Tag: israel

Liberal Zionism: Gatekeeping Criticism of Genocide

Israel’s ongoing genocide is part of a downward spiral for the Zionist project. In the words of acclaimed historian Professor Ilan Pappe: “We are witnessing a historical process – or, more accurately, the beginnings of one – that is likely to culminate in the downfall of Zionism.”

Yet Zionism’s long-standing settler goals have not only thrived through genocidal aggression masked as “self-defence” with subsequent land grabs as obscene rewards for its adherents but also via its “liberal” flank serving a crucial propaganda role, posturing as benevolent and humanitarian whilst aligned with aims of American imperialism.

Now, confronted with Israel’s failure to achieve its stated goals and international outrage over its barbaric aggression, liberal Zionist propagandists are intensifying efforts to whitewash Zionism’s genocidal criminality. Their aim is to prevent the project’s collapse by shifting from circling the wagons to rehabilitating the liberal Zionist facade, enabling a return to management of the Occupation with periodic “mowing the lawn.”

Keep reading

US, Israel in talks to supply Ukraine with Patriot air defense system: Report

Washington is in talks with Tel Aviv and Kiev to supply the Ukrainian army with Israel’s US-made patriot air defense system, as reported by Financial Times (FT) on 28 June. 

The developing agreement would see the air defense system transferred first from Israel to the US before being sent to Ukraine. 

The deal is being discussed by ministers and senior officials from the US, Israel, and Ukraine, five people familiar with the matter told FT. 

Israel had said in April that it was planning to retire the eight Patriot batteries in its possession and replace them with more sophisticated systems. But the batteries have still not been uninstalled over fears of an escalation with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. 

The transfer would significantly uptick Ukrainian defensive capabilities, marking a shift in Israeli policy toward Ukraine and its relationship with Russia. Tel Aviv has been cautious not to supply Ukraine with lethal aid, over concerns that it could compromise its use of Syrian airspace, where Russian and Israeli air forces have coordinated for years.

In the past, Israel has rejected providing Ukraine with air defenses. 

Despite this, Israeli military vehicles and radars have been spotted on the Ukrainian battlefield, and Tel Aviv has provided intelligence and training assistance. 

Moscow has previously threatened retaliation if Israel sends weaponry to Ukraine.

Keep reading

Israeli Officials Hiding Data About Forced Starvation of Gaza Prisoners: Report

Israeli prison officials are concealing information about reductions in food rations for Palestinians held in the Gaza Strip, where detainees—who have also reported horrific abuse including alleged rape and deadly torture—have been deliberately driven “to the point of starvation,” according to a report published Thursday.

Security sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is intentionally cutting Palestinian prisoners’ caloric intake, a move confirmed by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who called the policy a “deterrent.”

“The Palestinian detainees will receive the minimum rights and the minimum food, and I will ensure that this policy is implemented,” Ben-Gvir, who leads the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, said Thursday in response to a query from Israel’s Supreme Court.

“There is no starvation, but my policy does call for reducing conditions, including food and calories,” Ben-Gvir added.

Keep reading

CONFIRMED: Israel KNEW the October 7 attacks were planned but chose to do nothing

Newly uncovered evidence shows that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) knew weeks in advance of October 7 that Hamas was planning a raid and kidnapping on that day, but the Israeli government chose to do nothing about it.

The Jerusalem Post (JP) reported on a document, compiled by the Gaza Division, called “Detailed End-to-End Raid Training” that was distributed to the Israeli military on Sept. 19, 2023. That document details the series of exercises that were to be conducted by the elite units of Hamas.

“These exercises included raiding military posts and kibbutzim (collective communities in Israel), kidnapping soldiers and civilians, and maintaining the hostages once they were in the Gaza Strip,” JP reported.

All of Israel’s top intelligence officials knew about the Hamas plot based on this document and its contents. Why, then, did they order a stand-down on October 7 that ultimately resulted in many needless deaths and a subsequent war-genocide?

For whatever reason, the top brass in Israel just ignored the threat and waited for it to happen. Then it brought out the big guns, killing both Israeli and Palestinian civilians alike in its bumbling and careless response that fateful day.

IDF knew precisely where Hamas was going to strike and everything, “but due to prevailing conceptions within the security establishment and possible negligence by senior officials, the warning signs were not acted upon,” JP claims.

Keep reading

Israel Creating ‘Dead Zone’ Along Lebanon Border

The nearly nine-month-long war between Israel and Lebanon has prompted the Israel Defense Forces to destroy nearly everything along the Lebanese side of the border. The daily attacks are making the area uninhabitable.

Citing satellite imagery, The Financial Times reports that the IDF use of “aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and the incendiary chemical white phosphorus have made much of the 5 km north of the Blue Line uninhabitable.” Some entire neighborhoods in Lebanon have been systematically leveled.

After the Israeli onslaught on Gaza began, Tel Aviv also got locked into a low-intensity war with Hezbollah. So far, the conflict has been limited to tit-for-tat daily strikes but these have slowly escalated. The fighting has killed hundreds in Lebanon and over 25 Israelis. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced from the border area, and large swaths of southern Lebanon have been decimated.

The IDF has used white phosphorus weapons – and even fireballs slung from trebuchets – to set fire to farms and vegetation. An Israeli official claimed that Tel Aviv was not trying to create a dead zone or buffer area, but rather to clear the area of Hezbollah. “We just want Hezbollah pushed back,” the official said. “We have to ‘clean out’ the area of Hezbollah’s presence.”

Tel Aviv justifies the destruction by claiming that Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, and Israeli officials make similar arguments about Hamas in Gaza. “Every third home in south Lebanon is used by Hezbollah for weapons storage, training, firing positions, and meeting points for a possible cross-border attack,” a senior Israeli military official told FT.

Keep reading

Israel Pounds South Lebanon Town With White Phosphorous

Amid growing fear of a full-scale invasion, Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes against the southern Lebanon town of Khiam, using incendiary white phosphorous bombs, according to the National News Agency.

Israel has not commented on the use of white phosphorous in a populated civilian area, nor is it likely to. The extent of any casualties is not known at the present.

In recent weeks, the use of phosphorous, even including flinging fireballs into Lebanon with medieval trebuchets, has become a go-to Israeli strategy. At the time, Israel maintained setting fires was a security measure, clearing brush in the agricultural areas of southern Lebanon.

Employing white phosphorous is not actually illegal, but the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons severely regulates its use against civilian targets. Israel is a signatory to the convention, but in its frequent warfare with neighboring countries, does not appear to view the regulation as restricting its use of the substance.

Keep reading

The Gaza Project Exposes Israel’s ‘Chilling Pattern’ of Killing Journalists

With more than 100 media professionals – nearly all of them Palestinian – killed in Gaza since October, a group of 50 reporters from 13 international organizations this week shared the results of a new investigative journalism initiative aimed at exposing the deadly toll Israel’s onslaught has taken on those reporting it to the world.

The Gaza Project – led by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories – “analyzed nearly 100 cases of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, as well as other cases in which members of the press have been allegedly targeted, threatened, or injured since October 7,” when Hamas-led attacks on Israel left more than 1,100 people dead and over 240 others kidnapped.

“Faced with what is being reported as the record number of journalists killed, Forbidden Stories, whose mission is to pursue the work of journalists who are killed because of their work, set out to investigate the targeting of journalists,” the group said.

“For four months, Forbidden Stories and its partners investigated the circumstances of their killings, as well as those who have been targeted, threatened, and injured in the West Bank and Gaza,” it added. “These investigations point to a chilling pattern and suggest some journalists may have been targeted even though they were identifiable as press.”

Keep reading

White House Warns Lebanon: US Can’t Control Or Restrain Israel If Offensive Starts

Among the more interesting positions which the Biden White House has recently articulated to Arab allies in the Middle East is that the Untied States cannot restrain Israel if it decides to launch new offensives, namely against Lebanon.

Axios has revealed that during his trip to Beirut last week, Biden’s special envoy Amos Hochstein warned the Lebanese government, “The US won’t be able to hold Israel back if the situation on the border continues to escalate and that Hezbollah needs to indirectly negotiate with Israel instead of ratcheting up tensions.”

“The situation is serious. What President Biden wants to do is to avoid a further escalation to a greater war,” Hochstein had additionally said. “It will take everyone’s interest in ending this conflict now. And we believe that there is a pathway diplomatically to do it. If the sides agree to it.”

But what do the Lebanese see of US foreign policy? And what do Arab leaders and their population see? Israel has for decades topped the list of US foreign aid recipients, receiving a consistent $3+ billion annually. Washington regularly makes arms deals with Tel Aviv to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars as well.

Some Israeli leaders have lately gone so far as to admit that Israel’s military might not be able to persist in its Gaza operations without the steady flow of US arms and ammo.

But the US has even reached out to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, via intermediaries, to warn that it can’t hold Israel back in the event of escalation.

“During his meeting with Berri in Beirut, Hochsteim asked the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament to pass a message to Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, that his assumption that the U.S. controls Israel is wrong, the sources said,” Axios wrote.

“According to the sources, Hochstein said the U.S. won’t be able to hold Israel back if the situation on the border continues to escalate and that Hezbollah needs to indirectly negotiate with Israel instead of ratcheting up tensions,” the report continued.

The US and European partners, especially France, have recently sought to entice and pressure the Lebanese government to reign in Hezbollah, something it has very limited capability in doing. The Lebanese Army is in reality almost powerless in dealing with Hezbollah, also as it has no air force to speak of. 

The US itself has imposed sanctions and limits on what aircraft Lebanon can obtain, fearing that it could be used in a conflict with Israel.

Keep reading

“Overkill”: Dems Bristle After AIPAC Spends ‘Unprecedented’ Amount To Defeat Bowman

While Rep. Jamal Bowman, a moron, may have sealed his fate after pulling a fire alarm to delay a House vote on a congressional stopgap bill, the ‘squad’ member’s Democratic primary loss to ‘moderate’ challenger George Latimer has raised eyebrows for other reasons.

Chief among them is what Axios described as an ‘unprecedented financial investment’ by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which spent over $14.5 million to defeat Bowman, mostly via TV ads attacking the incumbent.

While Bowman also faced opposition from a ‘Crypto Super PAC‘ – and Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss posting on X that “this is what happens when you pick a fight with the crypto army,” Democrats tell Axios that AIPAC’s enormous ad spend may have also been meant to intimidate Democrats who are critical of the Jewish state.

“It might change how they talk about [Israel],” one moderate House Democrat told the outlet, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“The number is gross … I don’t like it,” another House Democrat told Axios, calling the figure “Overkill,” and adding “If anything that much money could backfire, because then you get people that are like, ‘This is just wrong.”

Keep reading

EXPOSED: Israeli Documents Reveal Concerted Effort By Government to Put Out Zionist Propaganda in the US Media

Amichai Chikli, a member of the Likud Party and a minister in the Israeli government, has been leading a campaign to spread pro-Israeli propaganda in the United State corporate media. 

According to a report by The Guardian, Chikli was brought before the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to inform elected officials on what could be done about the growing set of anti-war protests from young people all over universities across the US.  

Chikli and his team relaunched the “Concert”, a controversial program initially branded as Kela Shlomo in Hebrew. The program has the ostensive aim of carrying out what the Israeli regime has deemed as ““mass consciousness activities” primarily targeted largely at the US and Europe.” This specific iteration is part of a broader public relations drive to target US institutions of higher learning and change the definition of antisemitism according to US law. 

Concert is currently known as Voices of Israel. Previously, it teamed up with groups leading a campaign to enact so-called “anti-BDS” state laws that sanction Americans for participating in boycotts or other non-violent demonstrations against Israel.

The latest iteration of the program is a concerted effort, often run covertly, by the Jewish state to push back against university protests, human rights organizations and other dissenting voices. 

Voices’ most recent activities were carried out through non-profit organizations and other bodies that often do not reveal their donor information. From October up until May, Chikli has presided over at least $8.6m for a budget that’s allocated towards government advocacy to change the public debate.

One American pro-Zionist group that has been working with Chikli’s ministry, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, or ISGAP, was able to achieve a major victory in recent times. The ISCAP allegedly received the bulk of its funding in 2018 from the Israeli agency that was in charge of operating Concert. At an April 7 event at the Palm Beach Country Club, ISGAP boasted about a congressional public relations victory that it achieved. 

In this instance, they were referring to hearings led by Republicans such as New York Congressman Elise Stefanik designed to grill prominent university presidents such as then-Harvard President Claudine Gay and her counterparts in other elite universities. 

Gay ended up resigning earlier this year for engaging in alleged acts of plagiarism. 

Keep reading