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By Jay Janson

Israelis are very proud of their Biblical God given cry and order, ‘Let My People Go,’ but never seem to accept, nor hear, nor acknowledge, that ‘Let Us Have Our Freedom’ be the imagined cry of generations of captive Palestinians suffering Israel’s merciless, and very often deadly, illegal military occupation.

Israeli government policies have consistently made Israel’s intentions seem to be something like ‘We Will Keep These People Captive While We Take Their Land As Ours Piece by Piece,’ and ‘Get These People Gone the sooner the better.'[1].

‘I, Me Mine’ or this case, ‘We Us Ours’ is a phrase that comes to this writer’s mind when considering Israel’s intentions regarding the land of Palestinians, and most certainly no consideration whatever for the ‘They Them Theirs’ of Palestinians.[1]

Since the event of October 7, 2023, CIA overseen Western media[2] has up to now made little or no mention that Hamas is fighting against the decades long Israeli military occupation of Palestine land and Israel’s  sealing off the population of Gaza from the outside world. Little or no mention is made of Hamas fighting for Palestinian freedom and independence. CIA controlled Western media [} does not wish to admit that one side is fighting for freedom and justice when going overboard in massacring, while the other side is fighting to keep its captives imprisoned (and vulnerable to the colonization of their land) as it has gone beyond sane behavior and massacred thousands of children, women and men with the weapons and warplanes the USA has provided, while cutting off all electricity, fuel, food and water.

During the same period of time, Israel has made it clear that it aims to completely destroy Hamas, both its military and its government of Gaza.

Although Israel’s Prime Minister leaves the question of the future of Gaza aside for now, it is noteworthy that the future of the West Bank and East Jerusalem goes unmentioned in media as if there is no change expected despite its present long occupation by Israel, which for years has been colonizing the West Bank with Israeli settlements now containing a total of some million and a half settlers. For both Israel and the US, the strategy continues to be Israel’s domination and subjugation of the Palestinian people and theft of their land and resources.

Is it conceivable that Israeli military power can defeat the Palestinian fight for freedom and justice, which Hamas seems to have instilled anew in the minds and hearts of a substantial segment of the Palestinian population since winning a huge majority in the 2006 parliamentary election in both the West Bank and Gaza with Palestinian voters rejecting the long-time rule of the Fatah movement? (The subsequent collaboration of Fatah with UK secret services and the US CIA in fomenting a bloody civil war against Hamas, has been for some time an ‘open secret’ for Palestinians.'[3]

Will Netanyahu (now criticized for having once supported Hamas in order to divide Palestinian solidarity for a Palestinian state [4]) retain power for himself and rescue and protect the Israeli state’s status quo by killing thousands more Palestinian children, destroying their homes and starving to death even more thousands?

Hardly imaginable. Netanyahu defending his now internationally condemned mega genocidal collective punishment rained down upon Gaza with outrageous allegations, such as the story of Hamas “beheading 40 babies‘ and repeated gruesome tales of Hamas terror, a good deal of which Israeli Hebrew newspapers have debunked [5], will eventually no longer wash.

Too many people remember as do Palestinians that the state of Israel was founded in 1948 by the most reprehensible Israeli massacres of Palestinians in order to ethnic cleanse British misgoverned Palestine of its 2 to 1 Arab majority by Israelis owning only 7% and constituting only 1/3 of its population.

Israel condemning Hamas terror is like ‘the kettle calling the pot black.] On December 4, 1948, Albert Einstein condemned the macabre Israeli massacre at the Arab village of Deir Yassin and warned against supporting Fascism in Israel in a letter to the New York Times signed by other prominent Jews

If he tries to keep to his genocidal agenda, will Netanyahu not alienate even Israel’s  closest allies, who will be needing to protect their own public projected honorable images?

Hamas is demanding an independent Palestinian state, one that, according to its 2017 manifesto, would at the very least include the land Palestinians held in 1967, and include Jerusalem, and the right of return.[6]

What shall the hundreds of times wealthier state of Israel be offering Palestinians remains a mystery. Could it possibly be further bondage and poverty? How many Israelis see or sense and are ashamed of the similarity between Israel’s persecution and treatment of Palestinians and their own past persecution and treatment under the Nazis? Will these conscience bound Israelis not begin to clash with their fellow citizens who are gung-ho fanatic for a bible based ‘Greater Israel’ encompassing and swallowing up even more than just the Palestinian lands?[1]

As humanity’s majority in the world’s southern hemisphere begins to become aware of its power and influence in today’s modern changing world, could it spell trouble for the apartheid nature of Israel and Israel’s dependence on, relationship with, and support from, the still all powerful USA/NATO, which is now for the first time being internally discussed and questioned because of the international embarrassment of having too long continued to support the inhuman and genocidal excesses of Israel’s war in Gaza? –

A  ‘war?’ against one’s own long ago captured and surrounded population of Israeli’s former Arab neighbors in British ruled Palestine imprisoned on their own but less than half smaller land. A ‘war?’ In which there is little or no reporting of militaries clashing with each other, but lots of reporting of tens thousands of dead and maimed women and children, of tens of thousands of their homes destroyed often with family members buried underneath the ruble.

Maybe it’s time to go back and recall when, how and why this intractable murderous violence in Palestine began.

In November of 1946, American power over an incipient United Nations of only 56 nations, produced a genocidal stratagem of torching the Holy Land with a phony, never expected nor intended to be implemented resolution for a crazy quilt partition [7] of Palestine meant to immediately provoke a civil war prepared for and expected by the Colonial Powers supported revisionist Zionists leadership and their terrorist groups the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) and Lehi or the Stern Gang – ultimately led by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

(The vote for partition was approved with 25 in favor versus 32 against, abstaining or absent)

If the reader would like to read Albert Einstein’s commentary on events in Palestine from 1923 through 1948 please read on.

More than a year before this civil war producing vote, Albert Einstein made headlines in the New York Times, EINSTEIN URGES UNITED NATIONS RUN PALESTINE, February 15, 1946

“A government in Palestine under the UN’s direct control and a constitution assuring Jews’ and Arab’ security against being outvoted by each other would solve the Jewish-Arab difficulties.” [8] 

During the debate of two UN plans for Palestine, Egyptian delegate Fawzi noted

“an aim to establish military bases for the benefit of Powers that wanted to gain a strong hold in the oil rich Middle East,” 

Fawzi had asked for an advisory opinion on the legal issues from the International Court of Justice.  His delegation denied that the General Assembly had any power to decree the partition of Palestine, and described the partition plan as “shameless illegality,” contrary to the principle of self-determination for the overwhelming majority of the people of Palestine.

If the alternate UN plan for an independent and democratic Palestine had not been suffocated by colonial power politicking, Jews would have had access to the entire Mandate of Palestine. With all the intellectual prowess that immigrating Jews were bringing as engineers, doctors, scientists and workers knowledgeable in advanced technology, and the international financial connections available to their leaders, both sides might have opted to stay mixed, legislating a great degree of regard for cultural, religious distinctions that would see Jews sharing economic social benefits with Arabs in a Israel-Palestine smack in a sea of Arab nations accepting a Jewish lead in the affairs of a prospering single unique mixed Jewish-Arab state. The culturally rich Ladino culture in Muslim ruled Spain comes to mind.

How welcomed by all the concerned world would freedom and justice for Palestinians be!  

It is to be expected that Israel will try to continue to deny freedom and independence and justice, even dignity, for Palestinians by continuing to delay acceptance of any kind of two state arrangement. But, a single democratic state might even become to be preferable to Israel’s having to remove the Israeli settlers from the West Bank, and having to tolerate a still belligerent Arab population on its border and along its Mediterranean shore. The homeland Jewishness within a wisely negotiated new Israel-Palestine state could continue alongside or interspersed within a Muslim population equally at home in a Middle East of Islamic religion.

In 1927, in “The Jews and Palestine, “ in  About Zionism, Einstein wrote referring to his experience during his 1923 visit,

“At no time did I get the impression that the Arab problem might threaten the development of the Palestine project. I believe rather that, among the working classes especially, Jew and Arab on the whole get on excellently together.” 

Albert Einstein writing in regard to his joy in participating in fund raising for a Hebrew University there.

“I firmly believe that the Jews, given the smallness and  dependence of their colony in Palestine, will be immune from the folly of power.” (Einstein Letter to Maurice Solovine, March 8, 1921)

Four months later Einstein tempered his joy with his first apprehension about Zionist organizing.

“I am very glad to have followed Weizmann’s invitation. In several places, however, a high-tensioned Jewish nationalism shows itself that threatens to degenerate into intolerance and bigotry, but hopefully this is only an infantile disorder.” (Einstein Letter to Paul Ehrenfest, June18, 1921)

After Einstein’s stay in Palestine in 1923, he had written in his ‘My Impressions of Palestine’ article for New Palestine Magazine,

“A remarkable tribute to the real power of Palestine is the fact that the Jewish elements which have been resident in the country for decades stand distinctly higher, both in the matter of culture and in their display of energy, than those elements which have only recently arrived.”

(An observation that would reflect itself as a Revisionist conquering attitude eventually replaced the original Labor Zionists international socialist philosophy, which was shared by Einstein.)

 I have myself seen more than once insurance of friendly relations between Jewish and Arab workers. I believe that most of the difficulty comes from the intellectuals and, at that, not from the Arab intellectual alone.” Einstein, Albert,“My Impression of Palestine,” in New Palestine Magazine February 3rd 1928.  Published by The Zionist Organization of America.

Two years later, Einstein said he would not remain associated with the Zionist movement unless it tried to make peace with the Arabs, in deed as well as in word.

“The Jews should form committees with the Arab peasants and workers, and not try to negotiate only with the leaders.”Clark, Ronald W., Einstein: The Life and Times, (William Morrow & Company) p.482, citing Norman Bentwich, My 77 years, (NY: Jewish Publication Society) p.99

Interestingly, Einstein never wavered from expressing confidence in Arab-Jewish peaceful and cooperative co-existence even after the horrific Arab massacre of Jews at Hebron and other places in August of 1929.

On November 25, 1929, Einstein wrote to Chaim Weizmann – the future first President of Israel – stating:

“If we do not succeed in finding the path of honest cooperation and coming to terms with the Arabs, we will not have learned anything from our two thousand year old ordeal and will deserve the fate which will beset us.”  (“Einstein and Germany – Physics Today,” [Letter to Chaim Weizmann, 29 November. 1929, in the Weizmann Archives; Einstein on Peace, Schocken, New York (1960), p. 25.)

Einstein, a strong and outspoken socialist, (see his ‘Why Socialism?’[9])followed the progress of Jewish settlement in the British Mandate, and when, in the 1930s, international socialist Zionism came under pressure from the political right, he wrote,

“Under the guise of nationalist propaganda Revisionism seeks to support the destructive speculation in land; it seeks to exploit the people and derive them of their rights,” in JEWISH-ARAB AMITY URGED BY EINSTEIN, New York Times. April 20, 1935

Quoting below perceptive writings of Albert Einstein during the morphing of a Zionism that had begun as Cultural and International Socialist Labor Zionism into its domination by Revisionist Zionism and some militant terroristZionism. In 1938, the Irgun instituted a wave of bombings against Arab crowds. *(The Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948.)

In August 1945, Einstein was publicly sharply critical of the Jewish underground paramilitary groups, such as the Irgun and the Stern Group. In his words,

“I regard it [the Irgun] as a disaster. I am not willing to see anyone associated with those misled and criminal people.” (letter to Shepard Rifkin)

In an Address by Einstein at the Manhattan Opera House to the National Labor Committee for Palestine, on January 11, 1946, Einstein spoke of what he saw as the basic human problem in Palestine, namely, colonialism, British Empire colonialism

“I wish to explain why I believe the difficulties in Palestine exist.  First, the difficulties between the Jews and Arabs are artificially created, and are created by the English…Of course the English had two interests. First was to have raw materials for their industry. Also the oil in those countries. I find everywhere there are big landowners who are exploiters of that race of people. …The British are always in a passive alliance with those land possessing owners which suppress the work of the people in the different trades. It is my impression that Palestine is a kind of small model of India… Now how can I explain otherwise that national troublemaking is a British enterprise? I believe that the Palestinian people, under severe influence of the United Nations, will be able to create a better state of affairs. But with the British rule as it is, I believe it is impossible to find a real remedy…The state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected to many difficulties and a narrow-mindedness. I believe it is bad.… If people are united with each other and they come to the idea that they do not need the foreign rule, then they want to make themselves independent.”

Einstein Hits British Rule Testifying before the AngloAmerican inquiry commission on Palestine Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON January 18, 1946.

Prof. Albert Einstein charges that British colonial rule was responsible for the trouble between the Arabs and Jews. Accuses Great Britain Of Double Dealing.” Prof. Albert Einstein, testifying before the Anglo-American Inquiry Commission, said he was against a Jewish State…He urged, however, that the bulk of the Jewish refugees in Europe be brought to Palestine. Emphasizing that he believes there will be no peace between Jews and Arabs as long as the British rule Palestine, Prof. Einstein charged Britain with violating the basic responsibilities undertaken in the Balfour Declaration. Asked by British members of the committee whether the Americans should take over Palestine from the British, Prof. Einstein replied that the administration of Palestine should be international. He emphasized that he holds Americans responsible for what the British are doing in Palestine.                           

“Difficulties between Jews and Arabs were largely artificially created by the British,” Einstein declared.

He criticized the British colonial policy as based on the principle of “divide and rule,” and charged the British administration with using the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem to foment trouble. Queried by Dr. Frank Aydelotte, one of the American members of the committee, as to what he would do if Arabs resisted the immigration of Jews from Europe into Palestine, Prof. Einstein replied,

“this will not be the case if they are not incited.”

Questioned by Dr. Aydelotte concerning political versus cultural Zionism, he stated:

“I was never for a political state.”

A few days later, Einstein again made his position clear,

“I am in favor of Palestine being developed as a Jewish Homeland but not as a separate state. It seems to me a matter of simple common sense that we cannot ask to be given political rule over Palestine where two thirds of the population are not Jewish.” (Letter to Maurice Dunay, January 19, 1946)

——————November 1946——————

With the announcement of the partition resolution, the Jewish and Arab communities of British Mandate Palestine immediately began to clash in violence.  After the partition resolution, the British, again unilaterally, brought the date of the end of its mandate forward to May 14. 

Britain announced that it would accept the partition plan, but refused to enforce it, arguing it was not accepted by the Arabs. Britain also refused to share the administration of Palestine with the UN Palestine Commission during the transitional period, and requested the UN Palestine Commission not to enter Palestine until two weeks before the British withdrawal.

The UN General Assembly by its charter was and still is only granted the power to make recommendations, therefore, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 was actually not legally binding, but there was no significant expression of doubt about the de facto power of the UN resolution and its having torched Palestine.

Supposedly in response to the civil war already raging, or making it look like in response, President Harry S. Truman made a statement on 25 March proposing UN trusteeship rather than partition. This dissimulating statement, clearly so woefully belated, to have any effect, by a US president who had overseen all his administration’s threats and arm twisting machinations to accrue the votes needed for the passing of the partition resolution which brought the deadly violence about, must be seen as pure window dressing – a pretending that a civil war had not been contemplated by the plainly absurd UN resolution, plan,

The British decided in early February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan.

As the last British were leaving on May 14 ending the Mandate, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel comprising 73% of Palestine for 33% of its people.

Letter to the New York Times, December 4, 1948, from Albert Einstein and other prominent Jews, warning of Zionist Facism In Israel, denouncing Menachem Begin, a future prime minister of Israel and his Irgun’s horrific massacre of a peaceful Arab village.

Complete text with all the names of those who signed it. From Letters to the Editor, New York Times, December 4, 1948

“Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “”Freedom Party”” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin’’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants —— 240 men, women, and children —— and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.

During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

Discrepancies Seen

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “”Leader State”” is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.”

(signed) Albert Einstein and twenty-seven other prominent Jews [10]in New York, Dec. 2, 1948 

In spite of Einstein’s efforts, the Palestinians Arabs, while still suffering British military occupation as a colony since the end of the First World War, became re-colonized after the Second World War by another group of Europeans through a genocidal civil war openly planned and provoked by Anglo-American machinations.

Ever since then, Israel has been in bed with the Military Industrial Complex of a US business elite that once heavily invested in Hitler, was itself anti-Semitic in outlook and coldly indifferent and even complicit during the Holocaust its investments had made possible.

The U.S., via military aid between 1950 and 2022, has provided Israel with over 70,000 weapons — aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles and bombs — , of which a considerable amount has been used according to an Axios analysis of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

“I think it’s a safe assumption to say that U.S. weapons are being used extensively in the current Israeli operations in Gaza,” (a U.S. arms transfer expert at the Stimson Center, told Time Magazine, November 3, 2023)

Yes, and the U.S. weapons, as so often in the past, are indiscriminately killing and maiming thousands of Palestinians, who by international law are wards of the illegal occupying State of Israel. However, this time a large enough part of humanity in this age of instant world wide communication is outraged enough to bring about a larger confrontation, and a somewhat consequential moral defeat for the White nations’ ‘Rules Based International Order,’ for their seventy years of support of Israeli crimes against humanity.

That is to say if Hamas has forced Israel into perpetrating unacceptable crimes against humanity, while not stopping Hamas from continuing to fire rockets into Israel, then Hamas has already won the current confrontation and won in the name of freedom and justice for Palestinians.

Present circumstances might lead to the present State of Israel suffering future options that now are still thought of as intolerable.

In 1991, the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin, had advised:

The only solution is keep intact the territory and create a federated union, allow people to live where they were, together, apart, schools apart or together – what ever they want – with Jerusalem capital of both like Bern is the capital of German Switzerland and French Switzerland and each president is there for a year and no one knows his name – that is the only solution, otherwise there’ll always be war.” Yehudi Menuhin in 1991

These are not the words and sentiments of an accusing Iranian President Ahmadinejad, or of a defiant Hezbollah, Hamas or other Palestinian spokesperson, but the words of a sensitive, soft spoken, internationally beloved and Israeli prize awarded musician whose very given name, Yehudi, means “the Jew” in Hebrew, his first language.

Menuhin, who died in 1999, had insisted that a single federated state “is the the only solution possible,” echoing the statements of Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Eric Fromm and so many other Jewish intellectuals and a good many orthodox rabbis who had warned against partition before it became a fact more than seventy-seven years ago.

If Menuhin was right that a single federated state is the only possible solution, then it would seem to be just a matter of time before those who presently wield power, or those who follow them, come around to effecting its realization – strict interpretations of religious fanatics, of nationalist Zionism and U.S. foreign policy goals notwithstanding.

End Notes

1. Nov 5, 2023 — Rabbi at Israeli Military Training Base Says ‘Whole Country’ Is ‘Ours,’ Including Gaza and Lebanon – Israel News – haaretz.com.
2. “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A,” December 26, 1977, New York Times

3.  “Israel, US, and Egypt back Fatah’s fight against Hamas” Archived October 26, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Christian Science Monitor, 25 May 2007)

The Presidential Guard of Mahmoud Abbas was enlarged and equipped, and its members trained by the US, Egypt and Jordan. The US had helped build up the Presidential Guard to 3,500 men since August 2006. The US committed $59 million for training and non-lethal equipment for the Presidential Guard, and persuaded Arab allies to fund the purchase of further weapons. Israel, too, allowed light arms to flow to members of the Presidential Guard. Jordan and Egypt hosted at least two battalions for training. Institute for Strategic Studies, Volume 13, Issue 5; June 2007

4.  Many accuse Netanyahu of deliberately empowering the Hamas for decades as part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution based on the principle of land for peace.

“There’s been a lot of criticism of Netanyahu in Israel for instating a policy for many years of strengthening Hamas and keeping Gaza on the brink while weakening the Palestinian Authority,” said Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group. CBC News, 10/28/2023

5.  A report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has said that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) combat helicopter that engaged Hamas fighters at the Nova music festival near the Kibbutz Re’im during the Oct 7 attack hit festival participants as well. The Hebrew-language Haaretz newspaper article published on 20 October quotes a kibbutz resident survivor trembling as he spoke of Israeli Defense Force shelling houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists. Photos show that only the heavy munitions of the Israeli army could have destroyed residential homes in this manner. Yasmin Porat, another survivor from Kibbutz Be’eri, said in an interview for an Israeli radio-show, hosted by state-broadcaster Kan, that Israeli forces “eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” going on to state that “there was very, very heavy crossfire” and even noted tank shelling.

Israel’s fleet of Hermes 450 “Zik” armed drones carried out attacks on Israeli military bases, settlements, and civilians during the Hamas attack on 7 October, according to a 14 November report from Mishpacha Magazine.

6. Wilson Center article: Doctrine of Hamas, October 20, 2023

7. UN Map of proposed partition.                                           https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-208958/

8. New York Times of February 15, 1946

9. “Why Socialism?” By Albert Einstein, Monthly Review 

10. ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAISEL, SYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. ORLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH, LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGER, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SCHOENBERG, SAMUEL SHUMAN, M. ZNGER, IRMA WOLPE, STEFAN WOLPE

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989.

3 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dan Lieberman

A few days of truce allows a few days to ponder events and examine apartheid Israel’s response to Hamas’ October 7 attack. Engaging in talks and achieving mutual agreements that release captives prompts the question of why wasn’t this done much earlier, before the entire population of Gaza was subjected to brutal bombardments that killed 14000 Palestinians, displaced  80 percent, destroyed 50 percent of the buildings in Gaza city, and killed more than 50 of the captured Israelis?

From the devastation emerges a chilling vision of a new world order — a nationalist, militarist, irredentist, far-right command of governments, kept in play by obedient media that shape information and exercise mind control. Coincidental with Israel’s attack on Gaza’s population and the West Bank Palestinians, Argentina and the Netherlands elected far-right leaders who are ardent supporters of Israel’s government, adding to established far-right governments in Italy and Hungary.

Post-World War II featured 45 years of a Cold War, of Capitalism contending Communism, followed by democratic neo-liberalism extending its reach worldwide, and igniting populist movements against globalization and liberalism from ultra-conservatives and authoritarians. The responses have graduated to a worldwide battle between those who believe everyone has the right to live freely, peacefully, equally, and without oppression and those who compose a ‘might make right’ force that acts with license to commit genocide. Revelations from an Israeli intelligence ministry document and a pronouncement by the director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights certify the intended genocide.

Although not entirely authoritative, The Asia Times has discovered What Gaza might look like ‘the day after’ the war.

Less than a week after Hamas’s devastating attacks on October 7, Israel’s intelligence ministry produced a chilling document. It advocated that Israel remove all of Gaza’s Palestinian population and forcibly resettle them in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. What is more likely is that Israel will indefinitely occupy parts of Gaza, while seeking to eschew responsibility for civilian governance.

Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, resigned and said, “The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt that this is a text book case of genocide.”

Hamas’ attack was more due to failure of Israeli border security than the well-prepared and well-coordinated Hamas militia. Failure has consequences and attempts to circumvent consequences and properly address failure may lead to greater failures, and this has happened. A rational government that placed its people before embarking on a mission of ‘might make right’ and  ’might cannot fail’ would  have:

(1)    Operated behind the scenes and obtained agreement to release all captives. Each day that women and children are captive is a day of mental and physical deterioration leading to lifelong illnesses and possible death.

(2)    Immediately secured the border in a firm and organized manner so there is no possibility of another Hamas attack.

(3)    Carefully ascertained the reasons for the attack, determined what may follow, and learned if the attack might be part of a larger campaign that includes other adversaries. Gather the facts before facing the facts.

News reports have not shown that Israel prioritized captive release and firm border security before waging destruction.

The media uses the word ‘war’ instead of ‘destruction.’ Where is the war, where is anybody able to contest Israel’s unilateral actions? Buildings and civilians do not fight and wage war; they are victims of destruction. Why does Israel wage destruction? The answer is obvious ─ Israel considered Hamas’ vicious attack as an opportunity to advance its agenda of physically and psychologically destroying the Palestinians. Keeping the conversation on the Hamas massacre alive while Israel mobilized its forces for its intended massacre and constantly referring to the brutality of the hostage-taking suppressed complaints to Israel’s genocidal tactics. But not for long. International protests to Israel’s deranged actions and an internal outcry at the neglect of the hostages forced Netanyahu to grant a temporary truce and trade captives.

To give a twisted rationale to Israel’s genocidal plan, Israeli officials and its worldwide media companions embarked on a media campaign that dehumanized the Palestinians and aroused sympathy for Israeli suffering. The Israeli propaganda machine worked quickly, using rumors and unverified stories to replace demon ISIS with new demon Hamas. Stop here for a moment of contention. Does the brutality of Hamas’ vicious attack permit unverified stories to circulate and prevent the airing of narratives that contradict the accepted narratives?

CNN commentator, Erin Burnett, interviewed  Yasmin Porat, an Israeli woman taken hostage. Ms. Porat related her witnessing the killings, being taken hostage, and being used as a human shield, but not really, she wasn’t a shield for a gun-toting killer; Yasmin Porat shielded a defenseless Hamas operative from being killed by Israeli forces before surrendering. Cutting the interview at its most crucial point, when Ms. Porat was prepared to reveal information inconsistent with published reports demonstrated how the media manipulates the message. In a radio interview, which can be heard below, the Israeli woman gave additional details of her capture.

Hamas Assault – SURVIVOR Spoke Out – Yasmin Porat

Another website at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/yasmin-porat-speaks-out-israeli-hostage-contradicts-official-account/ar-AA1iGlG3 summarized her interview.

Yasmin Porat spoke in an exclusive interview about the events she witnessed. Amid the chaos of heavy crossfire and the ominous sound of tank shells exploding, Porat made a shocking claim: Israeli forces didn’t spare anyone in their path. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” Porat said during her conversation with Israeli radio.

Her account paints a picture where the hostages, instead of being rescued, were caught in a deadly crossfire instigated by the very forces meant to save them. The event turned from a potential rescue operation to an unfortunate catastrophe where lives from both sides were lost.

In a surprising revelation, Porat also mentioned that Palestinian fighters treated the hostages with humanity. Despite the volatile situation, they offered the hostages hope, hinting at a safe passage to Gaza.

This act of compassion stands in stark contrast to the later chaos where the hostages found themselves caught between warring factions. Yet, the revelation hasn’t found widespread coverage. Porat’s testimony mysteriously disappeared from the “Haboker Hazeh” program, leading to rampant speculation about censorship.

Israeli official interpretation of the events made the Gazans who voted for and supported Hamas equally guilty in the slaughter and deserving equal retribution. By similar logic, this makes the slaughtered Israelis who voted for the present government, equally guilty in the destruction of the Palestinians. Although Hamas attacked and kidnapped Asian workers, and Hamas would have acted the same if Israelis were Mormons, Israel insisted Hamas was intent on committing genocide of world Jewry. The Hamas military wing of supposed 50,000 warriors, which has few armored vehicles, no air force, no naval force, and already demonstrated that it cannot penetrate Israel for more than a few kilometers without being demolished, is considered able to defeat the fourth most powerful military in the world and destroy world Jewry. Meanwhile, Israel’s military is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, and “powerful” Hamas is unable to prevent the catastrophe.

Hamas committed a despicable massacre and deserves the most serious condemnation. Israel commits continuous massacres plus human crimes plus human rights violations that daily impinge on the survival of the Palestinians. Add them up and Israel has committed a massacre that has a beyond comprehension magnitude.

The physical nature of the genocide is apparent but its numbers are relatively small, not what is expected in a genocide. Not apparent is the psychological genocide — the anxiety Israel creates for the Palestinians, the violence that causes traumas and deadens spirit and emotions. This is the major component of the genocide. Two examples:

After the release of Palestinians held in Israel’s prisons, the Israeli military forbade the Palestinian families to celebrate. Denying expression of joy after internalizing grief maintains the grief. No relief for the suffering.

Randomly, Israeli soldiers will stop an auto, take the driver, beat him senselessly, and throw him down on the road; the purpose being to terrorize Palestinians, show they are powerless, cannot control their lives, and have nobody to protect them. This practice enraged one young Palestinian who suffered a random beating. The next day he shot dead an Israeli soldier in what was described as a terror attack. The Israeli military followed the ‘“terror attack” with their usual practice of demolishing the “terrorist’s “ home, causing more trauma to those in the extended family.

After tying together the usual spurious charge of anti-Semitism, substituting killings of Jews for killing of Israelis, and associating the violence with the WWII Holocaust (worst attack on the Jewish community since the Holocaust), the pro-Israel contingent introduced a new sorrowful element to grab the twisted sensibilities of their legions of dishonor. Israel, which has the backing of the most powerful forces in the universe and gets more attention than other nations, is alone, nobody considers Jewish suffering, and the Jews are the lonely people of history.

Yossi Klein Halevy, an American-born Israeli author and journalist, who led a confusing and peripatetic intellectual life, had an initial attraction to the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, eventually supported the two-state solution, and criticizes the Israeli settler movement, wrote an article titled, The Lonely People of History in the November 16, 2023 edition of the Times of Israel. The article received excessive attention and mass circulation. Some excerpts that describe the Israeli mind.

But now we are at one of those defining moments in Jewish history when we find ourselves at a moral disconnect with much of the international community. As we struggle to absorb the enormity of the October 7 massacre and to confront a global wave of antisemitism, the trauma of aloneness has returned.

Instead of delving into self-pity and victimization, Halevi should find reality. The moral disconnect comes from Halevi’s cohorts’ refusal to recognize and halt the oppression of the Palestinian people – resolve that situation and the “global wave of antisemitism” will disappear.

During the Second Intifada, when the IDF fought suicide bombers in Palestinian towns and villages, an exasperated Kofi Anan, then secretary-general of the UN, demanded: “Can the whole world be wrong and only Israel is right?” Israelis unhesitatingly replied: Absolutely.

A sure way to become alone.

Speaking at the gravesite, Yonadav’s brother called on the government to resist world pressure and persevere. He invoked Israel’s first prime minister: “David Ben-Gurion said that it doesn’t matter what the gentiles say, only what the Jews do.”

Really? Can any rational person accept David Ben-Gurion’s bigoted and egocentric statement?

More disconcerting than Halevi’s separatist attitude that invites exclusion were comments to the article that indicate paranoia, delusion, and mental aberration.

“We are always alone. On a good day, we are tolerated. When we suffer enough, we receive sympathy from some. But accepted? Never.”

“When Jews suffer, nobody sees it. That is going for 2 thousand of years. And suddenly Israelis do not have rights to protect themself. Just be quiet and do not resist! This is a new Muslim norm!

The Israeli mind
It is impossible for a rational and thoughtful human being to be unable to recognize that Israel intends to totally destroy the Palestinian community. Where will the Gazans go after hostilities end? Almost all of North Gaza, which is mainly Gaza City, is destroyed. There will be few places to live, less agricultural land to provide food, no work to find, few places to shop, nowhere to relax, and fewer schools to attend. The already crowded Gazan prison will have six times the number of people in a square mile. The precarious life of a Gazan will become many times more precarious. What mind prepares a future of pain and anguish leading to death for a community of millions? It is a distorted mind, characterized by the actions of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. From https://www.972mag.com/hebron-area-settler-violence-expulsions/.

At 10 p.m. on Oct. 13, I received a phone call from Amer Abu Awad, a Palestinian resident of Khirbet Al-Radeem, a small rural community south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. “The settlers attacked me,” he told me in a frightened voice. “Some of them were wearing army uniforms.”

“They assaulted me, beat my elderly father, pushed him to the ground, dragged him through the puddles, and pointed weapons at us,” Abu Awad continued, pausing to catch his breath. “They said I had to leave by morning, or my family and I will be finished.”

Early the next day, Abu Awad called me again. “I want to leave, but the roads are closed.” After hours of interventions, he managed to escape with his family of five along with his flock of sheep to the town of As-Samu, leaving behind his house, furniture, livestock barracks, and grain for the sheep. Abu Awad and his family had to carry all their belongings by foot; the Israeli army would not allow any vehicles to enter the area.

Palestinians in the rural communities surrounding Hebron live marginal and peaceful lives. They need assistance to enrich their living standard. Instead of giving assistance, the Jewish settlers, strangers to the land and for no valid reason, push the marginal Palestinians to desperation, hopelessness, and impoverishment, leaving them bare of means to survive, all done with blessing from the apartheid Israeli government.

Incidents of bodily injury to Palestinians in the United States indicate how pro-Israel media foments terrorism. In the south Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge, men, waving Israeli flags, attacked a Palestinian man, three Palestinian students were shot in Vermont and a Muslim-American child was stabbed to death in Illinois by a man enraged against Muslims.

Those who demonstrate against the genocide are accused of anti-Semitism; those who support the genocide are defending the Jews who commit the genocide. Students for Justice in Palestine has been banned or suspended by Brandeis, Columbia, and George Washington University. Columbia University suspended a student chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) after JVP held demonstrations that Columbia said, “repeatedly violated university policies.” Universities are defending the initiators of genocide and protecting those who approve of the genocide.

Getting it backward does not lead to a path forward. Permitting right-wing extremists to engineer a front-seat genocide cannot be accomplished without thought control and threatens all civilization. The Israeli Jews and their Western supporters must be challenged, stopped, and removed from positions of power. One manner of challenge spreads information that reveals the truth of the genocide. Tough to find when Israel blocks and assassinates reporters in Gaza and the West Bank.

Al Jazeera manages to have on-site correspondents and receives videos, images, and reports from locals. Their publication is available at https://www.aljazeera.com/. Click on LIVE and receive Al Jazeera TV.

Another means is economic boycott, guidance from the BDS movement and other institutions that highlight companies that actively support Israel. BDS is reached at https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott ; another list is available from Innovative Minds at: http://www.inminds.com/boycott-israel.php

Keep it up, support the demonstrations, spread the word, and shout it loud,

STOP THE GENOCIDE OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at https://dlieb10gmailcom.substack.com/.

2 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kim Scipes

On December 1, 2023, the story on the upper right side of the front page of the physical copy of the New York Times is headlined “Israelis Saw Plan for Hamas Attack Over a Year Ago,” and is by-lined to Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman.

The story begins, “Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show.  But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed this plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

It continues:  “The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli officials codenamed ‘Jericho Wall,’ outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

“Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision.  The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, motorcycles and on foot—all of which happened on Oct. 7.

“The plan also included details about the location and size of Israel’s military forces, communications hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.”

—

Obviously, there is a terribly damaging and devastating report to the Israeli state, somehow getting through the Times’ efforts to downplay the death and destruction inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli military.  It has been obvious to this observer that the Times’ recent coverage—and especially the lack of photographs of Gaza today—has been far below its own standards of covering most conflicts (at least other than Ukraine).  “Important” stories such as covering elite Western US fire-fighting teams—in late November, far from fire season?—have been given front page coverage recently, along with extensive photographic evidence inside.  No, the editors have chosen to downplay Israeli death and destruction in Gaza.

And yet, somehow, this report of the humongous Israeli intelligence failure made it to the front page of the physical copy of the paper.

In any case, that it appeared, nonetheless, it was a damaging rebuke to the Israeli intelligence system—so long overplayed as “all-but-perfect”—and the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu.

Again, from the Times’ report:  “Israeli security officials have already acknowledged that they failed to protect the country, and the government is expected to assemble a commission to study the events leading to the attacks.  The Jericho Wall document lays bare a yearslong cascade of missteps that culminated in what officials now regard as the worst Israeli intelligence attack that led to the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.”

I personally think this is a stunning rebuke also to the US Government, which has slavishly protected Irael’s activities from the world community.

In any case, this article is stunning news, and is the type that makes journalists’ careers and often leads to Pulitzer Prizes.  I was sure the Times would want to circulate this report—once they decided to cover it—all over social media, etc.

Yet, when I went to the Times’ web site, somehow, this story did not appear.  It seems that the death of retired Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, was much more important a news item than this incredible Israeli intelligence failure.

“All the News That’s Fit to Print” my ass!  Soon, they’ll probably claim “Fair and Balanced” as their next slogan regarding the Middle East.

Kim Scipes, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Purdue University Northwest in Westville, Indiana.

2 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Chris Hedges

Phase One of Israel’s genocidal campaign on Gaza has ended. Phase Two has begun. It will result in even higher levels of death and destruction.

The skies over Gaza are filled — after a seven-day truce — with projectiles of death. Warplanes. Attack helicopters. Drones. Artillery shells. Tank shells. Mortars. Bombs. Missiles. Gaza is a cacophony of explosions and forlorn screams and cries for help beneath collapsed buildings. Fear, once again, is coiling itself around every heart in the Gazan concentration camp.

By Friday evening, 184 Palestinians — including three journalists and two doctors — had been killed by Israeli air strikes in the north, south and central Gaza, and at least 589 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Most of them are women and children. Israel will not be deterred. It plans to finish the job, to obliterate what is left in the north of Gaza and decimate what remains in the south, to render Gaza uninhabitable, to see its 2.3 million people driven out in a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing via starvation, terror, slaughter and infectious diseases.

The aid convoys, which brought in token amounts of food and medicine — the first batch was shrouds and coronavirus tests according to the director of al-Najjar hospital — have been halted. No one, least of all President Joe Biden, plans to intervene to stop the genocide. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel this week, and while calling for Israel to protect civilians, refused to set conditions that would disrupt the $3.8 billion Israel receives in annual military assistance or the $14.3 billion supplemental aid package. The world will watch passively, muttering useless bromides about more surgical strikes, while Israel spins its roulette wheel of death. By the time Israel is done, the 1948 Nakba, where Palestinians were massacred in dozens of villages and 750,000 were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias, will look like a quaint relic of a more civilized era.

Nothing is off limits. Hospitals. Mosques. Churches. Homes. Apartment blocks. Refugee camps. Schools. Universities. Media offices. Banks. Sewer systems. Telecommunications infrastructure. Water treatment plants. Libraries. Wheat mills. Bakeries. Markets. Entire neighborhoods. Israel’s intent is to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and daily kill or wound hundreds of Palestinians. Gaza is to become a wasteland, a dead zone that will be incapable of sustaining life.

Israel began to bomb Khan Younis on Friday after dropping leaflets warning civilians to evacuate further south to Rafah, located on the border crossing with Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in Khan Younis. Once Palestinians are pushed to Rafah, there is only one place left to flee — Egypt. The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, in a leaked report, calls for the forcible transfer of Gaza’s population to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. A detailed plan to intentionally displace the Palestinians in Gaza and push them into Egypt has been embedded in Israeli doctrine for five decades. Already, 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza have been driven from their homes. Once Palestinians cross the border into Egypt — which the Egyptian government and Arab leaders are seeking to prevent despite pressure from the U.S. — Palestinians will never return.

This is not a war against Hamas. It is a war against Palestinians.

Israeli strikes are generated at a dizzying rate, many of them from a system called “Habsora” — The Gospel — which is built on artificial intelligence that selects 100 targets a day. The AI-system is described by seven current and former Israeli intelligence officials in an article by Yuval Abraham on the Israeli sites +972 Magazine and Local Call, as facilitating a “mass assassination factory.” Israel, once it locates what it assumes to be a Hamas operative from a cell phone, for example, bombs and shells a wide area around the target, killing and wounding tens, and at times hundreds of Palestinians, the article states.

“According to intelligence sources,” the story reads, “Habsora generates, among other things, automatic recommendations for attacking private residences where people suspected of being Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives live. Israel then carries out large-scale assassination operations through the heavy shelling of these residential homes.”

Some 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 children and 4,000 women, have been killed since Oct. 7. Some 30,000 have been wounded. Over six thousand are missing, many buried under the rubble. More than 300 families have lost 10 or more members of their families. More than 250 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, and more than 3,000 injured, although the area is not controlled by Hamas. The Israeli military claims to have killed between 1,000 and 3,000 of some 30,000 Hamas fighters, a relatively small number given the scale of the assault. Most resistance fighters shelter in their vast tunnel system.

Israel’s playbook is the “Dahiya Doctrine.” The doctrine was formulated by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, who is a member of the war cabinet, following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dahiya is a southern Beirut suburb and a Hezbollah stronghold. It was pounded by Israeli jets after two Israeli soldiers were taken prisoner. The doctrine posits that Israel should employ massive, disproportionate force, destroying infrastructure and civilian residences, to ensure deterrence.

Daniel Hagari, spokesman of the IDF, conceded at the start of Israel’s most recent attack on Gaza that the “emphasis” would be “on damage and not on accuracy.”

Israel has abandoned its tactic of “roof knocking” where a rocket without a warhead would land on a roof to warn those inside to evacuate. Israel has also ended its phone calls warning of an impending attack. Now dozens of families in an apartment block or a neighborhood are killed without notice.

The images of mass destruction feed the thirst for revenge within Israel following the humiliating incursion by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7 and the killing of 1,200 Israelis, including 395 soldiers and 59 police officers. There is a sadistic pleasure voiced by many Israelis over the genocide and a groundswell of calls for the murder or expulsion of Palestinians, including those in the occupied West Bank and those with Israeli citizenship.

The savagery of the air strikes and indiscriminate attacks, the cutting off of food, water and medicine, the genocidal rhetoric of the Israeli government, make this a war whose sole objective is revenge. This will not be good for Israel or the Palestinians. It will fuel a conflagration throughout the Middle East.

Israel’s attack is the last desperate measure of a settler colonial project that foolishly thinks, as many settler colonial projects have in the past, that it can crush the resistance of an indigenous population with genocide. But even Israel will not get away with killing on this scale. A generation of Palestinians, many of whom have seen most, if not all, of their families killed and their homes and neighborhoods destroyed, will carry within them a lifelong thirst for justice and retribution.

This war is not over. It has not even begun.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper.

2 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Thomas Scripps

Israel resumed its genocidal assault on Gaza Friday morning within minutes of the seven-day “operational pause” expiring. By the end of the day, at least 178 more Palestinians had been reported killed, and 589 injured. A woman and her son were killed in Lebanon by Israeli artillery fire, after shooting restarted across the border.

The Netanyahu government blamed Hamas for ending the truce—the latest in a long list of lies. Rocket fire into Israel, still unattributed, came only after Israel claimed that Hamas had failed to honour commitments to free all the women and children it was holding when it released eight hostages yesterday.

Hamas responded that there were no more such hostages to return. They had offered to hand over the bodies of a mother, Shiri Bibas, her 10-month-old son, Kfir, and his four-year-old brother, Ariel, who were killed by an Israeli bomb. “Hamas also offered to transfer the Bibas family’s bodies and release their father [Yarden] for their burial, along with two Zionist detainees,” it said in a statement, but Israeli authorities “remained unresponsive.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had already determined to resume military action, come what may, after repeated complaints that it was “losing momentum”. Citing Hamas’s supposed failure to uphold its side of the bargain was a transparent justification for doing so.

Only a day before, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had raved that Israel would “chase and destroy” its enemies “everywhere with the help of God.” The pretext for this outburst was an attack in Jerusalem in which two alleged Hamas members killed four people at a bus stop before they were fired on by an armed civilian and then killed by the IDF.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir boasted that this proved he was correct to arm civilians with assault rifles. The “hero gunman” died Friday from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by the IDF, who mistook him for an enemy combatant.

Netanyahu’s response made clear that what is planned in the name of eliminating Hamas is the ethnic cleansing not only of Gaza, but of the West Bank and Israel itself. “All Hamas terrorists will die—in Jerusalem, in Gaza, in the West Bank, and everywhere,” he thundered.

No secret is made of the brutal, criminal character of the second phase of the IDF’s assault now underway. Government spokesperson Eylon Levy told reporters thuggishly, “Having chosen to hold onto our women, Hamas will now take the mother of all thumpings.”

Reviewing the day’s slaughter, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, “The results are impressive. Hamas only understands force and therefore we will continue to act until we achieve the goals of the war.”

The destruction wrought in the north of the Gaza strip is now planned for the south, focussing on the city of Khan Yunis, where Israel claims Hamas is headquartered. Leaflets have been dropped on the city, which has already come under repeated and deadly attack, telling residents to evacuate and describing the area as a “dangerous battle zone”.

Given that the vast bulk of northern Gaza’s population is already crowded into the south—with 1.8 million of a 2.3 million total population displaced—there is nowhere to go. The IDF has told civilians to move towards the border with Egypt at Rafah, confirming fears that Israel is seeking to drive the Palestinians out of the strip entirely and into the Sinai desert.

Al Jazeera journalist Zoran Kusovac commented, “the south is now so overcrowded that there is a danger that an all-out ground assault from Israel might leave the people of Gaza with no option but to try to force their way across the border fence into Egypt.

“From the beginning of the conflict, Egypt has been warning that it would not accept any refugees, fearful of political destabilisation and security risks. If it is confronted with that reality, it might find itself in the worst-case scenario of having to use force.”

The humanitarian situation in Gaza was described by the World Health Organization as a “horror movie”. During the truce, roughly 150 trucks of aid entered the strip each day, less than a third of the 500 a day on average before October 7, and less even than the 200 a day believed necessary to meet the most basic needs of the population. Supplies have ground to a halt again with the resumption of the bombing.

International agencies have issued dire warnings. Speaking from the strip’s largest still-functioning hospital, shortly after an airstrike landed barely 50 metres away, UNICEF chief of communications James Elder asked, “Has humanity given up on the children of Gaza?

“I cannot overstate how the capacity has been reduced in hospitals over the last seven weeks. We cannot see more children with the wounds of war, with the burns, the shrapnel littering their body, with their broken bones. Inaction from those with influence is allowing the killing of children. This is a war on children.”

At al-Nasr hospital, International Red Cross surgeon Paul Ley warned, “We are already overwhelmed. There are something like 2,000 patients in a hospital built for 300, and over half need surgery. But we don’t have enough drugs, and insufficient anaesthetics. There is very little pain control and we have to use techniques that have been abandoned for many years because they are seen as dangerous.”

Head of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugee UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini referred to a “staggering human tragedy” and a “race against time…  already disease is becoming as much a threat as the bombardment.”

He described the south of Gaza as “completely overloaded… It simply cannot cater to so many people. Remember people from Gaza City and the north have been asked to go to the south because they were told the south would be safer. Yet a large proportion have been killed in the south.”

Condemning the “siege on an entire population” as “collective punishment”, he referred to the “one million people in UN installations, including 100,000 in the north… Their locations are known, and despite that, nearly 100 installations have been hit directly or indirectly.”

A joint investigation by Israeli outlets 972+ Mag and Local Call, published Thursday, confirmed the deliberate process used to carry out strikes on civilians in unprecedented numbers.

A source told the journalists, “The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage.”

An artificial intelligence programme called “The Gospel” has been used to select targets, powering what one source called a “mass assassination factory,” with the “emphasis… on quantity and not on quality.” Reporting the story, the Guardian explained that the programme “was created to address a chronic problem for the IDF: in earlier operations in Gaza, the air force repeatedly ran out of targets to strike.”

At the start of the war, the head of the Israeli air force made a point of emphasising that in carrying out “around the clock airstrikes… We are not being surgical.”

The massacre in Gaza resumes with the continuing support of US and world imperialism. Speaking in Dubai, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken backed Israel’s lie that the pause “came to an end because of Hamas, Hamas reneged on the commitments it made.” He reiterated Washington’s “strong solidarity with Israel defending itself” while cynically insisting that it was doing “everything possible to protect civilians.”

2 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

“‘He’ll have ye smilin’,” an old Irish saying goes, “while he takes the gold out of your teeth’.”

Charles Glass, London Review of Books, Oct 20, 2022

The obituaries of criminals, masterful or otherwise, are always going to be sordid matters.  Either one has time for the deeds, giving column space to their execution and legacy, or one focuses on the extraneous details: voice, accent, suit, demeanour. “He may have killed the odd person or two, but he did have style.”

Much of the Henry Kissinger School of Idolatry is of the latter propensity.  The nasty deeds are either misread or diminished – notably when they have to do with the global infliction of mass death, prolongation of conflict, or the overthrow of democratic governments.  Instead, time is given to the perceptions of what is supposedly meant to have been the workings of an oversized brain in international relations.  Rather than seeing the inside of a prison or being bothered to the gallows by overly fussy lawyers, Kissinger spent ample time at high level receptions receiving huge wads of cash for offering his inner expertise.  He was admired, adulated and pampered; the critics kept at bay.

As former National Security Advisor and US Secretary of State, he was meant to be the great exponent of realism, which, rebadged, might simply be described as elevated gangsterism at play.  His 1957 work, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822 studied the Europe of the admired diplomat Prince Clemens von Metternich, revealing a mind keen on keeping international power in fine equilibrium.  Stability and order were primary goals; justice and human rights were concepts that had little to no role to play.

Metternich, alongside British Foreign Secretary, Viscount Robert Stewart Castlereagh, was to construct a post-Napoleonic order suspicious, even paranoid of revolutionary movements.  It held social and political progress in check; doused the fires of freedom.  As a result, Kissinger reasons, Europe maintained stability from Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 to the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. For all that, Kissinger would write that Metternich lacked “the ability to contemplate an abyss, not with the detachment of a scientist, but as a challenge to overcome – or perish in the process.” As if envisaging his own future role in US diplomacy, he suggested that “men become myths, not by what they know, nor even by what they achieve, but the tasks they set themselves.”

This gnomic drivel was precisely the sort that fed a media illusion of the big-brained sage in command.  His bloodied hands were washed on the international stage by such absurd titles as “Henry of Arabia,” one given to him by Time Magazine in 1974.  The same magazine would give him front-cover billing in February 1969 as one keen on “New Approaches to Friends and Foes”, and repeat the treatment on no fewer than fourteen other occasions.  Not to be outdone, Newsweek was positively crawling in depicting the German-Jewish émigré who made his name at Harvard and on the world stage as “Super K”.

As the Establishment Courtesan, Kissinger sought out such society reporters as Sally Quinn of The Washington Post to emetically inquire why she did not assume the master strategist to be “a secret swinger”.  Sadistic touches to his curriculum vitae could thereby be ignored, including a butcher’s bill that would eventually run into roughly 3 million souls from the Vietnam War to Cambodia, East Timor, Bangladesh, the “dirty wars” of Latin America, and a number of encouragements and interventions in Africa.

This also meant that such abysmal contributions such as his spoiling role in prolonging the war in Vietnam by several years in order to satisfy the electoral lust of his eventual boss, Richard Nixon, could be overlooked in favour of “shuttle diplomacy ” in ending the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973.  In this, he resembled, as Charles Glass suggested with striking salience, a certain “American frontier archetype: the pedlar whose wagonload of patent medicines promised to cure every ailment.  By the time the rubes realised that his bottles contained snake oil, he had left town.”

A far better appreciation of the Kissinger legacy would be gained by consulting such publications as that ever reliable, if bleak source of primary documents, the National Security Archive.  The Archive pursued the US government with admirable tenacity, alleging that Kissinger had sought to remove, retain and control some 30,000 pages of daily transcripts of his phone conversations (“telcons”) as “personal papers” when he left office in 1977.

As the director of the Archive, Tom Blanton, piquantly remarked, “Kissinger’s aides later commented that he needed to keep track of which lie he told to whom.”  But the telcons are also illustrative, less of Kissinger the realist who furnished his employer with fearless advice than that of a truckler, obedient to his paymaster.  When Nixon made the decision to commence the secret bombing of Cambodia to target Hanoi’s supply routes in March 1969, Kissinger conveyed the order to Secretary of Defence Melvin Laird without demur. He also states firmly that “there is to be no public comment at all from anyone at any level either complaining or threatening”.  When public comment did make its way to the New York Times in May that year, Kissinger badgered the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to place a number of selected government officials and journalists under surveillance.

While one’s death is rarely a planned thing – the Grim Reaper makes calls at all unexpected hours – there was a sense in Kissinger’s case that he had cheated it just long enough.  He made it to a century without his collar being fingered.  He avoided, in the early 2000s, attempted legal suits for human rights violations in the UK and France.  Despite failing health, he was surrounded by the Establishment sycophants of which he had been one, worshipping power over principle while proffering snake oil.  And there were a goodly number of them for the sendoff.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.

1 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Gideon Polya

Despite Apartheid Israeli censorship, and the entrenched culture of lying of neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel and its US Alliance politician and media Western backers, there is mounting evidence, in particular from eminent Western journalists such as Chris Hedges and Jonathan Cook, that many of the Israelis killed on the 7 October 2023 were killed by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in an Israeli  false-flag operation designed to enable the genocidal massacre and expulsion of Gaza Palestinians.

The Mainstream media and politicians of Zionist-subverted and  Zionist-perverted America and the US-beholden West continue  to give saturation coverage to  the “lying official version of 7 October ” purveyed by the genocidally racist and utterly mendacious Israeli and US governments unforgivably involved in this latest horrendous and genocidal Gaza Massacre – most Gazans homeless,  20,300 Palestinians killed, 8,600 Palestinian children killed, 37,700 injured, and 2.3 million Occupied Palestinians in Gaza mortally threatened not just by bombing but even more so by lack of water, food, shelter, medical requisites, and medical treatment, and all this in reprisal for 1,200 Israeli Occupiers killed on 7 October with quite possibly most having been killed in the Israel Defence Force (IDF) response to the Palestinian breakout from the Gaza Concentration Camp.

The Popperian scientific method for improving our understanding of reality involves the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses. In contrast anti-science “spin” involves the partisan selection of asserted facts to support a particular chosen model of reality [1]. Importantly, science has zero tolerance for lying whereas the anti-science spin of Apartheid Israel and the US Alliance Mainstream embraces a scale of “truthiness” and the pre-Enlightenment notion of the truth as what the Establishment deems it to be.

By way of summary, the “official US-Zionazi lying version of 7 October” slavishly adopted by racist and mendacious Western Mainstream presstitutes about what it calls  “war” in Gaza is as follows, with the evidence-based, alternative view of reality set out systematically point-by-point:

(a) Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel says “On 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel in a surprise attack  and massacred 1,200  Israeli civilians”, but:

(i) World’s best Israeli intelligence permitted the breakout of several thousand  lightly-armed Palestinian fighters from the Gaza Concentration Camp to legitimately attack their military captors and to secure 240 hostages for self-protection and negotiations for the release of 10,000 Occupied Palestinians highly abusively  held hostage in Israeli military prisons and indeed of 2.3 million  Gazans and 5.6 million impoverished Occupied Palestinians in total highly abusively held hostage by the Israeli military in the now 56-year war criminal Occupation.

(ii) Of the 1,200 Israelis killed 84.2% (1,010) were 18-39 years old (i.e. were current Israeli military, conscripts  or reservists), 13.3% (160) were 40 and older (with most being former or existing military), and  2.5% (30) were aged under 18 (i.e. were children) i.e. over 84% of those killed were legitimate military targets as serving Occupying forces [2].

(iii) It is not known how many of the Israeli deaths on 7 October were caused by the overwhelming IDF response that involved heavy machine-gun fire and missiles from helicopter gunships, high explosive shelling from tanks, and the killing of 1,500 Palestinian fighters plus any Israelis hiding with them [3-7].

(iv) Occupied people have the right of armed rebellion against their oppressors) [8-10].

(b). Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel says “Israel proclaimed its right to self-defence, declared war on Hamas, vowed to exterminate Hamas in retaliation, imposed a total siege, commenced  bombing Gaza, and promised a post-war new order”, but:

(i) A belligerent Occupier has no right to self-defence from its brutally subjugated Subjects [10].

(ii) The so-called “Hamas-Israel War” is not a war but a war criminal and genocidal Gaza Massacre in which an ancient  and densely populated city of 2.3 million has been substantially destroyed  leaving (as of 1 December ) most Gazans homeless,  20,300 Palestinians killed, 8,600 Palestinian children killed, 37,700 Palestinians injured, and 2.3 million Occupied Palestinians in Gaza mortally threatened not just by bombing but even more so by lack of water, food, shelter, medical requisites, and medical treatment [2].

(iii) “Extermination” of Palestinian civilians and military resistance is adumbration of war crimes for which German generals were tried and hung at Nuremberg after WW2.

(iv) Imposition of a total siege on the Gaza Concentration Campo that had already been illegally blockaded and bombed for 16 years is war criminal collective punishment of a captive population.

(v) The leaking of a secret Israeli government report reveals that it favours total ethnic cleansing of Gaza by pushing 2.3 million people into the Sinai desert, and threatens genocide by war criminal mass population expulsion [11] that has already occurred in northern Gaza (1 million expelled), the 1948 Nakba or Catastrophe (0.8 million or 60% of the Palestinian population violently expelled) and the 1967 Naksa or Setback (0.4 million violently expelled) [12-14].

(c). Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel says “Israel  agreed to a 6-day temporary cessation of bombing to permit exchange of Israeli and Palestinian hostages but opposes a permanent Ceasefire until it achieves its objectives, including extermination of Hamas”, but:

(i) With the exception of the decent, humane and International Law-observant Greens, all Australian Federal MPs (Coalition = Koalition, Independent   and Labor or KILs) unforgivably opposed a permanent Ceasefire in Gaza and thus became unforgivably complicit in the mass Killing of Occupied Palestinians by neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel in the Gaza Concentration Camp.

(ii) There is no Ceasefire in the Occupied West Bank where as of 29 November and since 7 October Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed over 242  Occupied Palestinians including 50 children, and injured more than 2,750, with the Israelis arresting more than 3,325 people [15].

(iii) As of 29 November 60 Israeli hostages had been exchanged for 180 Occupied Palestinian women and children “hostages” [15], noting that the freed Israelis  are actually free, whereas all Indigenous Palestinians are simply not free – whether imprisoned in military prisons (10,000), “freed” hostages (180), inmates of the besieged, starved and bombed Gaza Concentration Camp (2.3 million), brutally subjugated Occupied Palestinians without human rights under highly-abusive military rule in the West Bank (3.3 million), Israeli Palestinians able to vote but subject to 50 Nazi-style, race-based discriminatory laws (2.0 million),  and 7 million mostly impoverished Exiled Palestinians of whom  about 6 million are “stateless”, deprived of human rights and confined endlessly to refugee camps for up to 75 years [12-14].

(iv) This immense “hostage exchange lie” is parroted in the Zionist-subverted West by US Government-beholden Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat  presstitutes  who further also routinely parrot a massive body of some 35 Zionist lies [2].

(v) US lackey Australia is second only to  the US as a supporter of Apartheid Israel and does so by diplomacy, massive lying [16-20], current Gaza Massacre-assisting intelligence via the joint US-Australia Pine Gap spying and drone-targeting base in Central Australia, extensive military co-research in Australian universities [21, 22], and current high technology arms supplies assisting the Gaza Massacre and in particular the war criminal and genocidal bombing [23]. The unforgivable Australian Federal Parliament Koalition, Independent and Labor Liars who opposed a permanent Ceasefire and back genocidal and mendacious neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel merit the acronym  KILLs. The precisely appropriate double anagram for genocidal and mendacious ISRAEL is SERIAL E-LIARS.

(d). Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel describes the 7 October breakout as  “Israel’s 9/11”, but:

(i). Google the phrase “Israel’s 9/11” and you get about 200,000 results, this illustrating the success of Zionist and Western pro-Zionist lying to supposedly “justify” the Israel mass murder of (so far) over 20,000 Occupied Palestinians including nearly 9,000 children in war criminal reprisals for the deaths of 1,200 Israelis on 7 October of whom most may have been killed by the IDF.  97.5%  (1,170)  were mostly past and present Israeli military under Israel’s compulsory military service regime (and hence as past or present Occupiers legitimate military targets for the subjugated Occupied Palestinians), and 2.5% (30) were innocent children [2]. Nearly all  of the 3,000 killed on 9/11 were innocent Americans.

(ii). Numerous science, architecture, engineering, aviation, demolition, military, politics and intelligence experts reject the “lying Bush official version of 9/11” and conclude that the egregiously violent and mendacious US Government was responsible with the likely involvement of US Zionists, and neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel [24]. In 2015 it was estimated that 32 million Muslims had died from violence, 5 million, and from imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance in the US War on Terror (aka the US War on Muslims) since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed about 3,000 Americans on 9/11 [24, 25]. Former President Donald Trump and former Vice-President Al Gore have both strongly condemned the extraordinary intelligence failure that enabled the 9/11 atrocity to happen [24]. Similarly, variously eminent expert and informed academic, military and other commentators have expressed astonishment over the intelligence failure that enabled the Occupied Palestinian breakout on 7 October [26-31].

(iii). The compelling case from the available information and argued cogently by numerous science, architecture, engineering, aviation, demolition, military, politics and intelligence experts is that the US Government killed 3,000 of its citizens on 9/11 to provide an excuse for the US to invade the Muslim World for oil and geopolitical hegemony [24]. Similarly, variously eminent Western truth-tellers, notably the award-winning  writers Chris Hedges (Pulitzer Prize), Jonathan Cook ( the Martha Gellhorn special award for journalism) and Max Blumenthal  (2014 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award), concluded from carefully adduced evidence that Israel very likely killed a very substantial but as yet unknown proportion of the 1,200 Israelis killed on 7 October [3-7].

(iv). There was enormous, racism- indicating disproportionality in the number of people killed in response to those killed in America’s  9/11 atrocity (3,000)  and those killed on 7 October (1,200), noting that many of the latter were very likely killed in the IDF response. Thus about 3 million  Iraqis  and 7 million Afghans, or a total of 10 million) died from violence and deprivation after 9/11 (although no Iraqis or Afghans were involved in the 9/11 atrocity according to the “lying Bush official version of 9/11”) [32-36] for a Death Ratio of 10 million Iraqis and Afghans / 3,000 9/11 deaths =  3,333.  In the present genocidal Gaza Massacre the Death Ratio is presently (7 October – 1 December 2023) 20,500 Palestinian deaths /1,200 Israeli deaths = 17 but could reach 2.3 million/1,200 = 1,917 if neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel opts for a murderous non- nuclear or even nuclear “final solution” for the Occupied Palestinians in the Gaza Concentration Camp. Genocidally racist Apartheid Israel wants all the land of Palestine (plus land of its neighbours and Gaza’s rights to Eastern Mediterranean gas fields) but not the Indigenous Palestinian and Arab inhabitants. One notes that the Occupied/Occupier Reprisals Death Ratio  was 21 (Gaza, 1 April 2008-30 September 2023),  is presently 17 (Gaza, 7 October-1 December 2023), and was ordered to be 10 by Nazi leader Adolph Hitler in 1944, his order being effected with the execution of 335 Italian men and boys in the Ardeatine Cave Massacre, Rome,  in reprisals for the ambushing and killing of 30 German soldiers by Italian Partisans [17, 37-41].

(v). While a holocaust involves the death of a huge number of people, genocide is precisely defined by Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as follows: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group [43]. While the mass murder of Muslims in the post-9/11 US War on Terror was genocide in the sense of involving “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, the ongoing Palestinian Genocide has involved mass killing and also 3 mass population expulsion events: (1) the 1948 Nakba or Catastrophe (0.8 million or 60% of the Palestinian population violently expelled), (2) the 1967 Naksa or Setback (0.4 million violently expelled) and now (3)  the mass population expulsion from the northern half of Gaza [12-14]. The genocidally racist Zionists from the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, to the present Israeli PM, serial war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, have explicitly, obscenely and criminally demanded the expulsion of the Indigenous Palestinians [44].

(vi). While the massive fraudulence of the “lying Bush official version of 9/11” is obvious to anyone with scientific training, the US-beholden West immediately adopted the “US official version” and science-informed scientists and engineers offering a science-informed explanation of the atrocity (remote controlled planes and explosive demolition of the 3 World Trade Center buildings) were reviled and side-lined as “conspiracy theorists” [24]. Similarly the official US and Israeli version of 7 October (a “Hamas terrorist massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians” ) was immediately adopted by Western Mainstream media and the evidence-based alternative views of prize-winning, truth-telling Western journalists were denounced as “crazy” and “lunacy” (notably by the Australian ABC, Australia’s equivalent of the racist and mendacious UK BBC and which regularly violates the core ethos of Humanity, namely Kindness and Truth). Indeed numerous courageous and ethical Australian  journalists recently wrote an Open Letter condemning Mainstream media bias in reporting on Palestine but for their decency were threatened by Murdoch media and ABC “managers” [45]. In the last dozen years I have been substantially rendered “invisible” to Mainstream  Australia by false, anti-Jewish anti-Semitic, Zionist defamation but have resolutely published extensively on the past and present deluge of scores of Zionist lies about Palestine from Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat  presstitutes [2, 16-20, 46, 47]. Interestingly, of 5 huge and exhaustively referenced Submissions I have made to the newly-established Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) all have been rejected outright except for my submission on the  Australian Labor Government’s lying for Apartheid Israel in 15 areas [19, 20]. Corporate media can and do lie out of ideology and self-interest, but for taxpayer-funded national broadcasters  like the Australian ABC and UK BBC lying in the interests  of  inimical foreign powers (e.g. neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel and pro-Apartheid America) is treason as well as theft, fraud and repugnant deception of the public.

Final comments and conclusions.

After a week of temporary Ceasefire Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel is preparing to resume its genocidal Gaza Massacre while the West looks on, and the Zionist-subverted  US under the obscenely  geriatric paedocide Joe Biden and cowardly US lackey Australia  assist Israel militarily. The rest of the world is utterly horrified at this slaughter of innocents but the US Congress supports it. In the Australian Federal Parliament, except for the decent and humane Greens, all other MPs – i.e. the Zionist-subverted Coalition opposition aka the Koalition, the Independent group and the Labor government  Liars (the KILLs) – were too scared of their  American masters and the powerful and malignant Israel Lobby  to support a permanent Ceasefire (at the best ignorant, stupid and cowardly, and at the worst genocidally racist like the genocidal, child-killing, neo-Nazi Apartheid Israeli state that they so fervently support).

What can decent Humanity do to stop this appalling and genocidal child-killing madness by US- and Australia-backed neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel? Decent Humanity must (a)  overcome scores of malignant and deadly Zionist lies  by informing everyone they can, (b) demand all Human Rights Now for all Palestinians, a Ceasefire Now, cessation of the killing, cessation of the 56-year Israeli Occupation and cessation of  the 100-year Palestinians Genocide; and (c) urge and apply stringent global Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel and all people, politicians, collectives, companies and countries  supporting this nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, grossly human rights -abusing, and child-, mother- and woman-killing Apartheid rogue state.

Actually the easiest, simplest and surely the most unexceptional demand that the World must make is for “all Human Rights Now for all Palestinians” (and indeed for all peoples) as set out in the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) [8]. Thus, for example, 7 million Exiled Palestinians are presently “stateless”, 2.0 million Israeli Palestinians are subject to 60 Nazi-style, race-based  discriminatory laws [48, 49], and careful Article-by-Article  analysis shows that the 5.6 million Occupied Palestinians are excluded from the Human Rights specified in all 30 Articles of the UDHR [50]. This can be achieved immediately – today, tomorrow – simply by the stroke of a pen and says nothing about borders, the Occupation, the now impossible “2-state solution”,  the humane, democratic and secular  “1-state solution” (as in post-Apartheid South Africa) or the “no state solution for Palestinians” that has been the explicitly stated and insistent preference of the genocidally racist Zionist settler-colonialists for 130 years [44]. Thus in a reductio ad absurdum (and actually not unreasonable) scenario one could imagine Palestinians being finally and wonderfully accorded all UDHR-specified Human Rights while  happily remaining Occupied by decent,  peace-loving and UN-appointed people like the Irish, Swiss or Fijians.

Article 3 of the UDHR states “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” [8] but this is grossly violated by genocidally racist, neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel in its remorseless bombing and mass murder of Occupied Palestinians in the Gaza Concentration Camp where it has killed 20,500 Gazans,  8,600 of them children,  in just 7 weeks. As a scientist and humanist I am intrinsically optimistic but realistically it seems very unlikely that  a presently utterly morally degenerate, genocidally racist, child-abusing, child-killing and neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel would agree to  “all UDHR-specified Human Rights Now for all Palestinians”. In the absence of this minimal improvement happening the World must urgently apply comprehensive  Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel and to all its morally degenerate US Alliance supporters as were successfully applied to bring down the utterly evil obscenity of Apartheid in South Africa

References.

[1]. “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .

[2]. Gideon Polya, “Gaza Massacre: 35 Ways Zionist-perverted US, Australia & West Lie For Child-killing, Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 23 November 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/11/gaza-massacre-35-ways-zionist-perverted-us-australia-west-lie-for-child-killing-neo-nazi-apartheid-israel/ .

[3].Asa Winstanley, “The evidence Israel killed its own citizens on 7 October”, Electronic Intifada 23 November 2023: https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156  .

[4]. Chris Hedges, “ Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians. When Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists, religious zealots, ultranationalists and crypto-fascists in the apartheid state of Israel say they want to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth, believe them”, Global Research, November 09, 2023: https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-final-solution-palestinians-chris-hedges/5839428  .

[5]. Max Blumenthal , “October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles”, The Grayzone, 27 October, 2023: https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/ .

[6].  Jonathan Cook, “What our Media fails to tell you about October 7”, Pearls & Irritations, 6 November 2023: https://johnmenadue.com/what-the-bbc-fails-to-tell-you-about-october-7/ .

[7]. Anonymous for self-protection, “A growing number of reports indicate Israeli forces responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths following October 7 attack”, Mondoweiss, 22 October 2023: https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/a-growing-number-of-reports-indicate-israeli-forces-responsible-for-israeli-civilian-and-military-deaths-following-october-7-attack/ .

[8]. “Universal  Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)”: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights .

[9]. “UN Charter”: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text .

[10]. Francesca Albanese’s Address to the National Press Club of Australia, 14 November 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnn07kilFk .

[11]. Jonathan Cook: Mounting evidence suggests Israel may be ready to ‘cleanse’ Gaza”, Modern Diplomacy, 7 November 2023: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/11/07/jonathan-cook-mounting-evidence-suggests-israel-may-be-ready-to-cleanse-gaza/ .

[12]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15 .

[13]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[14]. 2023, 75th Nakba Anniversary – 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) & Palestinian Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/1948-nakba-catastrophe-palestinian-genocide .

[15]. “Israeli forces kill two Palestinian children in occupied West Bank raid”, Al Jazeera, 29 November 2023: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/29/israel-kills-two-children-in-latest-raid-on-jenin-refugee-camp .

[16]. Gideon Polya, “85 Ways Zionist Australian Labor Government Betrays Palestinian Human Rights & Humanity”, Countercurrents, 16 March 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/03/85-ways-zionist-australian-labor-government-betrays-palestinian-human-rights-humanity/ .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “Neo-Nazi Australia Backs Genocidal Israel & Says No To Indigenous Australians & Palestinians”, Countercurrents, 23 October 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/neo-nazi-australia-backs-genocidal-israel-says-no-to-indigenous-australians-palestinians/ .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Letter To Australian Labor MPs Exposes Australian Crimes & IHRA Anti-Semitism”, Countercurrents, 9 October 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/10/letter-to-australian-labor-mps-exposes-australian-crimes-ihra-anti-semitism/ .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “Submission To National Anti-Corruption Commission: Australian Labor Government’s Lying For Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 22 July 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/07/submission-to-national-anti-corruption-commission-australian-labor-governments-lying-for-apartheid-israel/ .

[20]. Gideon Polya, “Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission Rejects Submissions Re Huge Australian War Crimes and Carbon Debt”, Countercurrents, 2 October 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/australian-national-anti-corruption-commission-rejects-submissions-re-huge-australian-war-crimes-and-carbon-debt/ .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Universities Complicit With  Pro-Zionist CensorshipAnd Genocidal Israeli  Militarism”, Countercurrents, 24 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya240512.htm .

[22]. Vacy Vlazna, “Israeli Hawkademia in Australian Universities”, Palestinian Chronicle, 5 February 2012: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19268 .

[23]. Kellie Tranter, “Australia’s role in the bombing of Gaza”, Pearls & Irritations, 23 November 2023: https://johnmenadue.com/australias-role-in-the-bombing-of-gaza/ .

[24]. “Experts: US did 9/11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[25]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents,22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115A.htm .

[26]. “‘Netanyahu Got All the Warnings’, Says Former Head of Israeli Military Intelligence”, Countercurrents, 25 October 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/netanyahu-got-all-the-warnings-says-former-head-of-israeli-military-intelligence/ .

[27]. Emily Harding, “How Could Israeli Intelligence Miss the Hamas Invasion Plans?”, Center for Strategic & International Studies, 11 October 2023: https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-could-israeli-intelligence-miss-hamas-invasion-plans .

[28]. Paul Craig Roberts, “Hamas’ Attack on Israel Is Puzzling: “Hamas Fighters entered Israel without Being Detected””, Global Research, 17 October 2023: https://www.globalresearch.ca/hamas-attack-israel-puzzling/5836617 .

[29]. Tia Goldenberger, “What went wrong? Questions emerge over Israel’s intelligence prowess after Hamas attack”, AP, 9 October 2023: https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-attack-intel-a5287a18773232f26ca171233be01721 .

[30]. Ben Bartee, “No, the Hamas Invasion Was Not an Israeli ‘Intelligence Failure’”, Global Research, 9 October 2023: https://www.globalresearch.ca/no-hamas-invasion-not-israeli-intelligence-failure/5835433 .

[31]. Paul Craig Roberts, “Section Commander of the Gaza Fence: “The obstacle is built so that even a fox cannot pass it”. They Let It Happen. The Hamas Attack Was Allowed to Close the Book on Palestine”, Global Research, 21 October 2023: https://www.globalresearch.ca/speculation-mark-hamas-attack-allowed-close-book-palestine/5836029 .

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, Third edition, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.

[33]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, 2nd edition, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2021.

[34]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.

[35]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Mainstream Ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide””, Countercurrents, 17 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/racist-mainstream-ignores-us-imposed-post-9-11-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/ .

[36]. “Report genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/reportgenocide/ .

[37]. Gideon Polya, “Horrendous Death Ratios, Child Deaths & Palestinian Genocide Demand Immediate Cessation Of Gaza Massacre”, Countercurrents, 30 October 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/horrendous-death-ratios-child-deaths-palestinian-genocide-demand-immediate-cessation-of-gaza-massacre/ .

[38]. Gideon Polya, “Ceasefire Now To Stop Mass Murder Of Palestinian Children By Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 14 November 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/11/ceasefire-now-to-stop-mass-murder-of-palestinian-children-by-neo-nazi-apartheid-israel/ .

[39]. “Ardeatine Massacre”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeatine_massacre .

[40]. UNOCH (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), “Data on casualties”: https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties .

[41]. Gideon Polya, “Stop Apartheid Israel’s  Palestinian Genocide in Gaza”, Green Left,  18 October 2023: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/stop-apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-gaza .

[42]. Gideon Polya, “491 Sins & Gaza Genocide: Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel Leads World In Killing Children & Journalists”, Countercurrents, 6 November 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/11/491-sins-gaza-genocide-neo-nazi-apartheid-israel-leads-world-in-killing-children-journalists/ .

[43]. “UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”: https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf .

[44].  “Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .

[45]. “Letter from Journalists to Australian Media Outlets”, Tasmanian Times, 24 November 2023: https://tasmaniantimes.com/2023/11/letter-from-journalists-to-australian-media-outlets/ .

[46]. Gideon Polya “Feature Letter – How Mainstream Media Lies for Apartheid Israel”, Tasmanian Times,  26 November 2023: https://tasmaniantimes.com/2023/11/feature-letter-how-mainstream-media-lies-for-apartheid-israel/ .

[47]. Gideon Polya, “35 Zionist Media Lies, the Killing of Children, Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel”, Global Research, 24 November 2023:  https://www.globalresearch.ca/35-zionist-lies-child-killing-neo-nazi-apartheid-israel/5841145 .

[48]. Susan Abulhawa, “Israel’s “nation-state law” parallels the Nazi Nuremburg Laws”, Al Jazeera, 27 July 2018: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-nation-state-law-parallels-nazi-nuremberg-laws-180725084739536.html .

[49]. “Discriminatory laws in Israel:, Adalah, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index?page=4 .

[50]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Excludes Occupied Palestinians From All Provisions Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya200512.htm .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades.

1 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Infamous war criminal, former U.S. Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger passed away at age 100 on Wednesday.

The renowned diplomat, and infamous to many people in the Third World, died at his home in Connecticut, his consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, said in a statement.

The former U.S. secretary of state and national security advisor “oversaw, overlooked and at times actively perpetrated some of the most grotesque war crimes the United States and its allies have ever committed,” HuffPost reporters Travis Waldron and George Zornick wrote in a scathing obituary of Kissinger, calling him “America’s most notorious war criminal.”

Kissinger’s life story began with his family escaping Nazi Germany for the U.S. in 1938.

After quitting the U.S. military, Kissinger earned a PhD at Harvard University and taught international relations before becoming President Richard Nixon’s top national security adviser in 1969.

He eventually served as secretary of state under Nixon and his successor, President Gerald Ford.

A skilled negotiator committed to realism, Kissinger was instrumental in improving U.S. relations with the Soviet Union in the 1970s and paved a way for the normalization of Washington’s ties with China.

With Kissinger’s stewardship, the Nixon administration’s easing of travel and trade restrictions against Beijing was instrumental in kick-starting China’s rise to prominence as an industrial economy.

In 1973, influential U.S. foreign policy thinker Kissinger shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords, which facilitated the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. Kissinger accepted the Nobel Peace prize but no-showed the ceremony, blaming the pressure of official duties. Tho refused the prize, explaining that he considered the negotiations to have been a failure.

In 1974, Kissinger helped to negotiate Israel’s disengagement agreements with Syria and Egypt, which officially ended the Yom Kippur War.

Bombed Cambodia Without Congressional Approval

A book by U.S.-British journalist Christopher Hitchens ‘The Trial of Henry Kissinger’ accused the diplomat of ordering the first round of Cambodia bombings in the 1960s without congressional approval.

Behind More Than 3 Million Civilian Deaths

An Intercept report released in May to mark the Kissinger’s 100th birthday claimed that he was behind more than 3 million civilian deaths, and that he helped to prolong the Vietnam War while fostering strife and civil wars in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In Chile, after the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the coup by Augusto Pinochet, at least 3,000 dissidents were killed, and some 40,000 tortured. In Argentina, some estimates put the number of those “disappeared” by the government as high as 30,000 people.

Lectures On World Affairs

Kissinger remained active after leaving office, giving lectures and interviews, in which he commented on world affairs. One of his last trips was a visit to Beijing in July 2023, during which he met with President Xi Jinping. He also repeatedly warned the U.S. and China that if they continued on their current foreign policy course, they risked sliding into open military confrontation.

NATO’s Mistake

On the Ukraine conflict, Kissinger described the West’s decision to offer Kiev a pathway to NATO as “a grave mistake” which led to the hostilities in the first place. While the veteran diplomat opposed Ukraine’s membership in the U.S.-led military bloc before the conflict, he later changed his stance, arguing that the country’s neutrality is “no longer meaningful” amid the ongoing fighting.

Last year, he also suggested that Ukraine could relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – all Russian territories now – to achieve peace, an idea repeatedly rejected by Kiev.

A Secret War

A Huffpost report – Anthony Bourdain did not hold back when writing about Henry Kissinger – said on November 30, 2023:

An excerpt from Anthony Bourdain’s 2001 book (Bourdain’s memoir, “A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines) dragging Henry Kissinger resurfaced on Wednesday following the infamous war criminal’s death.

While speaking about his culinary explorations around the world in “A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal,” published after his death in 2018, Bourdain said that “you will never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands” after visiting Cambodia, referring to one of Kissinger’s most heinous acts, the approval of a secret war beyond the borders of Vietnam. It was one of many actions he promoted during his eight years as secretary of state under former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford that are now considered shameful chapters in U.S. foreign affairs.

Carpet Bombing Of Laos

In 1969, Kissinger ordered the clandestine carpet-bombing of Cambodia and Laos. For four years, the U.S. dropped 540,000 bombs, slaughtering 150,000 to 500,000 Cambodian civilians.

“You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking,” Bourdain wrote in his book.

“Witness what Henry did in Cambodia ― the fruits of his genius for statesmanship ― and you will never understand why he is not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to [Serbian President Slobodan] Milošević.”

Decades after the book’s release, Bourdain’s comments lingered in people’s minds and even made a comeback online following news of Kissinger’s death on Wednesday.

This was not the first dig the chef had taken at Kissinger. In a 2017 New Yorker profile on Bourdain, his publisher, Dan Halpern, lauded the influence he had with “Parts Unknown,” a travel and food show in which Bourdain traveled around the world and discussed the cuisines, cultures and political issues of various countries.

Halpern said that Bourdain had “become a statesman” as his show made people aware of conflicts in other countries.

But Bourdain pushed back on the notion, saying, “I am not going to the White House Correspondents’ dinner. I do not need to be laughing it up with Henry Kissinger.”

Despite being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, Kissinger had been seen having amicable exchanges with notable figures, including former President George W. Bush, Nixon, Oprah Winfrey and Princess Diana.

“Any journalist who has ever been polite to Henry Kissinger, you know, fuck that person,” Bourdain said. “I am a big believer in moral gray areas, but, when it comes to that guy, in my view he should not be able to eat at a restaurant in New York.”

Rightwing Dictatorships In Chile And Argentina

A Los Angeles Times report – Anthony Bourdain’s scathing Henry Kissinger remarks resurface after foreign policy figure’s death – said on November 30, 2023:

Kissinger was always a controversial figure, and his most outspoken critics — Bourdain among them — saw him as ruthless and accused him of war crimes, mainly for the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia and the support Washington gave to brutal right-wing dictatorships in Chile and Argentina.

U.S. Interests

A Salon report – “Murderous scumbag”: Anthony Bourdain’s brutal takedown of “war criminal” Henry Kissinger goes viral – said on November 30, 2023:

His positions allowed him to direct the Vietnam War and Cold War with the Soviet Union, while carrying out a foreign policy approach that valued U.S. interests and domestic political achievements over any potential for atrocity that could occur as a result.

“The former led to perhaps the most infamous crime Kissinger committed: a secret four-year bombing campaign in Cambodia that killed an untold number of civilians, despite the fact that it was a neutral nation with which the United States was not at war,” HuffPost reporters Waldron and Zornick wrote.

The campaign killed between 150,000 and a half-million Cambodian civilians, per various estimates, and, according to a Pentagon report released late, Kissinger personally “approved each of the 3,875 Cambodia bombing raids” that occurred between 1969 and 1970.

Bangladesh

The Salon report said:

While in charge of U.S. foreign policy, Kissinger also directed illegal arms sales to Pakistan as it executed a brutal suppression of Bengalis in present-day Bangladesh in 1971.

The genocide in Bangladesh led to killing of 3 million Bengali people.

Indonesia And Dirty War

The Salon report said:

Kissinger also backed a 1973 military coup overthrowing a democratically elected socialist government in Chile, granted Indonesia permission to carry out its 1975 invasion of East Timor, and supported Argentina’s military dictatorship as it launched its “dirty war” against dissenters and leftists in 1976.

Civil Wars In Africa

The report said:

During the Ford administration, Kissinger’s policies also inflamed civil wars in Africa, most notably in Angola.

The Intercept’s obituary said Kissinger “stoked a war in Angola and prolonged apartheid in South Africa,” as well as leaving the Middle East “in chaos,” per  Yale historian Greg Grandin. For Kissinger, the protection of US economic and foreign policy interests took precedence over human life.

Millions Of Death And Millions Of Rights Abuse

“Even the most generous calculations suggest that the murderous regimes Kissinger supported and the conflicts they waged were responsible for millions of deaths and millions of other human rights abuses, during and after the eight years he served in the American government,” Waldron and Zornick write, noting that Kissinger never expressed any remorse for his actions or was held to any account for carrying them out.

Kissinger approached criticism of his human rights abuses with a mocking tone and remained in good standing in Washington’s political elite until the time of his death.

“The covert justifications for illegally bombing Cambodia became the framework for the justifications of drone strikes and forever war. It is a perfect expression of American militarism’s unbroken circle,” historian Greg Grandin, author of “Kissinger’s Shadow,” told The Intercept earlier this year. According to Common Dreams, the historian has estimated that Kissinger was responsible for at least 3 million deaths.

Millions Of Argentinians, Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Chileans, East Timorese

“What is undeniable, on the occasion of his death, is that millions of Argentinians, Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Chileans, East Timorese and others cannot offer their opinion on Henry Kissinger’s legacy or the world he helped create, because they died at the hands of the tyrants Kissinger enabled,” Waldron and Zornick wrote.

Other reporters further lamented Kissinger’s approach to policy and the notorious legacy it left throughout the nation — and the world — across social media and in articles about his death.

In an obituary of Kissinger for Rolling Stone, journalist Spencer Ackerman compared Kissinger to “white supremacist terrorist Timothy McVeigh,” who Ackerman described as “the worst mass murderer ever executed by the United States.”

“McVeigh, who in his own psychotic way thought he was saving America, never remotely killed on the scale of Kissinger, the most revered American grand strategist of the second half of the 20th century,” Ackerman continued. “Every single person who died in Vietnam between autumn 1968 and the Fall of Saigon — and all who died in Laos and Cambodia, where Nixon and Kissinger secretly expanded the war within months of taking office, as well as all who died in the aftermath, like the Cambodian genocide their destabilization set into motion — died because of Henry Kissinger.”

“We will never know what might have been, the question Kissinger’s apologists, and those in the U.S. foreign policy elite who imagine themselves standing in Kissinger’s shoes, insist upon when explaining away his crimes,” Ackerman added. “We can only know what actually happened. What actually happened was that Kissinger materially sabotaged the only chance for an end to the war in 1968 as a hedged bet to ensure he would achieve power in Nixon’s administration or Humphrey’s. A true tally will probably never be known of everyone who died so Kissinger could be national security adviser.”

The Intercept’s D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim noted that “Henry Kissinger killed so many people that we uncovered new atrocities he directed JUST THIS YEAR” in a post to X/Twitter, linking to an article the outlet published titled, “Survivors of Kissinger’s Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings.”

Journalist Conor Powell highlighted former President George W. Bush’s opening statement on Kissinger’s death — “America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs with the passing of Henry Kissinger” — as an indication of “just how problematic #Kissinger’s legacy is.”

“These words are not a ringing endorsement of Kissinger,” Powell tweeted. “And yet George W Bush as president did more to put Kissinger’s foreign policy ideas into practice than just about any other US president. Bush can barely say a thing positive about Kissinger in 2023.”

Against The Kurds, In Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, And Cyprus

A Teen Vogue report – Henry Kissinger Was a War Criminal Responsible for Millions of Deaths – said on November 30, 2023:

On November 29, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who NPR calls “one of the country’s most important foreign policy thinkers for more than half a century,” died at 100. Kissinger was responsible for an estimated 3 to 4 million deaths, according to one historian, and millions of human rights violations across a long list of nations. That list was recalled by Yale historian Greg Grandin in his obituary of Kissinger for The Nation: “Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, East Timor, Bangladesh, against the Kurds, in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cyprus, among other places.”

In May, Grandin wrote another story for the same magazine about Kissinger making it to age 100, outliving his contemporaries who share some of the blame, like Richard Nixon. That month, MSNBC commentator Medhi Hasan “celebrated” Kissinger’s birthday by recalling “some of the many, many people around the world who didn’t get to live till 100, or even 60, 70 or 80, because of Henry Kissinger, because of his support for brutal dictators, brutal regimes, brutal wars, and war crimes.”

Bombs, Instrument Of Diplomacy

Kissinger used, as Grandin put it, “bombs as an instrument of diplomacy” — an approach which, HuffPost’s obituary observed, “has become a hallmark of U.S. foreign policy.”

Upon news of Kissinger’s death, the internet celebrated possibly more than it did after the last elderly imperial death, but that celebration has been darkened by the basis for it. Joshua Hill posted a video from the 2010s of Kissinger being “unrepentant” about the deaths of Cambodians, where Kissinger’s personally approved carpet-bombing campaign still wounds and takes lives from cluster bombs left there more than 50 years later. (The US provided the same sort of bombs to Ukraine this year.) C-SPAN posted footage from 2016 of Kissinger defending his role in Vietnam. A biting missive from the late Anthony Bourdain — painful enough given that Kissinger got almost twice as long on this Earth than Tony — got posted over and over again.

Within 10 minutes of seeing the news, I started seeing the headlines: “America’s Most Notorious War Criminal” dead, a Teen Vogue classic; “Controversial Diplomat;” and some spicier ones, such as “Finally” at the leftist Tribune. Publishers Verso and Jacobin had a book fully prepared and ready for a print run for the occasion. It is hard to exaggerate how long the media had to get ready for this moment. A contributor to the New York Times’s obituary died in 2010.

Apparently, the preparedness to dance on Kissinger’s grave went hand-in-hand with an assumption, proven right, that those currently in power would not hesitate to eulogize a war criminal. Eric Adams and George W. Bush are among those publicly mourning. In life, Kissinger was a friend to Hillary Clinton, an advisor to Trump, and feted by the Obama administration in 2016 — at the same time that Obama acknowledged the U.S.’s role in Argentina’s “dirty war” against dissenters and leftists.

Kissinger has advised or been celebrated by every presidency since he joined Nixon’s cabinet, though less so with President Biden. However, current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, whose name has been sprawled across coverage of America’s 2023 involvement in overseas wars, attended Kissinger’s 100th-birthday party at the New York Public Library, leading the State Department to “awkwardly” sidestep calls for Blinken to justify his attendance.

New York City’s social strata was a respite for Kissinger, according to New York magazine’s Choire Sicha, who noted that from 1977 onward — when, even then, “in all the world there were fewer names more hated than his” — he left his academic and diplomatic careers behind to attend socialite parties after his campaign of death.

Kissinger Enabled The Deaths Of Between 300,000 And 3 Million In Bangladesh

The Teen Vogue report said:

“Historical memory is short, and U.S. politicians from both parties have a habit of bestowing accolades and kind words on officials who deserve nothing of the sort,” wrote Azadeh Shahshahani for Teen Vogue in 2021 following the death of fellow war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, calling for accountability for both Rumsfeld and Kissinger. Shahshahani pointed out that, in 1971, in Bangladesh alone, Kissinger had enabled the deaths of between 300,000 and 3 million people by providing arms to the Pakistani Army.

Ultimately, there’s little to celebrate about a war criminal who lived without regret to 100 years old, comfortably admired by the political class that created and supported him, with millions of deaths in his tracks. I’m reminded of a lyric: “Not everybody gets the chance to live/A life that isn’t dangerous.”

Our tech overlords, modern-day robber barons with hubris and unchecked power, aspire to never age, never die, to outlive us on other planets rather than save ours. There is not much dignity left in the “lesser evil” that is folks gladly burning our planet to the ground in favor of supposed American business interests. Things are dark right now. But, as writer Edward Ongweso Jr. tweeted, “At least one less literal demon walks among us.”

While death tolls keep rising over the world at the hands or arms of the U.S. empire, to outlive one of its proudest, prolifically murderous foots soldiers offers some small karmic comfort.

1 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been frantically shuttling around the Middle East trying to stop the Israeli coflict in Gaza from exploding into a regional war, the United States has also sent two aircraft carrier strike groups, a Marine Expeditionary Unit and 1,200 extra troops to the Middle East as a “deterrent.” In plain language, the United States is threatening to attack any forces that come to the defense of the Palestinians from other countries in the region, reassuring Israel that it can keep killing with impunity in Gaza.

But if Israel persists in this genocidal war, U.S. threats may be impotent to prevent others from intervening. From Lebanon to Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, the possibilities of the conflict spreading are enormous. Even Algeria says it is ready to fight for a free Palestine, based on a unanimous vote in its parliament on November 1st.

Middle Eastern governments and their people already see the United States as a party to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. So any direct U.S. military action will be seen as an escalation on the side of Israel and is more likely to provoke further escalation than to deter it.

The United States already faces this predicament in Iraq. Despite years of Iraqi demands for the removal of U.S. forces, at least 2,500 U.S. troops remain at Al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, Al-Harir Airbase, north of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, and another small base at the airport in Erbil.  There are also “several hundred” NATO troops, including Americans, advising Iraqi forces in NATO Mission Iraq (NMI), based near Baghdad.

For many years, U.S. forces in Iraq have been mired in a low-grade war against the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that Iraq formed to fight ISIS, mainly from Shia militias. Despite their links to Iran, the armed groups Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and other PMFs have often ignored Iranian calls to de-escalate attacks on U.S. forces. These Iraqi groups do not respect Iran Quds Force leader General Esmail Qaani as highly as they did General Soleimani, so Soleimani’s  assassination by the United States in 2020 has further reduced Iran’s ability to restrain the militias in Iraq.

After a year-long truce between U.S. and Iraqi forces, the Israeli war on Gaza has triggered a new escalation of this conflict in both Iraq and Syria. Some militias rebranded themselves as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and began attacking U.S. bases on October 17. After 32 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, 34 more in Syria and 3 U.S. airstrikes in Syria, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes against two Kata’ib Hezbollah bases in Iraq, one in Anbar province and one in Jurf Al-Nasr, south of Baghdad, on November 21, killing at least nine militiamen.

The U.S. airstrikes prompted a furious response from the Iraqi government spokesman Bassam al-Awadi. “We vehemently condemn the attack on Jurf Al-Nasr, executed without the knowledge of government agencies,” al-Awadi said. “This action is a blatant violation of sovereignty and an attempt to destabilize the security situation… The recent incident represents a clear violation of the coalition’s mission to combat Daesh (ISIS) on Iraqi soil. We call on all parties to avoid unilateral actions and to respect Iraq’s sovereignty…”

As the Iraqi government feared, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq responded to the U.S. airstrikes with two attacks on Al-Harir airbase on November 22 and several more on November 23rd. They attacked Al-Asad airbase with several drones, launched another drone attack on the U.S. base at Erbil airport, and their allies in Syria attacked two U.S. bases across the border in northeastern Syria.

Short of a ceasefire in Gaza or a full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Syria, there is no decisive action the U.S. can take that would put a stop to these attacks. So the level of violence in Iraq and Syria is likely to keep rising as long as the war on Gaza continues.

Another formidable and experienced military force opposing Israel and the United States is the Houthi army in Yemen. On November 14, Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi government in Yemen, asked neighboring countries to open a corridor through their territory for his army to go and fight Israel in Gaza.

The Houthi Deputy Information Secretary Nasreddin Amer told Newsweek that if they had a way to enter Palestine, they would not hesitate to join the fight against Israel, ”We have fighters numbering hundreds of thousands who are brave, tough, trained and experienced in fighting,” Amer said. “They have a very strong belief, and their dream in life is to fight the Zionists and the Americans.”

Transporting hundreds of thousands of Yemeni soldiers to fight in Gaza would be nearly impossible unless Saudi Arabia opened the way. That seems highly unlikely, but Iran or another ally could help to transport a smaller number by air or sea to join the fight.

The Houthis have been waging an asymmetric war against Saudi-led invaders for many years, and they have developed weapons and tactics that they could bring to bear against Israel. Soon after al-Houthi’s statement, Yemeni forces in the Red Sea boarded a ship owned, via shell companies, by Israeli billionaire Abraham Ungar. The ship, which was on its way from Istanbul to India, was detained in a Yemeni port.

The Houthis have also launched a series of drones and missiles towards Israel. While many members of Congress try to portray the Houthis as simply puppets of Iran, the Houthis are actually an independent, unpredictable force that other actors in the region cannot control.

Even NATO ally Türkiye is finding it difficult to remain a bystander, given the widespread public support for Palestine. President Erdogan of Türkiye was among the first international leaders to speak out strongly against the Israeli war on Gaza, explicitly calling it a massacre and saying that it amounted to genocide.

Turkish civil society groups are spearheading a campaign to send humanitarian aid to Gaza on cargo ships, braving a possible confrontation like the one that occurred in 2010 when the Israelis attacked the Freedom Flotilla, killing 10 people aboard the Mavi Marmara.

On the Lebanese border, Israel and Hezbollah have conducted daily exchanges of fire since October 7, killing 97 combatants and 15 civilians in Lebanon and 9 soldiers and 3 civilians in Israel. Some 46,000 Lebanese civilians and 65,000 Israelis have been displaced from the border area. Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant warned on November 11, “What we’re doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut.”

How will Hezbollah react if Israel resumes its brutal massacre in Gaza after the brief pause is over or if Israel expands the massacre to the West Bank, where it has already killed at least 237 more Palestinians since October 7?

In a speech on November 3, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah held back from declaring a new war on Israel, but warned that “all options are on the table” if Israel does not end its war on Gaza.

As Israel prepared to pause its bombing on November 23, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian held meetings in Qatar, first with Nasrallah and Lebanese officials, and then with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

In a public statement, Amirabdollahian said, “the continuation of the ceasefire can prevent further expansion of the scope of the war. In the meeting with the leaders of the resistance, I found out that if Israel’s war crimes and genocide continue, a tougher and more complicated scenario of the resistance will be implemented.”

Amirabdollahian already warned on October 16 that, “The leaders of the resistance will not allow the Zionist regime to do whatever it wants in Gaza and then go to other fronts of the resistance.”

In other words, if Iran and its allies believe that Israel really intends to continue its war on Gaza until it has removed Hamas from power, and then to turn its war machine loose on Lebanon or its other neighbors, they would prefer to fight a wider war now, forcing Israel to fight the Palestinians, Hezbollah and their allies at the same time, rather than waiting for Israel to attack them one by one.

Tragically, the White House is not listening. The next day, President Biden continued to back Israel’s vow to resume the destruction of Gaza after its “humanitarian pause,” saying that attempting to eliminate Hamas is “a legitimate objective.”

America’s unconditional support for Israel and endless supply of weapons have succeeded only in turning Israel into an out-of-control, genocidal, destabilizing force at the heart of a fragile region already shattered and traumatized by decades of U.S. warmaking. The result is a country that refuses to recognize its own borders or those of its neighbors, and rejects any and all limits on its territorial ambitions and war crimes.

If Israel’s actions lead to a wider war, the U.S. will find itself with few allies ready to jump into the fray. Even if a regional conflict is avoided, the U.S. support for Israel has already created tremendous damage to the U.S. reputation in the region and beyond, and direct U.S. involvement in the war would leave it more isolated and impotent than its previous misadventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States can still avoid this fate by insisting on an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. If Israel will not agree to that, the U.S. must back up this position with an immediate suspension of arms deliveries, military aid, Israeli access to U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Palestine.

The priority of U.S. officials must be to stop Israel’s massacre, avoid a regional war, and get out of the way so that other nations can help negotiate a real solution to the occupation of Palestine.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

30 November 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

Shortly after the start of a four-day ceasefire in the war on Gaza, the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium, Pedro Sanchez and Alexander De Croo, appeared in a joint press conference at Rafah Crossing.

While Sanchez described “what is happening (as) a disaster,” De Croo called for a “permanent cessation of hostilities” and for an end to the killing of children.

Equally significant, the two European leaders declared that “we may decide to recognize the State of Palestine, if the European Union does not”.

Coupled with the strong position of Ireland, some in Europe seem to be waking up to the fact that the Israeli occupation is the primary cause of the recent Gaza ‘hostilities’.

Israel was not pleased by the evolving European position. It immediately summoned the ambassadors of both countries, and sharply ‘rebuked’ them. This exaggerated response comes to show that Israel is not willing to give Europe even the narrowest of margins – as in condemning the killing of children or, expecting some kind of a peaceful settlement centered round Palestinian sovereignty.

Spain and Belgium’s phrase of “we may decide” to recognize Palestine even without EU consensus is indicative of an actual foreign policy schism within Europe itself. It turned out that not all EU governments have the same tolerance towards the genocide in Gaza as, for example, Germany and Britain.

Interestingly, other EU officials, too, are calling for a Palestinian State, though their intention is neither to ensure Palestinian freedom nor to safeguard Palestinian rights.

EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell, for example, argued on November 20 that “the creation of a Palestinian state would be the best way of ensuring Israel’s security”.

Even the former British Prime Minister, now Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, used similar logic. Israel will not have security unless it guarantees “long-term safety, security and stability” for the Palestinian people, Cameron said.

Regardless of the reasoning behind the growing emphasis on a ‘solution’ and rights for the Palestinians, this language was almost entirely absent from the Western political discourse prior to October 7.

The truth is that Palestinians have succeeded, through their resistance and sumud, to reassert Palestine on the global agenda. But how did Palestinians succeed in doing so, despite the utter marginalization of their cause before the war?

First, unlike previous wars, especially those that preceded the Unity Intifada of May 2021, this time around Palestinians spoke in unison.

Without rehearsing or even coordinating, it felt as if the Palestinian message flew seamlessly, when all Palestinians, regardless of their ideological backgrounds, placed the focus on the Israeli atrocities, without falling into the trap of the typical factional blame game.

Even children who have lost members of their families in Gaza would stand bravely in front of cameras reiterating that they will never weaken and that nothing would remove them from their homeland. Young and old repeated the same logic, used similar language, even from their hospital beds.

This led Israel to do everything in its power to excommunicate the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza from the rest of the world, shutting down the internet, electricity and any form of communications, even among Palestinians themselves.

Yet, somehow, a clear, united Palestinian message continued, amplified countless times by an army of social media activists who impressively helped balance out mainstream media bias, eventually overpowering corporate media’s control over the war narrative altogether.

The Palestinians have done this, and more, without powerful lobby groups, media consultants or a hasbara machine, like that which attempted, to no avail, to sway the public opinion in favor of Israel.

Secondly, the factional Palestinian suddenly disappeared.

For years, factional narratives, dividing Palestinians into conflicting interest groups, have thwarted the Palestinian people’s attempt to unify behind a single leadership – one that is capable of conveying, representing and defending Palestinian political aspirations.

Yet, all the Fatah-Hamas talks and agreements have failed, leaving the people with no other alternative but to explore different manifestations of unity that go beyond the interests of politicians.

This unity is now on full display, compelling everyone, including those affiliated with the Palestinian Authority itself, to adhere to the line of the people. While Gazans fought to free prisoners in the West Bank, West Bankers rose, and died in large numbers, in defense of Gaza.

This popular unity must continue, so that it would eventually be harnessed in the form of  political unity, which will bring all Palestinian groups together under a single leadership. This is the only way to ensure the tremendous Palestinian sacrifices and the precious blood that spilled in Gaza, eventually translate into the freedom that all Palestinians covet.

Thirdly, unity beyond Palestine also proved critical.

Arabs and Muslims served as the core of Palestinian solidarity throughout the Israeli war on Gaza. They protested, boycotted, fought and mobilized. Moreover, tens of millions of people, beyond the confines of the Arab and Muslim worlds, also marched around Palestinian rights and priorities.

Indeed, whole new conversations on Palestine are now occupying many public spheres around the globe. The Global South is once more embracing the struggle for Palestine, while the Global North is challenging governments, big corporations and mainstream media for justifying, supporting and financing the Israeli genocide.

The Palestinian people would now have to lead and direct this momentum of solidarity so that it may serve their righteous objectives, those of equality, justice and freedom – all enshrined in international law.

No public space should be left without engagement, no audience should be overlooked or neglected, and no stone should be left unturned in the search of that critical mass needed to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.

Western leaders and officials are speaking out now because they understand that the Palestinian cause has become a global one, and that the prolonging of Israeli occupation and apartheid will not bode well, neither for Tel Aviv nor for the collective West.

It is time for Palestinians to utilize this significant moment. It is time for them to lead the process of their own liberation. In fact, in Gaza, Jenin and elsewhere, this process has already begun.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

30 November 2023

Source: countercurrents.org