Tag: israel

Israeli PM Netanyahu always brings his dirty laundry to US state visits so White House staff can clean them for free, report says

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consistently brings bags of dirty laundry when he and his family visit President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, so White House staff can clean it for free, according to The Washington Post.

“The Netanyahus are the only ones who bring actual suitcases of dirty laundry for us to clean,” an anonymous US official told The Post. “After multiple trips, it became clear this was intentional.”

Since former President Barack Obama’s administration, the US government has offered laundry services to all foreign leaders for free, The Post reported. The trend has continued into Trump’s administration, US officials told the newspaper.

Netanyahu last visited the White House on September 15, 2020, when Trump presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords, a diplomatic-normalization agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

The Post did not specify where Netanyahu and his wife stayed the night, but the venue was likely Blair House, one of a clutch of buildings opposite the White House that together make up the President’s Guest House.

Netanyahu also stayed at Blair House in January 2020 and March 2018.

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Lebanon Prepares For Total War As Ex-Pats Evacuate, IDF Prepares Response

The Lebanese government is preparing for an Israeli military response against Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy army which occupies the halls of power in the Middle Eastern state, and who fired a large ballistic missile which killed a dozen Druze children playing football in the Golan Heights yesterday.

The funerals are today.

Foreigners are being told to leave Lebanon immediately due to the likely break-out of all-out war. France joined Norway in calling on its citizens to evacuate. The airport in Beirut is packed as many ex-patriots are fleeing the country.

In Israel, the Port of Ashdod is getting prepared to serve as an alternative to the Port of Haifa in case of war, reported Amir Tsarfati.

The military staff is meeting to coordinate and plan a response to the missile attack in northern Israel. CDM has long been reporting on the likely break-out of war in the north of The Jewish State. The conflict is expected to be bloody on both sides as Hezbollah is a much stronger fighting force than Hamas in Gaza, and controls hundreds of thousands of rockets which can severely damage Israeli and population.

Progressive political elements in Israel are said to be preventing military plans for retribution at this point. Approval is in the balance but likely to happen soon, as the political pressure inside Israel is great, from Arabs especially, whose children were murdered.

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US delivers over 20,000 ‘dumb bombs’ to Israel since 7 Oct

The US has sent tens of thousands of bombs to Israel since the start of its genocide in Gaza, the New York Times (NYT) reported on 25 July, citing data compiled this week by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. 

The data shows that Washington has sent over 20,000 unguided bombs, around 2,600 guided bombs, and 3,000 precision missiles. 

Unguided bombs, also known as “dumb bombs,” are typically less precise and kill larger numbers of civilians, especially in densely populated areas like Gaza. 

Aircraft, air defense systems, and ammunition have also been shipped to Israel since the start of the war in Gaza. 

Many of these shipments have been classified or kept under the table. What had been delivered by March this year already constitutes “an enormous number and variety of weapons,” according to an analysis by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

The report came as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on a visit to Washington, where he met with Joe Biden and his vice president on 25 July and gave a speech in front of the US Congress a day earlier. 

It also coincided with a report by Politico, which said, “Israel is privately ramping up pressure on the Biden administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to greenlight weapons it says it needs to protect itself from an increasingly aggressive Iran and its proxies.” 

Netanyahu’s delegation is circulating a list of weapons systems to US lawmakers that it wants to be delivered faster, according to an informed source. The source added that Israeli representatives gave the list to members of Congress after Netanyahu’s speech on 24 July. 

Israel “needs the weapons to bolster its stockpiles,” the source said. “The fact that Israel is pushing for the weapons now indicates that it is attempting to solidify the transfers and bolster its stockpiles before the US election in November,” the Politico report adds. 

According to the source, the weapons on the Israeli list being sent around differ from those held up by Biden’s government in May over “concerns” about the situation in Rafah, which Israel invaded that month in defiance of months of international warnings. 

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‘Terrorist Organization’? What’s Behind the Israeli War on UNRWA

Targeting a school during a war could be justified or, at least, argued to have been a mistake. But striking over 120 schools, killing and wounding thousands of civilians sheltered inside, can only be intentional and horrific war crimes.

Between October 7 and July 18, Israel has done precisely that, targeting with total impunity, United Nations infrastructure in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The price has been horrific. According to UNRWA estimates, at least 561 internally displaced people in UNRWA shelters have been killed and 1,768 injured since the start of the war.

In fact, within a period of ten days, between July 8 and July 18, at least six UN-run schools which have served as makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians have been targeted by the Israeli army, resulting in the killing and wounding of hundreds.

Historically, UN-linked organizations seemed to be somewhat immune from the impact of war on local populations. The privilege of being neutral outsiders to the conflict, allowed those affiliated with such organizations to carry out their duties largely unhindered.

The Israeli war on Gaza, however, is the primary exception among all modern conflicts. According to UN sources, 274 aid workers and over 500 healthcare workers have been killed.

These figures are consistent with all other numbers produced by the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Indeed, not a single category of people has been spared: neither doctors nor civil defense workers, nor mayors or even traffic police.

It was obvious from the very start of the war that Israel wanted to criminalize all Palestinians, not only those affiliated with Hamas or other groups, but the very civilian population and any international organization that came to their aid.

Blaming and dehumanizing all of Gaza was and remains part of an Israeli strategy that would allow the Israeli army to operate without any restraints, and without even the most minimal threshold of morality or respect for international law.

But the Israeli attacks on the UN, all its institutions, but particularly the UN agency responsible for the welfare of Gaza’s refugees (UNRWA), serve a different purpose than that of mere ‘collective punishment’.

Israel does not attempt to mask or justify its attacks on the organization as it did during previous Gaza wars. This time around, the Israeli war was accompanied, from the very start, with the outlandish accusation that UNRWA members had participated in the October 7 assault by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Without providing any evidence, Tel Aviv launched an international campaign of vilification against the UN organization which has, for decades, provided educational, medical and humanitarian services to millions of Palestinian refugees.

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Leaks reveal Israel killed 366 UN staffers, family members in Gaza: Report

Hundreds of UN staff members and their family members have been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, according to an unreleased UN report obtained by the Drop Site news outlet on 24 July. 

At least 195 UN staff and 172 of their dependents had been killed by Israeli forces by the end of June, the unreleased UN report states. The UN defines dependents as persons belonging to a staff member’s family who are formally recognized as financially reliant on that staff member.

The UN Crisis Coordination Centre found that five UN Development Program dependents, four UNICEF dependents, three World Food Programme (WFP) dependents, two World Health Organization (WHO) dependents, and 158 UNRWA dependents have been killed by Israeli forces. 

It had been reported in May that Israel had killed 188 members of UNRWA. UNRWA regularly releases situation reports detailing Tel Aviv’s targeting of staff members and facilities. 

UNRWA facilities have been the sites of numerous massacres committed by Israeli troops. 

However, these are the first numbers indicating the extent to which Israel has targeted the families of UN staff members. 

According to Drop Site, the report was circulated internally at the start of this month. The UN did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the weekend, on 21 July, a UN convoy came under heavy fire by Israeli forces despite prior coordination with the army. 

An Israeli airstrike on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat Camp a week earlier, on 14 July, killed at least 15 people, just a day after the strike on southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi that killed at least 90 and injured hundreds on 13 July. 

Tel Aviv has accused UNRWA members of involvement in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October but has yet to provide evidence for its claims. 

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ICC to Delay Arrest Warrants for Israeli, Hamas Leaders – What We Know So Far

On May 20, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as senior Hamas officials on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has accepted the requests of more than 60 states, organizations and individuals to intervene in Prosecutor Karim Khan’s application to issue arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas officials, reportedly slowing down the process on the matter.

This means that “an ICC decision to grant or reject the arrest warrants will be significantly delayed, likely by several months,” according to The Times of Israel.

The US, Germany, Palestine, Norway, Ireland, Czech Republic, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Mexico (jointly), Union of Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo and Djibouti were among the states whose filings were accepted.

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A Standing Ovation for Genocide

There’s no mention of their duty to the people in the oath of office that members of Congress take. It says they will support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Maybe, in some regard defending the Constitution would mean doing their job: representing the people that elected them. But today, the architect of the genocide against the Palestinian people walked in and out of the “people’s house” to a standing ovation. He was given more time with our lawmakers than any of us will ever get in our lifetime and he used it to insist he was a good man that was commanding a moral army – insisting they have not killed anyone who did not deserve to have their life ended in the blink of an eye.

There are one thousand indications that our government has no obligation to us. This moment was just one – but it was one I will never let slip my mind. These people are no different than the settlers that gather in lawn chairs, eat popcorn, and cheer when the Israeli military drops bombs on apartment complexes in Gaza. For as long as they’ve been in office, they’ve had a front row seat to the carnage and all they do is gawk and cheer from the sidelines. Every once in a while, someone they are supposed to work for pesters them about their complacency and we are swatted away like flies.

The majority opinion in the United States is against continued support for Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. Stories come out every week that push the needle further. Last week, the story of Muhammad Bhar surfaced and was circulated around the world. Muhammad was my age, 24, and had Down Syndrome. The Israeli military raided his home and let their dog attack him, tearing his arm to shreds. They separated him from his family, and left him in a room all by himself. They ordered his family to leave the house and left Muhammad to die – alone, bleeding, and scared. His family found Muhammad starting to decompose in the room the soldiers left him in. He still had a tourniquet on his arm from when they tried to stop the bleeding. And they just left him there, like he was nothing.

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Ben-Gvir Endorses Trump, Says He’s More Likely to Back War on Iran

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir endorsed former U.S. President Donald Trump – the 2024 Republican nominee – for the White House in an interview published Wednesday in which he accused the Biden administration of preventing Israel from winning its war on Gaza.

“I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran,” Ben-Gvir, who heads the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, told Bloomberg. “With Trump, it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated.”

“A cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality,” the 48-year-old minister conceded, “but that’s impossible to do after [U.S. President Joe] Biden.”

“The U.S. has always stood behind Israel in terms of armaments and weapons, yet this time the sense was that we were being reckoned with – that we were trying to be prevented from winning. That happened on Biden’s watch and fed Hamas with lots of energy,” added Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism after he advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

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GOOGLE PLANNED TO SPONSOR IDF CONFERENCE THAT NOW DENIES GOOGLE WAS SPONSOR

THE “IT FOR IDF” conference in Rishon LeZion, just south of Tel Aviv, brought together tech firms from across the world to support the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza and beyond.

Many of the assembled companies are not household names in the United States, but several multinational firms — like Nokia, Dell, and Canon — were present at July 10 event.

The mission they had gathered to support was clear. Onstage, a brigadier general with the Israeli military gave a presentation that connected the Nakba, the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the current war on Gaza, and more wars in the decades to come. His call to action splashed across the big screen: “Each generation and its own turn — this is our watch!”

One company, however, was conspicuously absent: Google.

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Netanyahu Commands, US Obeys

The world-historical crisis in Gaza might in the long-term bring about radical change in both the U.S. and Israel, but in the interim the greatest crimes the two nations have jointly taken part in has stiffened their defenses against unprecedented criticism.

The fear of blasting Israel has been breached. The taboo broken. Tel Aviv and Washington have never faced this before.  As both are settler nations, having wiped out natives across the land, they are circling their wagons on a new frontier. They can only respond with the most profound denial and viciousness. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who addresses a joint-session of Congress on Wednesday the subject of a requested arrest warrant at the International Criminal Court, has demanded the United States shield Israel from criticism while continuing to arm and support its genocide — and the U.S. has answered his call. 

When the Biden administration withheld a symbolic shipment of weapons to Israel, Netanyahu counted on Congress to draft a law that would withhold funding for the State Dept. and the Pentagon if Biden did not give Netanyahu the weapons he needs to “finish the job” in Gaza. 

Biden’s withholding of the shipment was designed to fool U.S. voters critical of his  Gaza policy.  But the assault on Rafah — despite Biden’s supposed red line — continues, and so will unconditional U.S. support for Israel. The question is why. 

Why will U.S. politicians risk losing elections to continue supporting the most unimaginable crimes? The answer lies beyond elections and individual politicians.

Continued support for Israel in the midst of genocide threatens the very legitimacy of U.S. post-war rule as the world turns increasingly against the U.S. and Israel. 

Despite this, what makes U.S. leaders so enthralled to a foreign nation and leader who has angered several U.S. presidents? 

For instance, why did U.S. leaders, essentially on the say-so of that foreign leader, turn against their own university students on U.S. soil peacefully protesting both Israel’s genocide and Washington’s complicity in it?

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