that “The Houthis confirmed the strikes and said they occurred while people were rallying in Sanaa in support of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Last month Netanyahu called out Iran for its support to the Houthis, warning that “whoever sponsors the Houthi terror in Hodeida or Sana’a will pay the full price.” 

Washington has for years documented Tehran’s support to the group, which has included advanced missiles and drone technology. This has allowed the threat out of Yemen to grow significantly.

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US Congress backs sanctions on ICC

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) in retaliation for the judicial body’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act would impose sanctions on ICC officials and entities supporting the court’s investigations, arrests, and detentions of Americans and citizens of allied countries. The legislation was passed 243 to 140 on Thursday.

In a statement ahead of the vote, Representative Brian Mast, who leads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called The Hague-based judiciary a “kangaroo court.”

The bill will now move to the Senate, where Republicans have the majority. The Democrats blocked a similar bill when they controlled the Senate in June.

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