Tag: israel

Israel Uses Its Civilians As Human Shields During Its Attack On Gaza

Israel’s latest assault on the besieged Gaza Strip resulted in the murder of 33 Palestinians, a third of them women and children, in a “targeted assassination” campaign, again, with a majority of those killed being civilians. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attempted to score a domestic political victory, however, the plot didn’t quite go to plan.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning last week, at around 2:00AM, Israeli fighter jets began bombarding the besieged Gaza Strip. Three prominent leaders of the second most powerful armed group in the territory, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement (PIJ), were killed along with their wives and children in the initial strikes. Although Western corporate media attempted to brush over this fact, it is a violation of international law to break a ceasefire agreement by murdering none-active combatants along with their families. There were no legal proceedings, no plausible threat to the Israeli side, and the regime failed to produce any evidence that killing the individuals they targeted would prevent any future threat — in fact they demonstrated the very opposite.

Tel Aviv notified the United States government about its intentions and Washington did not prevent the attack, making them complicit in the war crimes committed. The Israeli military also used American aircraft in order to carry out its assassination campaign.

In total, 33 Palestinians were killed, roughly a third of them women and children, with over 110 suffering wounds from the Israeli onslaught, 38 of whom were children. On the other side, 1 Israeli was killed by Palestinian retaliatory rocket fire, with a number of others injured. It is expected that Israel is again hiding their combatant deaths, after a gag order was placed on the destruction of military sites during the confrontation. Among the hundreds of sites bombarded by the Israelis was the Beit Lahia Cemetery, an act which was condemned by Gaza’s Ministry of Waqf and Islamic Affairs as “a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the dead”. Ninety-four Gazan families, comprising 535 people, lost their sources of livelihood in Gaza due to the bombings, a further 800 people were displaced, with 940 buildings damaged and 15 residential blocks, containing over 50 apartments, being completely destroyed.

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‘NYT’ slights Palestinian civilian deaths and Netanyahu’s political motivation for attacks

We are accustomed to The New York Times parroting the official Israeli view of Palestinian resistance, and once again this week the Times came through, all but leaving out the Palestinian civilians killed by Israel and dismissing an important factor in Israel’s missile strikes on apartment buildings in Gaza — the pressure on Netanyahu from the fascistic members of his own coalition.

Even liberal Zionists in the United States were alarmed by the political motivation for murdering innocent civilians. But the Times made excuses for Netanyahu.

Yesterday the Times put the death of an Israeli in the third paragraph of its story– the first Israeli casualty during a week of violence. But in a frank demonstration that Palestinian lives don’t matter to the newspaper of record, the Times left civilian deaths in Gaza till a few paragraphs from the end of the story. (“At least 29 Palestinians have been killed since the hostilities began on Tuesday, six of them children…”)

The Times justified the Israeli attacks, calling them “airstrikes against what the military described as 150 targets linked to the militant group [Islamic Jihad] in Gaza.”

One Times headline only mentioned the three Islamic Jihad leaders killed, not the 10 civilians. Palestinians are being dehumanized, Dahlia Hatuqa pointed out.

Here’s a good example of how you dehumanize Palestinians. Israel purposefully struck a residential area in one of the most densely populated places on earth. It is impoverished and besieged. 12 people are killed, including women and children. And the headline is about “militants”

The PBS News Hour was almost as deferential. Geoff Bennett left the large number of Palestinian dead to the last line of his report, and didn’t say that almost all have been civilians. Nope, it’s legitimate targets: “Israeli airstrikes hit Islamic Jihad targets. Palestinian officials said at least 21 people in Gaza have been killed.”

This politeness about state terrorism reflects the enormous pressure inside Israel not to talk about the civilian deaths. When an Israeli channel highlighted the killings of ten women and children, it was ravaged by critics, including government ministers.

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Israeli actor Chaim Topol lived a double life as a Mossad agent using his VIP status to gain entry to sensitive sites on daring missions around the world, his family reveals after his death aged 87

Fiddler on the Roof star Chaim Topol was actually a Mossad agent who went on daring missions around the world, his family have revealed weeks after his death. 

The Israeli actor, who died last month aged 87, lived a secret double life of ‘adventure and courage’ in between stints on the stage.

Although he gained fame for his depiction of Tevye in Shalom Aleichem’s stage musical, and then later in the 1971 film adaptation, his life off-stage was even more extraordinary.

His family say he used his London home as a base to welcome Mossad spies sent from Israel, who he plotted with to use his VIP status to gain entry to sensitive locations. 

The trips usually targeted the embassies, airports and airlines of Israel’s Arab enemies, as revealed by his widow Galia, and children Adi and Omer in an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

Omer told the publication: ‘I don’t know exactly what the appropriate definition is for the missions and duties he performed. But what is clear is that Dad was involved in secret missions on behalf of the Mossad.

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Oops! Deleted Tweet By Israel’s Former PM Disclosed Nuke Arsenal

In a major faux pax in US-Israeli relations, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged the existence of the country’s nuclear weapon arsenal via Twitter — then deleted the tweet, presumably after realizing he’d violated the long-standing US-Israeli practice of pretending that arsenal doesn’t exist. 

Barak’s Tuesday tweet addressed growing worries about the growing presence of ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious factions in Israel’s government. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, for example, openly aspire to turn Israel into a theocracy. 

Barak wrote: 

“In conversations between Israelis and Western diplomatic officials, there are deep concerns raised of the possibility that if the coup in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship — that possesses nuclear weapons and fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount — will be established in the heart of the Middle East.”  

Thanks in part to a former nuclear technician’s 1986 revelations, Israel is widely known to have a nuclear arsenal, with one estimate sizing it at 90 warheads. However, it’s never joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It’s just one of only five countries in the world that haven’t done so, along with North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan. 

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DOJ Drops Probe Into Rep. Matt Gaetz After Leaked Texts Implicate Israeli Govt in $25M Extortion Plot

The Department of Justice officially declined to charge Florida Rep Matt Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation on Wednesday after leaked texts revealed the Israeli government appeared to be implicated in a $25 million extortion plot targeting Gaetz’s family.

From The Palm Beach Post, “Justice Department drops sex trafficking probe of Rep. Matt Gaetz without charges, lawyers say”:

The Justice Department has formally decided not to charge firebrand Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation, the lawmaker’s lawyers said Wednesday.

“We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice, and they have determined not to bring any charges against him,” attorneys Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner said.

Gaetz’s office also issued a brief statement acknowledging the Justice Department’s contact with the lawmaker’s attorneys.

The department did not immediately comment. The decision was first reported by CNN.

[…] The Gaetz inquiry was launched following the arrest of Joel Greenberg, formerly a Gaetz family friend and Florida tax collector. As part of a plea agreement, Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and other offenses. He pleaded guilty to six federal crimes, including identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official. Prosecutors said he paid at least one girl to have sex with him and other men.

Joel Greenberg, a potential Jeffrey Epstein-esque figure who had worked as a tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, appears to have tried to entrap Gaetz into having sex with a 17-year-old girl for blackmail purposes.

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Recipient of $200M Federal Grant to Help Build Electric Vehicle Batteries in U.S. Must Pay $33.5M Fine for Pollution Overseas

Fires associated with EVs – including bikes and trucks – continue to be reported in the U.S. as well as worldwide.  Of course, there are numerous other issues associated with EVs – some of them environmental.  Nevertheless, the Biden Administration continues to promote EVs as environmentally friendly as well as fund their manufacturing, maintenance, and operation in the U.S.  We can only hope that some of the federal funding provided for a future EV battery plant in St. Louis, MO will be spent to prevent a situation like what already happened in Israel.

From St. Louis Today:

Company planning St. Louis expansion hit with $33 million fine for pollution overseas

The Israeli company planning an expansion to help build electric vehicle batteries in St. Louis reached an agreement last month to pay a $33.5 million fine for pollution in Israel — the largest such penalty in the country’s history, according to some reports.

ICL Group — which makes a range of chemicals, fertilizers, and industrial products — announced that the Dec. 14 settlement agreement between one of its subsidiaries and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority resolves issues sparked in 2017, when an evaporation pond wall collapsed at one of its fertilizer plants in southern Israel.

The incident spilled over 26 million gallons of highly acidic water across more than 12 miles of the surrounding desert and watershed, causing contamination and, according to Israeli news reports, killing a third of a local herd of rare ibex — a kind of wild goat known for long, curved horns.

In the aftermath, Israel’s Ministry of Environment launched a criminal investigation into the plant’s owner and ICL, its parent company.

“All the plants and animals in the valley during the tsunami of acid were probably highly damaged, probably dead,” said Oded Netzer, an ecologist for the ministry, Reuters reported in 2017. “In the long term, there will be soil damage and large functional ecological problems.”

Through the new settlement, ICL’s subsidiary agreed to pay for restoration of the contaminated area and other things, such as legal expenses. The financial impact on ICL “is not expected to be material,” the company said in a recent summary posted to its website.

ICL did not respond to requests for an interview.

Israeli Ministry of Health claimed in court they were unable to locate a signed agreement with Pfizer

The Israeli Ministry of Health (“MoH”) stated before the court that it was unable to locate the agreement signed with Pfizer regarding the sharing of epidemiological information on coronavirus vaccines.  He also said that he did not know if the agreement had even been signed.

In 2020, Israel struck a deal with Pfizer, promising to share vast troves of medical data with Pfizer in exchange for the continued flow of its “hard-to-get vaccine.”  The agreement document was made public in January 2021 with large parts of it redacted. The MoH claimed last week that this agreement could not be found.

As part of an application to the Jerusalem District Court, the Ministry of Health admitted that, although an extensive search had been carried out, the agreement signed with Pfizer concerning vaccines could not be found. “We did not find a signed agreement,” said lawyer Ahava Berman of the prosecutor’s office, on behalf of MoH. “We searched all places, including the CEO’s office and the legal department”.

The claim that an agreement could not be found was made in response to a court petition after the MoH failed to respond to a request made by the Human Rights Association under the Freedom of Information Act.  The Association was attempting to establish the authenticity of the document published in January 2021 and whether or not it was signed by MoH CEO Hazi Levy and another Pfizer official whose name had been redacted.  Their signatures did not appear in the document previously released.

In a written response to the court, an MoH representative claimed that “a comprehensive inquiry has been made with many officials at the Ministry of Health to clarify whether the agreement was signed or not. Because of the government exchange and the relevant bodies in the office, the Ministry did not find out whether the agreement was signed or not.”

The petition documents were sent to Kan News and Kan News requested the information from the MoH.  Within less than a day the MoH found the signed agreement and submitted it to the court.

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Israel to introduce sweeping online censorship law

The Israeli government has announced that it will adopt recommendations to regulate social media platforms to create a “safer” online environment. The recommendations are similar to the social media rules in the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which will take effect next year.

Outgoing Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel announced that Israel would adopt recommendations made by the committee for examining legislation on online social media platforms, which was formed in October 2021. The committee, which was led by the Communications Ministry director-general Liran Avisar Ben-Horin, was created to find solutions to tackle the regulatory and ethical questions related to social media.

“This is an unregulated space where negative and harmful social phenomena have emerged,” said Hendel, as reported by the Times of Israel. “Legal responsibility needs to be applied to digital platforms in relation to the distribution of illegal sexual content, incitement to violence and terrorism, and more.”

“The step we are taking today brings us closer to a more protected and safer online space while preserving freedom of expression.”

The committee recommended that social media companies should be obligated to immediately remove illegal and offensive content, create an online hotline for reporting offensive and illegal content, create a system where users can appeal censorship and suspension decisions, and be more transparent.

Courts will be given the power to issue content removal orders, and a social media regulator will be created. Platforms operating in Israel will be required to set up offices in Israel.

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Killing By Drone: Hunting Enemies In Urban Combat

A new drone from Israel’s Elbit Systems called Lanius combines a number of technologies that put it at the forefront of how drones are transforming war.

At the same time, reports about the drone may raise questions about how this technology may make war more controversial as “robots” play a larger role in it.

The more armies and defense companies invest in new technology that enables combat to take place remotely — without soldiers interacting with civilians, for instance — the more it seems like “robot wars.”

Elbit Systems has said that Lanius is “part of the Legion-X robotic and autonomous combat solution.” Elbit is one of Israel’s three largest defense companies and is at the forefront of defense technology.

Its website says the drone “is a highly maneuverable and versatile drone-based loitering munition designed for short-range operation in the urban environment.”

The drone can scout and map buildings, flying around small corridors and through doorways. This means it can help a user find “points of interest for possible threats, detecting, classifying and syncing to Elbit Systems’ Legion-X solutions. Lanius can carry lethal or non-lethal payloads, capable of performing a broad spectrum of mission profiles for special forces, military, law enforcement, and HLS.”

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Why the US & Israel are preventing aid from reaching one of the poorest countries in the Middle East

Despite the recent signing of a historic maritime border agreement, tensions continue to remain high, with both Israel and the United States attempting to force Lebanon into compliance with their regional agenda.

Although Israeli and Lebanese leaders signed letters of intent earlier this month ending their long-standing maritime border dispute and averting a major escalation in their ongoing conflict, the two sides still remain technically at war. Beirut refuses to recognise the Israeli state, maintaining the stance that first the Palestine issue must be resolved, as Israel maintains control over the Shebaa Farms area which Lebanon claims to be its territory.

Last week, drone strikes were reported to have killed up to 25 people after targeting a fuel aid convoy that had just passed the Al-Qaim crossing into Syria from Iraq. There are conflicting reports on who actually carried out the attack, with both Israel and the United States accused of having been behind it. The US military instantly distanced themselves from the incident, by denying they had carried out any strikes, whilst the Israeli government refused to comment and is now widely assumed to be culpable. According to Iraqi authorities, the fuel trucks, numbering 22 according to Iranian state-media, were approved for heading out of the country and seemed to be part of Iran’s new agreement with Lebanon to provide free fuel.

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