Tag: israel

Israel must prepare for potential war with Turkey, Nagel Committee warns

Israel must prepare for a direct confrontation with Turkey, according to the Nagel Committee’s latest report on the defense budget and security strategy.

The committee, established by the government, warns that Turkey’s ambitions to restore its Ottoman-era influence could lead to heightened tensions with Israel, possibly escalating into conflict.

The report highlights the risk of Syrian factions aligning with Turkey, creating a new and potent threat to Israel’s security.

“The threat from Syria could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat,” the report states, warning that Turkish-backed forces might act as proxies, fueling regional instability.

The committee’s assessment comes amid Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly assertive policies in the region, which some analysts view as antagonistic to Israel’s interests.

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The IDF Will Plan For Total Defeat Of Hamas In Gaza If Hostages are Not Released By Trump Inauguration

Israel’s Defense Minister Yisrael Katz instructed the IDF to bring him a plan for the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza as soon as possible:

“I have instructed the IDF to present me with a plan for the total obliteration of Hamas in Gaza, should they fail to release the hostages by the time President Trump assumes office.”

The Defense Minister emphasized that it is unacceptable to be dragged into a war of attrition against Hamas in Gaza, while the hostages remain in the tunnels, putting their lives at risk and suffering severely.

Katz asked the IDF to indicate what points might make it difficult to implement the plan, including humanitarian issues and other issues, and to leave it to the political echelon to make the necessary decisions.

On another note, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump declared there will be ‘Hell to pay’ if the hostages are not released by the time he assumes office in 10 days.

What does that mean? U.S. involvement in the conflict?

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Media Downplay Israeli Violations of Hezbollah Ceasefire

Israel and Hezbollah signed a ceasefire agreement at the end of November that required both sides to refrain from attacks on each other. The terms also included a mutual pullback from southern Lebanon after 60 days.

Despite the deal, Israel has subsequently launched repeated strikes on Lebanon against targets it claimed were Hezbollah, killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians. The violations began immediately, with Israel attacking journalists and vehicles mere hours after the deal was signed.

Within a week of signing the deal, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported that Israel had violated the ceasefire around 100 times, killing 15 people. Shortly after these initial strikes, Hezbollah launched two strikes into the disputed border zone that it called an “initial defensive and warning response” to Israel against continued ceasefire violations. These strikes did not kill or injure any Israelis. Despite this, Israel responded by continuing its ceasefire violations, killing more and more, bringing the post-ceasefire death toll to more than 30.

Despite the overwhelming number of Israeli attacks in the post-ceasefire period, news audiences have heard that a “tense ceasefire holds” (AP, 12/1/24). Media repeatedly reported on these violations as both sides “trading” or “exchanging” fire (New York Times, 12/2/24; AP, 12/3/24; NBC, 12/3/24; Semafor, 12/4/24; Financial Times, 12/3/24; Wall Street Journal, 12/3/24). While technically accurate, such reporting frames both sides as equally culpable in violating the ceasefire, allowing media to avoid acknowledging that Israel that Israel is by far the primary and more consistent violator.

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The Possible Reasons Donald Trump’s Administration Is Recognizing Somaliland

In a move straight out of left field, the incoming Trump administration is slated to recognize Somaliland as an independent state, according to a report by Semafor.

Somaliland is a former British colony bordering Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia that declared independence from Somalia in 1991 without receiving international recognition. Under international law, Somaliland is currently deemed an autonomous district of Somalia.

If media reports turn out to be true, why is the Trump administration moving to recognize Somaliland’s independence? It boils down to advancing Israeli interests.

Due to its proximity to the Arabian Peninsula, an independent Somaliland would give Israel and the United States a forward base of operations to counter plucky Houthi militants in the Red Sea.

After Israel responded to Hamas’ attack on Oct, 7, 2023 with a vicious military assault on Gaza, the Yemen-based Houthis joined the conflict by launching drones and missiles against Israeli and Western vessels traversing the Red Sea. The world faced the Houthis’ wrath in December 2023 when they announced their blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints, where a substantial portion of global maritime cargo passes through.

Somaliland’s strategic location close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait makes it an important choke point on the grand chessboard, thus making it a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate the Israeli-American axis for the use to exploit.

Houthi attacks have bottled up the Red Sea, leading to major disruptions in international trade at a time when the world is still adjusting to supply-chain disruptions brought about during the COVID-19 era.

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Genocide: The New Normal

Joe Biden’s parting gift of $8 billion in weapons sales to the apartheid state of Israel acknowledges the gruesome reality of the genocide in Gaza. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is a permanent, endless war designed not to destroy Hamas, or free Israeli hostages, but to eradicate, once and for all, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is the final push to create a Greater Israel, which will include not only Gaza and the West Bank, but chunks of Lebanon and Syria. It is the culmination of the Zionist dream. And it will be paid for with rivers of blood — Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Israel Avi Dichter was probably offering conservative estimates when he said “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor].”

Mass extermination takes time. It is also expensive. Fortunately for Israel, its lobby in the U.S. has a stranglehold on Congress, our electoral process and the media narrative. Americans, although 61 percent support ending weapons shipments to Israel, will pay for it. And those that express dissent will be frog-marched into Zionist black holes where their voices are silenced and their careers jeopardized or destroyed. Donald Trump and the Republicans have an open disdain for democracy, but so do the Democrats and Joe Biden.

The U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a substantial increase from the already $3.8 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel annually. This is a record for a single year. The State Department has informed Congress that it intends to approve another $8 billion in purchases of U.S.-made arms by Israel. This will provide Israel with more GPS guidance systems for bombs, more artillery shells, more missiles for fighter jets and helicopters, and more bombs, including 2,800 unguided MK-84 bombs, which Israel has a habit of dropping on densely packed tent encampments in Gaza. The pressure wave from the 2,000-pound MK-84 pulverizes buildings and exterminates life within a 400-yard radius. The blast, which ruptures lungs, rips apart limbs and bursts sinus cavities up to hundreds of yards away, leaves behind a 50-foot-wide and 36-foot-deep crater. Israel appears to have used this bomb to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, in Beirut on September 27, 2024.

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Leaked emails expose ‘collaborative efforts’ between Israeli govt and Center for Countering Digital Hate

Emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal how leading “anti-hate” campaigner Imran Ahmed collaborated with Israeli embassy officials to censor pro-Palestine social media accounts — and courted them for donations to his censorship-obsessed Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Since emerging in America from seemingly out of the blue in 2020, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has become one of the trans-Atlantic establishment’s most effective tools for censoring online speech. Its founder, Imran Ahmed, has nurtured close ties with the Biden White House since moving to Washington DC, targeting its political enemies with calls for their removal from social media. Back in his hometown of London, Ahmed was an influential advisor to the neoliberal wing of UK Labour, helping sabotage the leftist insurgency of Jeremy Corbyn and place his ally, Keir Starmer, in charge of the party. 

Ahmed has been embroiled in controversy since journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi published internal CCDH documents showing he held private meetings with influential Democratic lawmakers throughout 2024 to advance a plan to “kill Elon Musk’s Twitter.” The billionaire Twitter/X owner and his allies in president-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle retaliated by accusing the British operative of violating laws against foreign interference in American politics.

Ahmed, for his part, has dismissed the charge that he colludes with foreign governments as a kooky conspiracy. “The Center for Countering Digital Hate researches conspiracy theories. We don’t engage with them,” he said.

However, internal CCDH emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal that while Ahmed nurtures ties to the Labour government in Britain, the self-styled “anti-hate” campaigner also enjoys a secret, “collaborative” relationship with a rogue foreign government whose leadership currently stands accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice, and is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Provided by a CCDH insider who requested to remain anonymous out of fear that Ahmed and his allies would retaliate against him, the emails reveal that top officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC helped introduce Ahmed to potential funders, and were even invited to review a CCDH report before its publication. The report urged Meta to remove pro-Palestine Facebook groups on the grounds that they promoted “anti-Jewish hate.” 

Ahmed seemed agitated when The Grayzone reached him by phone and asked him to confirm his email exchanges with the Israeli officials. “I have no idea which emails you’re talking about,” he stated. “You’ll have to send them through to us and have a look at them and come back to you.”

When asked if he had collaborated with the Israeli government, Ahmed did not deny the relationship. “We work with all governments,” he claimed. 

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Genocidal President, Genocidal Politics

When news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are genocide, Biden’s decision was a new low for his presidency.

It’s logical to focus on Biden as an individual. His choices to keep sending huge quantities of weaponry to Israel have been pivotal and calamitous. But the presidential genocide and the active acquiescence of the vast majority of Congress are matched by the dominant media and overall politics of the United States.

Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine. More than a year later, her statement illuminates why the moral credibility of so many liberal institutions has collapsed in the wake of Gaza’s destruction.

While Boyer denounced “the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza,” she emphatically chose to disassociate herself from the nation’s leading liberal news organization: “I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.”

The acclimatizing process soon became routine. It was most crucially abetted by President Biden and his loyalists, who were especially motivated to pretend that he wasn’t really doing what he was really doing.

For mainline journalists, the process required the willing suspension of belief in a consistent standard of language and humanity. When Boyer acutely grasped the dire significance of its Gaza coverage, she withdrew from “the newspaper of record.”

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Israel still can’t find any 7 October rape victims, prosecutor admits

There are still zero complainants in alleged cases of rapes committed by Palestinians on 7 October 2023, an Israeli prosecutor has admitted.

But Moran Gez, who handled cases against Palestinians swept up after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, is still calling for mass executions even without any substantial evidence against them.

“Anyone who entered Israel from Gaza on 7 October to kill or to loot, it doesn’t matter, should be included in the indictment and, as far as I’m concerned, receive the death penalty,” Gez said.

She said she made this case to colleagues involved in planning prosecutions related to the 7 October events.

“Why? Because of those who didn’t murder but looted, burned, stole, picked avocados, as some claim, because of this mess, the Israeli army forces were unable to arrive in time,” Gez added. “You came to the door with a drill and opened it to loot? Then a terrorist came in and murdered civilians there.”

Until recently the prosecutor in charge of so-called security cases in Israel’s southern district, Gez played a key role in the effort to put Palestinians responsible for what Israel considers criminal acts on 7 October on trial.

No trials have yet taken place.

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Florida man accused of planning attack at pro-Israel organization in Plantation

A Florida man who was found with an AR-15 and other weapons was arrested after authorities said he’d planned an attack at a pro-Israel organization in Plantation.

Forrest Kendall Pemberton, 26, was arrested last week on a stalking charge after an investigation by the FBI, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Although it’s not named in the complaint, the organization is believed to be the American Israel Public Affairs Committe, or AIPAC, which has a location on N. Pine Island Road in Plantation.

According to the complaint, Pemberton’s father reported him missing to law enforcement on Dec. 23.

His family found a letter believed to have been written by Pemberton with “anti-authority sentiments” stating he wanted to “close the loop,” “stoke the flames” and say goodbye to his family, the complaint said.

The family said missing from his room and believed to be in his possession were an Ar-15 rifle, a 9mm pistol, a Galil rifle and a laptop

On his computer, he searched for various entities including the IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center, IRS Appeals and Chief Counsel Office, and an address on South Pine Island Road in Plantation adjacent to the IRS Appeals and Chief Counsel Office, the complaint said.

The complaint said he also searched for an organization in Plantation that lobbies for “pro-Israel policies that strengthen and expand the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

That same day, Dec. 23, a family member provided the FBI a screenshot of four ATM withdrawals made by Pemberton at different locations along University Drive in Plantation, the complaint said.

Authorities discovered Pemberton had checked in to a hotel in Plantation on Dec. 22 and checked out the next day. On Dec. 24, records showed Pemberton was at another hotel in Tallahassee.

On Dec. 25, He was seen getting into a rideshare vehicle with an apparent soft rifle case, the complaint said.

Law enforcement stopped the vehicle and Pemberton handed over the AR-15, the Galil rifle and the pistol, along with ammunition, the complaint said.

Pemberton was interviewed by investigators and said he’d walked from Gainesville to Ocala, where he bought a pickup truck.

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Israeli author RENOUNCES CITIZENSHIP, calls it “a tool of genocide”

Israeli-born author Avi Steinberg announced on Dec. 26 that he has formally renounced his Israeli citizenship, citing his belief that the privilege of citizenship has been and continues to be used as a tool of settler colonialism and genocide.

Steinberg, who was born in Jerusalem to American parents and raised in an Orthodox Jewish household, detailed his decision in an op-ed published on Truthout.

In the article, Steinberg argued that Israeli citizenship is inherently tied to violent crimes and systemic discrimination. He described Israeli citizenship as a mechanism that legitimizes colonialism, pointing to laws such as the 1948 Declaration of Independence, the 1950 Law of Return and the 1952 Citizenship Law. These laws, he claimed, were shaped by the 1948 Nakba (“the catastrophe” in Arabic), during which approximately 80 percent of the Palestinian population were violently expelled from their homes in modern-day Israeli territory in a massive ethnic cleansing campaign.

Steinberg criticized Israel for creating a facade of legitimacy through what he called “forged documents,” which he said conceal the state’s “fundamental unlawfulness.” He also reflected on his family’s history, noting that his parents migrated to Israel under the Law of Return and later settled in the United States. He described the cognitive dissonance of his parents, who opposed the U.S. invasion of Vietnam while participating in what he termed the “armed settlement of another people’s land.”

The author revealed that the house he grew up in was owned by a Palestinian family who were forcibly expelled to Jordan and barred from returning. He described this displacement as a deliberate strategy to attract settlers by marketing the “native Arab charm” of villages emptied of their original inhabitants.

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