Commentary: Sabah and Sarawak are proving to be a political headache for Anwar
HOBART: With mere months to go before the second anniversary of Anwar Ibrahim becoming Malaysia's prime minister, the current delicate state of relations between Putrajaya and the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak could pose significant political challenges for him and the unity government.

There isn't a consensus among the Malay establishment regarding how to handle an assertive Sabah and Sarawak, despite the general agreement that Malaysians are now much more aware of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), and how the Borneo states were marginalised over the past 50 years.

For the past six years, both Sabah and Sarawak have been insisting that Putrajaya rigorously abide by the spirit of the promises in MA63. In MA63, they are referred to as "safeguards”, but they are really a collection of assurances prior to the formation of the federation that both states will have a high degree of socio-political autonomy from the federal government.

Prior to 2018, the dominance of the Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition meant that they could ignore all the MA63 promises made. In fact, voters in Sabah and Sarawak were commonly described as “fixed deposits” for BN, for consistently supporting the party and helping it remain in power. This all changed when BN lost power in 2018 and the Borneo states began agitating for the return of MA63 rights.

Since then, Putrajaya has formed various MA63 committees to decentralise some of the powers back to Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, and increase infrastructure projects and development funds for both states, such as the Borneo Highway.

With many of the simple devolution problems have been resolved, the main ones are up for discussion now. All the progress achieved over the past few years could be undone by these core issues.

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CONTINENTAL SHELF

The continental shelf off the coast of the Borneo states is the first problem. These regions are abundant in gas and oil, and advances in technology will enable mineral extraction from the deep water in the near future.

The federal government owns all oil and gas resources, as stipulated by the Petronas Development Act (PDA 1974). The Borneo states contest this, arguing that since they were included in the legally delineated limit of British colonial territory in 1954, the continental shelf truly belongs to them.

According to MA63, when the federation was formally established on Sep 6, 1963, all legislation passed before then automatically became operative. Thus, the legal ownership is still with Sabah and Sarawak.

In the event that the Borneo States successfully win this legal interpretation, Petronas will no longer be able to conduct its oil and gas exploration off the coast of the Borneo states without engaging in direct negotiations with Sabah and Sarawak.

There are far-reaching political consequences, not to mention even more far-reaching financial consequences. At least 20 per cent of Malaysia's development budget is accounted for by Petronas alone.

An even bigger consequence of Sabah and Sarawak getting control of the oil and gas resources on their continental shelves, is oil and gas-producing states in the peninsular. Terengganu and Kelantan, likewise, will undoubtedly demand control of their oil and gas fields if the Borneo states are successful. This could effectively mean the end of Petronas’ oil and gas monopoly.

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REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT

Another key issue is representation in parliament, specifically a return to the one-third composition for Sabah and Sarawak as stipulated in MA63.

Back in 1963, Malaya had 104 seats in the then 159-member federal parliament, while Sarawak, Sabah, and Singapore were given 55 seats, or 34.6 per cent. When Singapore left the federation in 1965, Singapore’s 15 parliamentary seats were not redistributed to Sabah and Sarawak. Thus, both states ended up with only a quarter of seats in parliament.

This leaves Sabah and Sarawak in an unfavourable position as a successful constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority vote in parliament. In other words, Peninsular Malaysia alone could change the constitution without any support from the Borneo states.

Sarawak has formally submitted a proposal to the federal Cabinet to increase the number of seats from Sabah and Sarawak to 35 per cent. This will require a constitutional amendment. There are many who are against this, believing that it will give too much power to the Borneo states.

Mr Anwar, in public at least, has been silent, suggesting that there is no consensus. If the Borneo states get the 35 per cent, this will fundamentally change the nature of federal-Borneo relations. It means that Putrajaya will have to consult with Kuching and Kota Kinabalu on any constitutional issues thereafter.

SABAH’S REVENUE

The third main issue is the constitutional requirement to refund Sabah 40 per cent of the net revenue collected from the state.

The constitution centralises revenue collection - including all forms of taxes - at the federal level. The federal government then returns a percentage of this to the states based on their population.

From the early 1970s, the federal government stopped paying. The Sabah government then was too weak politically to pursue this issue. The current stalemate is due to disagreements over the actual amount plus the arrears, called the “lost years”.

The Sabah state government has proposed several formulas, while the federal government has its own formula as well. No matter which formula is used to calculate the amount, it will at least be in the region of RM20 billion (US$4.6 billion), money the federal government does not have.

QUE SERA SERA

The three issues listed above, if determined in favour of Sabah and Sarawak, could fundamentally alter the entire basis of federal-Borneo ties.

It would be the first significant step in ensuring that the Borneo states are considered as "equal partners" and founders of the Malaysia Federation, rather than simply as one of the 13 states in the federation.

It would also result in a considerable shift of political power from Peninsular Malaysia to Borneo.

At present, Sabah and Sarawak’s support for Anwar is crucial for him to stay in power. Anwar claims he has the support of 154 members of parliament. More than 50 of them, however, are from the Borneo states. Without Sabah and Sarawak, there would be no political stability at the federal level.

In return for this support, Anwar has been careful not to reject, in public, any MA63-related proposals from Sabah or Sarawak. He has also appointed Fadillah Yusof, the second deputy prime minister to chair the federal MA63 committee. Fadillah comes from Sarawak, and more than a quarter of the federal Cabinet comes from Borneo. Anwar has even gone as far as to say he will “resolve” all MA63 issues as a matter of priority.

Anwar, however, will have to tread carefully.

The broader Malaysian political establishment harbours suspicion of Sabah and Sarawak. The unstated fear is that as the Borneo states gain more and more autonomy, it will be more likely to demand some form of quasi-independence in the future.

The nightmare of course is secession. However, the reality is that Sabah and Sarawak elites are not even considering secession. They understand that they will not be able to survive politically outside of Malaysia for the time being.

James Chin is Professor of Asian Studies at the Asia Institute Tasmania, University of Tasmania. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia.

Source: CNA/aj

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/malaysia-sabah-sarawak-ma63-safeguards-demands-anwar-4571486

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As world marks 75th anniv. of Geneva Conventions, rogue Israel continues to mock intl. law

The world marked the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions on Monday; just two days after the Israeli regime carried out yet another deadly massacre in the Gaza Strip.

#FreePalestine #GenevaConventions
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When Khazarian Mafia Occupied Ukraine as Base for Worldwide Zionist Revival
Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorMarch 20, 2023

Vladimir Skachko

On the eve of March 16, 2023, when “Latvian Legionnaires’ Memorial Day” is usually celebrated in Riga and processions of former legionnaires and Latvian nationalists are held in memory of the fallen soldiers of the Latvian SS Volunteer Legion, the FSB of Russia published new data on the atrocities of these “national heroes”

The data is bloody: from December 5 to 9, 1944, soldiers of the Ventspils field gendarmerie and the 2nd company of the 19th grenadier division of the Latvian SS Legion killed 160 civilians, including 22 children, in the village of Zleka, in western Latvia, on charges of cooperation with the partisans. In total, 22 farms, which were burned down, fell under the punitive operation.

SS men of all countries unite

However, both the march and the processions in Riga took place under the protection of the local police, who detained the only person who protested against the excesses of the descendants of the SS – the deputy of the Jelgava City Duma Andrei Pagor, who stood on the square with a poster on which he wrote in Latvian the same as FSB in Russian: “

Latvian legionnaires of the Waffen-SS swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler. The Latvian Legion massacred 160 civilians in the village of Zleka in the Kurzeme region .

And the second feature is that among the Latvian SS men, yellow-blue flags of Ukraine and representatives of Ukrainian neo-Nazis were densely mixed. In Ukraine, similar marches of veterans of the SS division “Galicia” were also held in memory of her. Loyalty to Adolf Hitler and unites both Ukrainian and Latvian SS men and their followers.

Vladimir Skachko – RIA Novosti, 1920, 03/05/2019
March 5, 2019, 15:34

Vladimir Skachko: who is he

Well-known Ukrainian journalist, publicist, political analyst

And one more and, perhaps, today the most important and relevant feature of all such events everywhere in the world, but especially in Europe – in its post-socialist and post-Soviet parts – is that less and less organizers of actions are interested in the nationality of their participants.

Because again a new basis for association and activity has been declared – in fact, zoological Russophobia, hardened and well-established, subconsciously argued, hatred of Russia. This became the cement for uniting all Russophobes of various nationalities.

The pinnacle of this phenomenon was the appearance in Ukraine of the so-called — excuse me, but you can’t erase the words from this political song — Jewish Bandera: people of Jewish nationality who, for opportunistic reasons, “forgot” that Nazi Nazism was the cause and main drive belt of the Holocaust — the destruction of 6 million Jews during the years of World War II.

First, the oligarch, a Jew by nationality, Igor Kolomoisky , declared himself a Jew of Bandera, who, by all accounts, “made” the president, also a Jew, Vladimir Zelensky. Then Zelensky spat on the blood of his fellow tribesmen, on historical memory and on the memory of his own grandfather, who fought against Nazism in the Red Army. And then everyone else followed them – nimble and just as unscrupulous.

Russophobia was born from anti-Semitism

And it started: Ukraine began to rapidly take shape in a Russophobic aggressive state. And the events of the end of May 2021 in the village of Novy Pikov, Vinnytsia region, should have shocked the rest of Ukraine. There, apparently, in search of wealth, a mass grave of 1,200 Jews was desecrated: graves were dug up and the entire territory was strewn with the remains of buried people. And all this happened near the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

But nothing shocked anyone anywhere. The police traditionally opened a criminal case, which will end in nothing: no one will look for anyone and, therefore, will not find anyone. And the case will be covered with dust in the archive, like thousands of other similar cases.

This event did not excite the central authorities of Ukraine, headed by Zelensky, who had previously said that he was proud of this. Zelensky left the next desecration of the graves of fellow tribesmen without attention and reaction, by which, as the mayor of Kiev Vitaliy Klitschko once gracefully noted , he finally “painted himself in the colors that he painted.” That is, he finally and irrevocably ranked himself among the shameful and shameful tribe of Ukrainian “Jewish Bandera”. People of Jewish nationality or Jewish origin who have entered the service of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi and xenophobic state in its essence, in which one titular nation is designated as the main one – Ukrainians. And everyone else should wave them. Forgetting about their origin, roots, history.

Foreign journalists at work in the Kherson region – RIA Novosti, 1920, 03/17/2023
March 17, 15:33

“The Pentagon wanted to drive the Russians into concentration camps.” The truth about Ukraine from Western journalists

Most Western media take an openly anti-Russian position on the conflict in Ukraine. But there are independent American and European journalists who prefer to see everything with their own eyes and tell about it.

Connoisseurs of xenophobic idiocy argue that the word “Jewish Bandera” is a monstrous know-how not of “square” Ukraine, but of the Soviet one. And it appeared for the first time in 1981 in the main Ukrainian satirical magazine Peretz, where they fought hard against Zionism and terribly criticized it for allegedly merging with Western money in anti-Soviet ecstasy with Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism, the symbol of which by that time had already become Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)*, who was killed in 1959.

The product of the coup d’étatI won’t argue with that. But in the modern history of Ukraine, this concept again became relevant and shameful immediately after the 2014 coup d’état in Dnepropetrovsk, where it was. O. President of Ukraine

Oleksandr Turchynov , who earned the nickname “Bloody Pastor” for starting a civil war in Donbass, appointed the already mentioned oligarch Kolomoisky as governor. So that he, therefore, for his money and at any cost, put an end to the “Russian world” and “anti-Maidan” there. And for this he gave him the entire Dnepropetrovsk region, one of the richest regions of the Ukrainian southeast. In the same way that Turchynov appointed the Donetsk oligarch Sergei Taruta (the “owner of Donbass” and the richest man in Ukraine

Rinat Akhmetov ) to “pacify the Donbass”, apparently, refused such an “honor”, ​​because he was going to “milk” both of them – both Ukraine and the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR).

Kolomoisky coped with the tasks. And the Russian world crushed in the bud, and not only the Dnepropetrovsk region, but also the most “delicious” objects in a couple of neighboring regions crushed under itself. But he became famous for the fact that with him appeared T-shirts with the print of “Jewbander” and the image of the Jewish menorah menorah. And this despite the fact that Kolomoisky is not just a Jew by nationality. By that time, he had rebuilt the House of Culture in Dnepropetrovsk into one of the largest synagogues in the world, was the President of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Community of Dnepropetrovsk, was the head and member until 2011 of the European Council of Jewish Communities, President of the European Jewish Union (EJU) .In other words, “Jewish banditry” as one of the most widespread xenophobia in Ukraine under Kolomoisky reached its peak and became an integral part of state policy. Moreover, it has become one of the most widespread Internet memes, disgracing Ukraine.

Ukrainian phenomenon – Jewish anti-SemitismThe special and vile cynicism of this phenomenon is that, on the one hand, a huge number of current Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs who have become the architects of the current economic model of Ukraine are of Jewish origin. In addition to Zelensky, the presence of close Jewish relatives by the name of Valtsman was “accused” of his predecessor, the fifth president, Petro Poroshenko. Jewish origin was found in all three “heroes of the Maidan”, who, as it were, became the personification of the state revolution-2014.

At the same Klitschko, who became the mayor of Kiev, it was the Ukrainians who saved the Jewish grandmother Tamara Etinzon during the Holocaust . Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became prime minister, was attributed to the ancient Jewish family Bakaev. And even the leader of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party, Oleg Tyagnibok, who lost the most fighters on the Maidan, was found to have Jewish grandparents named Frotman. And they even arrogantly claimed that he himself became such an ardent Nazi in retaliation for the fact that his family had not been released to Israel at one time.

A couple of years ago, President Zelensky was declared a “mortal war for the land” by the leader of the Batkivshchyna party Yulia Tymoshenko , twice the former prime minister of Ukraine, which is called the “Ukrainian coast”. And if there are different opinions about her “Ukrainianness”, to put it mildly, then in terms of forgetting her Jewish origin and ignoring the memory of her ancestors, it is Tymoshenko who can give Zelensky a head start.If the current President Zelensky, betraying Victory Day on May 9 and refusing the Great Patriotic War, simply betrayed his grandfather Semyon Zelensky, who fought under the command of “Marshal of Victory” Georgy Zhukov, whose memory is defiled

and nullified in Ukraine, then Tymoshenko did it even earlier. When, as prime minister, she didn’t lift a finger to clean up a mass grave on the height of Bezymyannaya near the village of Karan (now Flotskoye) near Sevastopol in the then-Ukrainian-controlled Crimea.

And her grandfather, senior lieutenant Abram Kapitelman, commander of a communications platoon of the 1st rifle battalion of the 777th rifle regiment of the 227th Temryuk rifle division, who died on May 8, 1944, was buried there, and three days before that he was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War II degree. This is how the grave was and remained during the premiership of Tymoshenko after the military unit on whose territory it was located was closed.

And of course, the Vinnitsa region and Vinnitsa itself are striking, where anti-Semitism takes on perhaps the ugliest forms. Vinnitsa Jews became victims of both Jewish pogroms during the time of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (URN) Symon Petlyura , and Hitler’s Holocaust during World War II. And in Vinnitsa, on the site of the Jewish ghetto and the executions of Jews, the local “Zelenbud” was smashed, the “Anti-Fascist” planting seedlings wrote about this and drew attention to the fact that one of the first monuments to the pogromist Petliura appeared in Vinnitsa. And the city at that time (and in general 16 years out of 30 in independent Ukraine) was led by Jewish mayors – Dmitry Dvorkis (1992-2000) and Volodymyr Groysman (2006-2014), who later became the Prime Minister of Ukraine under Poroshenko, and now he is trying to back into big politics.

And there is another side of the “Jewish Bandera”: having betrayed their memory and stepped over the blood of their relatives and fellow tribesmen, they went to the service of those who today are ready to build and are building their policy and their “Ukrainian Ukraine” on xenophobia and national intolerance. Under the slogans “Ukraine for Ukrainians” and “Ukraine First”. This is modern Ukrainian neo-Nazism.

With Hitler in the head

And their spiritual forerunners are Bandera – the most rabid zoological, if you like, clinical nationalists. On June 30, 2021, “progressive”, that is, Maidan Ukraine, celebrated the “80th anniversary of the restoration of the Ukrainian state”, which happened with the permission of the Nazis and lasted, it seems, only 8 days. Because the Nazis created their eponymous “Reich Commissariat” (in the east), “District Galicia” (in the west) on the territory of Ukraine, and generally gave the south to allied Romania.

But the Bandera nationalists continued to imitate the “rozbudov of Ukraine”, serving Hitler and preparing to cleanse the country of “foreigners”. Everyone. On OUN leaflets of that time it was written: “People! Know! Moscow, Poland, Magyars, Jews – these are all your enemies. Destroy them!” And the “restorer” and as the “Prime Minister of the Ukrainian state” Yaroslav Stetsko wrote and said: “Moscow and the Jews are the main enemies of Ukraine and the bearers of disintegrating Bolshevik international ideas … Considering Moscow the main and decisive enemy, which powerfully kept Ukraine in captivity, nevertheless I assess less as harmful and hostile the fate of the Jews, who help Moscow to enslave Ukraine. Therefore, I stand on the position of the destruction of the Jews and the expediency of transferring to Ukraine the German methods of extremination (destruction) of the Jews, excluding their assimilation.

It is the spiritual and political heirs and bearers of similar ideas that today serve the modern Jew Bandera. And to this we can only add that not only people of Jewish origin went into the service of neo-Nazis. And it was not in vain that I focused my attention on Kolomoisky. It was under him that a peculiar Ukrainian “international of ethno-Bandera” began to form – people of different nationalities and ethnicity, who went into Ukrainian neo-Nazis and neo-fascists and became “Katsap Bandera”, “Chechen-Bandera”, “Tatar-Bandera”, “Georgian- or Armenian-Bandera”, “Belarus-Bandera” etc.

Under Kolomoisky, in the Dnipropetrovsk region and throughout the southeast, huge wonderful advertising banners “$10,000 for a Muscovite” appeared, which were supposedly going to be paid by Privatbank, owned by the oligarch. And the ethnic Russian, an ally of the oligarch Boris Filatov put forward one of the main slogans of the fight against the “Russian world”:

“We must give the scum any promises, guarantees and make any concessions. And hang them … You need to hang them later! And on the Maidan, the Armenian Sergei Nigoyan and Belarusian Mikhail Zhiznevsky were the first to die .

A feature of the current situation, as already mentioned, is that traditional anti-Semitism and other national xenophobia are being replaced by Russophobia, which has come to the fore. They made a gigantic “Anti-Russia” out of Ukraine and paid with the money of sponsors, first of all, for hatred of Russia and everything Russian. And then they provoked a war with Russia, which launched a special military operation (SVO) to protect the population of two regions of Donbass from extermination. And now, for the opportunity to shine in front of the authorities in Kyiv and their sponsors, to swim in the cash flows, to bask in the career rays of the ethno-Banderites and fuss. That the Crimean Tatar

Aider Muzhdabaev is now furious with neo-Nazi hatred for everything Russian, that the Georgian Mikho Saakashvili played in the same positions, Americans and other “Vikings”. And how many ordinary ethno-Banderites, who, for the money of the oligarchs, and now at the expense of the countries of the collective West, were contracted to “pacify the Donbass” in punitive volunteer battalions, and now fight in the NVO, and do not count. Who is there just not – from Russians and Chechens to the French, Poles and Americans.

Ethno-Banderites on the payroll

The main problem of Ukraine with these ethno-Banderites is not only that they cynically betrayed their blood and stepped over the blood of their fellow tribesmen. By their support for Ukrainian neo-Nazis, they create the appearance and illusion that there is no neo-Nazism and other xenophobia in Ukraine: what kind of anti-Semitism or neo-Nazism is it if their president is a Jew. But the ethno-Bandera people do not want to understand that a tough attempt is being made in Ukraine to build a mono-ethnic state, rigidly oriented and sharpened against Russia. It was for this purpose that Zelensky’s law on the indigenous peoples of Ukraine was adopted, which recognize the Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks and Karaites. Russians, at best, were told by Zelensky himself: if they feel Russian, they should leave for Russia. Although the Russians have lived on this land for centuries, since the time of Kievan Rus,

But today it is impossible to resist this ethno-Banderism in Ukraine. Because the authorities use, openly or tacitly support anti-Semitism, Russophobia, any other xenophobia and ethnic strife. As well as their carriers. They need them in order to:- to mobilize the people “to fight” against the “fifth column” inside the country and “Putin’s Mordor” on the outer contour;- to use interethnic strife and interethnic quarrels as a good and reliable distraction from the social and even political struggle against the authorities. Like, how can you fight the same Zelensky, if “the motherland is in danger.”

Order for Bandera of all varieties

And of course, another of the main reasons for ethno-Banderism in Ukraine is an external order for it from sponsors and external curators. Neo-Nazi Ukraine under the rule of ethno-Banderists is a trouble-free tool, an anti-Russian battering ram, a foothold or a training ground. In the same way as before, with the revival of neo-Nazism there and its support in the West, the republics of the Soviet Baltic States covered by Russophobia turned out to be.

And the pragmatic West can be understood. They are ready to fight with Russia by proxy to the last, both Ukrainians and ethno-Banderists, who are ready for anything for money. Here the West also uses such international stupid gratuitousness.

Dmitry Yarosh – RIA Novosti, 1920, 03/03/2023
March 3, 07:52

Russophobia as a profession. What is neo-Nazi leader Dmitry Yarosh doing today?

Nine years ago, in March 2014, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Nazis for the first time called for terrorist acts in the Crimea, on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as for blowing up gas and oil pipelines running through the territory of Ukraine.

And not only in Ukraine. Russia has its own Achilles’ heel in this regard – called spiritual Vlasovites, if you like, ethnovlasovites, people who are ready to fight with their own homeland to the end, until it is destroyed.And the West has already begun to bring down this audience into a flock. Last year, with a difference of almost a month in May-June, two maps appeared with a plan for dividing Russia into nation-states, which were presented by these very ethnovlasovites.

First, on May 8, 2022 in Warsaw at a conference called the Forum of the Free Peoples of Russia (FSNR), at which a new idea and a new task were loudly announced – the dismantling of modern Russia into independent national republics under the guise of decolonization. Then in Prague on July 24, 2022, the second round of the FSNR was held, where a map of the free states of “post-Russia” was presented under the title “Decolonization and reconstruction of Russia” and the slogan “Time for indigenous peoples and regions to regain their independence and sovereignty”.

Conclusion for growth

It was overseen by the U.S. Government Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, a supposedly independent body of the U.S. federal government that for 45 years monitored compliance with the Helsinki Accords and promoted comprehensive security through the promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental, and military cooperation in the OSCE region from 57 countries.

This commission has its own map of the collapse of Russia. And its new task is to unite all ethno-Banderites on the basis of hatred for Russia and frenzied Russophobia into a single coordinating structure. Something like the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), which was destroying the USSR in 1946-1996. Judging by the efforts, ABN 2.0 should now appear – only an anti-Russian bloc of peoples that would unite everyone who wants the death of Russia and is ready to participate in this for money.

This is what it all comes down to. And it will come if Russia puts aside its victory in the NWO, which is the only one to sober up this public and cool its feverish Russophobic delirium.

* An organization whose activities are prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.

https://ukraina.ru/20230320/1044542744.html

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World War II: US Military Destroyed 66 Japanese Cities Before Planning to Wipe Out the Same Number of Soviet Cities

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Timely historical analysis: This article was first published in June 2019. Reposted for the 79th anniversary of America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The extent of devastation inflicted upon Japan by the American military during World War II is not broadly known, even today. In reprisal for the attack over Pearl Harbor, which killed almost 2,500 Americans, US aircraft first began unloading bombs on Japan during the afternoon of 18 April 1942 – attacking the capital Tokyo, and also five other major cities, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe and Yokosuka.

Participating in this opening incursion over Japanese territory, known as the “Doolittle Raid”, were a modest 16 US B-25 medium bombers which killed about 50 Japanese, while meting out minor overall damage. Yet the air strikes represented an embarrassment for Tokyo’s leaders, and they further dealt a sharp psychological blow on the Japanese mindset. To rub salt into wounds, not one of America’s B-25 aircraft was shot down. It was a sign of things to come.

As months elapsed into years, the destruction increased many times over. By 15 June 1945, 66 Japanese cities had been annihilated by the US Army Air Force, through firebombing attacks primarily unleashed by the new B-29 four-engine heavy bombers.

The number of Japanese metropolitan areas destroyed here was the exact figure that the Pentagon compiled when finalizing plans, in mid-September 1945, to eviscerate the Soviet Union. Indeed, 66 Soviet cities were earmarked to be wiped out – with 204 atomic bombs – less than two weeks after Japanese representatives signed surrender terms on 2 September 1945, finally closing out World War II.

Regarding atomic attack proposals against the Japanese Empire, General George Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff, revealed in 1954 that,

“In the original plans for the invasion of Japan, we wanted nine atomic bombs for three attacks”.

Just prior to Hiroshima the Pentagon had less than half a dozen A-bombs, however.

Little boy.jpg

Photograph of a mock-up of the Little Boy nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. This was the first photograph of the Little Boy bomb casing to ever be released by the U.S. government (it was declassified in 1960). (Source: Public Domain)

The world’s first nuclear attack was unleashed at 8.15am local time in Hiroshima, on 6 August 1945, as a 15 kiloton bomb hurtled through the air when released from a B-29 aircraft. After falling for 44 seconds, the “Little Boy” atomic weapon detonated directly over Shima Hospital in Hiroshima’s city centre, instantly turning into ashes all of its doctors, nurses and patients. In the surrounding landscape, dozens of further hospitals, schools and historical buildings were razed to the ground.

Tens of thousands were killed immediately as ground temperatures momentarily soared from between 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius. Of those people situated within two kilometres of the bomb detonation point, 112,000 would be dead within a year (10 August 1946).

Further thousands were also killed from radiation poisoning and severe burns, among those present in the hundreds of metres beyond the two kilometre radius mark. The majority of the dead and dying were civilians, men too old or sick to serve in the armed forces, along with large numbers of women and children.

Hiroshima’s vital arms and manufacturing complexes, scattered along the city’s periphery, were completely undamaged. These plants accounted for 74% of her total industrial output. Unscathed too was Hiroshima’s crucial port and military embarkation point on the Ota Delta. Almost 95% of Hiroshima’s factory workers were unhurt following the explosion.

On hearing of the atomic blast a few hours afterwards, president Harry Truman heralded it as “the greatest thing in history” and “an overwhelming success”.

Three days later, 9 August, Nagasaki was attacked at 11.02am local time with a more sophisticated 21 kiloton bomb – which was released over the city’s educational, cultural and religious heartland. As with Hiroshima, the Nagasaki bombing left unharmed most of the city’s war-making industries.

Fat man.jpg

A mockup of the Fat Man nuclear device. (Source: Public Domain)

This “Fat Man” bomb killed further tens of thousands; including many hundreds of schoolchildren, along with destroying the city’s main hospitals, cathedrals, temples and schools. Medical facilities in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decimated, adding significantly to the death tolls.

Echoing Washington’s support for atomic assaults were the Western media, almost without exception. Of 595 newspaper editorials written regarding the nuclear explosions from early August until late December 1945, less than 2% opposed the attacks which would kill more than 200,000 people.

The press also firmly supported the firestorming of both German and Japanese cities, in actuality they had “demanded more bombing of civilian targets”, even criticizing air strikes over military and industrial zones. For example, New York’s Time magazine praised the annihilation of Tokyo, which left around 100,000 dead, as “a dream come true… properly kindled, Japanese cities will burn like autumn leaves”.

Elsewhere, although Japan’s hard-line militarists proposed fighting to the last man, their political leaders were compelled to announce surrender on 15 August 1945, when threatened with further atomic attacks. General Leslie Groves, directing America’s A-bomb project, informed General Marshall on 10 August 1945 that another Nagasaki-type plutonium weapon would be “on the target” and available for use “after 24 August 1945”.

The USSR’s declaration of war on Japan during the evening of 8 August 1945 also influenced Tokyo’s capitulation; with the Red Army, in the following days, cutting through Japan’s elite armies across Manchuria like a hot knife through butter. Another factor was the American guarantee, relayed on 11 August 1945, that Emperor Hirohito – a God-like entity in Japan – could continue in his role following the surrender, though he would have no real power.

Just after the first atomic attack Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Hisatsune Sakomizu, estimated that his country could hold out for another two months at most: to October 1945. Japan had long been beaten in the air, as too at sea, while her imports of crude oil, rubber and iron ore ceased to exist. Japanese forces were driven from Burma and throughout the Pacific territories.

In addition, according to high ranking figures like Admirals Chester Nimitz (Pacific Fleet Commander) and William Leahy (Truman’s Chief of Staff), the ongoing, crippling blockade of Japan by sea, coupled with conventional air attacks, would induce their surrender within weeks, making any US land invasion or atomic bombings unnecessary. The A-bombs were in reality dropped as a warning signal to the Soviet Union, America’s new and long-term enemy as highlighted by General Groves in March 1944.

Through non-nuclear bombing, the destruction of dozens of Japan’s metropolitan areas was overseen by Major General Curtis LeMay, who implemented increasingly murderous tactics. It should be remembered, however, that Japan’s army apparatus was particularly sadistic and brutal, committing atrocities predating World War II.

Yet it was Japanese civilians which bore the brunt of America’s military might. On 30 May 1945, LeMay openly boasted at a press conference that US air strikes had killed a million Japanese or more.

By the summer of 1945, over nine million of Japan’s citizens were left homeless, most fleeing to green areas. Just prior to the atomic explosions, 969 Japanese hospitals had also been destroyed by American airplanes.

Almost four years previously, Japan’s seemingly “unprovoked and dastardly attack” on the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – as president Franklin D. Roosevelt described it – was based on what were in fact well-grounded fears. For five months preceding Japan’s raid on 7 December 1941, Washington had been moving her B-17 heavy bombers in growing numbers to US bases in the Pacific, such as at Pearl Harbor, and also to Clark Air Base and Del Monte Airfield in the Philippines.

From mid-1941, half of America’s big bombers were shifted from the Atlantic domain towards eastern horizons, something that Japanese strategists were only too aware of.

The reasoning behind this military build up had been outlined in late 1940, by America’s famed pre-war planner and Air Force General, Claire Chennault, who outlined how the B-17s would “burn out the industrial heart of the Empire with fire-bomb attacks on the teeming bamboo ant heaps of Honshu and Kyushu”. President Roosevelt was “simply delighted” when hearing of this plan.

Notwithstanding Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, America would have shortly entered the war regardless – and in opposition to Tokyo – as both states by 1941 were already major rivals with incompatible ambitions in the great Asian and Pacific regions. On 15 November 1941, three weeks before Pearl Harbor, General Marshall told reporters in an “off-the-record briefing” that American aircraft would “set the paper cities of Japan on fire. There won’t be any hesitation about bombing civilians”.

A year before, on 19 December 1940, Roosevelt approved $25 million in military aid to China, Japan’s traditional nemesis, including the gift of aircraft. Twenty-five million dollars in 1940 equates to nearly half a billion dollars today. On 11 March 1941, America’s president signed into law the Lend-Lease Act, a program providing further materiel to the Chinese – and also to other nations like Britain, the Soviet Union and France, all of which were far from benevolent towards Imperial Japan.

For many months, Roosevelt had placed sanctions and an embargo on Japan, such as in response to Tokyo’s September 1940 occupation of Northern French Indochina, which harmed US interests in the vicinity.

On 26 July 1941 Roosevelt froze the entirety of Japanese assets in America, a drastic policy which amounted to a declaration of economic war on Japan, over four months before Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt’s action stripped Japan of a staggering 90% of its oil imports, along with eradicating 75% of her foreign trade.

Within days, the Japanese were forced to dip into their scant oil reserves, which on their current course would be used up by January 1943, unless her armies embarked upon further invasions.

In equal enemy numbers, there were few who could live with the ferocity of the Japanese soldier, who gained notoriety for his cruelty. Tokyo’s war planners turned their hungry gaze to yet more tantalizing conquests, lining up the resource-rich states of Burma, the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), each of which would be conquered during the first half of 1942.

As the war advanced and tables slowly turned, the Western allies’ terror bombing of civilian areas – not only ranking as war crimes – also stood as a dismal failure in its bid to bring the conflict to swift conclusion. These morally bereft strategies, of which nobody was made accountable, actually prolonged World War II. The long-held idea that blood-drenched air raids would smash the people’s morale, forcing them to revolt against their leaders, was pure fantasy.

In the summer of 1945, Japanese civilians were more interested in laying their hands upon foodstuffs, with the nation gradually starving due to America’s naval blockade. What’s more, any attempt at rebellion would promptly be eliminated by Japan’s military police, the dreaded Kenpeitai.

Western leaders failed to discern the lessons of Germany’s early 1940s Blitz of Britain, which served to strengthen the British public’s morale, not weaken it. This reality soon became clear to Wehrmacht hierarchy; but not so it seems to leaders like Winston Churchill, who was advocating the senseless obliteration of medieval cities like Dresden as late as February 1945.

Targeting women and children with bombs left the German and Japanese war machines largely unmolested. The Nazis’ armaments minister, Albert Speer, was at times left dumbfounded by Allied air tactics over Germany, which often avoided the Reich’s industrial areas.

Across 1944 Speer, much to Hitler’s delight and amazement, actually oversaw an increase in both German aircraft and panzer production, which made possible such attacks as the Ardennes Offensive of December 1944.

The realities behind air bombing escaped the attention of others like LeMay, and his English counterpart Arthur “Bomber” Harris. After it was all over, Harris admitted in his memoirs that the stratagem underlying assaults over urban locations “proved to be wholly unsound”; and that the Allied leaders should have earlier directed their pilots more frequently towards bombardment of factories, communication signals and transportation lines, which would have finished off Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan before 1945.

While LeMay was speaking about the mass deaths of Japanese, which also destroyed more than 3.5 million homes, he did not mention that in mid-1945 much of Japan’s infrastructure still lay untouched; such as the country’s crucially important coal ferry between Hokkaido and Honshu while, incredibly, the rail network remained intact through to August 1945; as too did several industrial zones which LeMay’s B-29s roamed obliviously past.

*

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Charred remains of Japanese civilians after the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945.


https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-military-destroyed-66-japanese-cities-before-planning-wipe-out-same-number-soviet-cities/5680934

As Israel continues killing in Gaza, more torture and rape allegations surface – Day 304
[email protected] August 7, 2024 anti-masking law, ceasefire, evacuation, gaza death toll, Israeli prisons, malnutrition gaza, palestinian journalist killed, rape, tim walz, torture, turkey joins icj, turkiye, us troops to israel, west bank deaths
Israeli air strikes have targeted parts of central Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. Pictured: the aftermath of a bombing in Deir el Balah (screengrab)
166th Palestinian journalist killed; child malnutrition in Gaza; another evacuation order; Gaza’s official death toll is way too low; news of Israeli torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners keeps coming, keeps getting worse; Israel killed 12 West Bank Palestinians in 24 hours; majority of Americans don’t support sending troops to assist Israel; NY anti-masking law targets pro-Palestine protesters; VP candidate Tim Walz on Palestine; ceasefire agreement allegedly getting close; Turkey joins ICJ case against Israel; more.

By IAK staff, from reports.

Another Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli attack on Gaza

Al Jazeera reports: Gaza’s Government Media Office says the number of journalists killed in Israeli attacks has risen to 166 since the start of Israel’s war.

It said in a statement that Mohammed Issa Abu Saada, a correspondent and field photojournalist for several media outlets, is the latest to be killed.

Child malnutrition surges in Gaza: UN

OCHA reports: In the five-day period up to Monday, 143 Palestinians were reported killed and 341 injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza from air, land and sea forces, according to the UN’s latest situation report.

Detected cases of child malnutrition in Gaza have jumped almost 50 percent in July compared with June, with more than 650 Palestinian children now suffering from “acute malnutrition” in the enclave, which is a three-fold increase in cases since May.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports that an estimated 10,000 people remain missing or under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza.

Save the Children, in a new statement, said 21,000 children are missing, some separated from their families, some buried under the rubble, their fate unknown. The advocacy group calls for a ceasefire to look for the missing children. Israel's abuses saw it added to the UN's global blacklist of countries that harm children.
Save the Children, in a new statement, said 21,000 children are missing, some separated from their families, some buried under the rubble, their fate unknown. The advocacy group calls for a ceasefire to look for the missing children. Israel’s abuses saw it added to the UN’s global blacklist of countries that harm children. (screenshot)
Israeli Military Orders Another Mass Evacuation in Northern Gaza – ‘To the Known Shelters’

Palestine Chronicle reports: The Israeli military threatened a new military operation in the northern Gaza Strip under the pretext of the firing of rockets from the area.

In a tweet published early Wednesday on the X platform, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said that all those in the Beit Hanoun area, the Manshiya and Sheikh Zayed neighborhoods should evacuate their areas immediately to “known shelters” in the center of Gaza City.

He added that Hamas and other factions were firing rockets from those areas and that the Israeli army would act “immediately and forcefully against them.”

Throughout the war, Israel has repeatedly targeted refugee encampments of displaced Gazans, resulting in the killing and wounding of thousands.

Israel’s Channel 12 said the army was preparing for what it described as large-scale ground activity in Beit Hanoun.

Meanwhile, there are reports of shelling all over Gaza.

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘The martyrs were cut up and burned’: Survivors of the latest tent massacre in Gaza recount the horror

A scene from the massive fire ignited when Israel struck Rafah
A scene from the massive fire ignited when Israel struck Rafah on May 26 (screenshot)
Gaza’s official death toll is a lie

Jonathan Cook writes: The reported death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this — all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated.

On May 6, seven months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month.

Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at 39,400 — or an increase of 4,665.

It should not need a statistician to point out that, were the rise linear, the expected number of deaths would stand by this point at around 49,600.

So, even by the simplest calculation, there is a large shortfall in deaths — a shortfall that needs explaining.

Such an explanation is easy to provide: Israel destroyed Gaza’s institutions and its medical infrastructure, including its hospitals, many months ago, making it impossible for officials there to keep track of how many Palestinians are being killed by Israel.

The death toll figures started to stall in the spring, around the time Israel completed its destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and kidnapped much of the enclave’s medical personnel.

More than a month ago, Save the Children pointed out that some 21,000 children in Gaza were missing, in addition to the 16,000 known to have been killed by Israel. Many are likely to have suffered lonely, terrifying deaths under rubble — gradually suffocated to death, or dying slowly from dehydration.

But again, even those shocking figures are likely to be a severe undercount.

(Read the full article here.)




Reports of torture in Israel’s Sde Teiman ‘only represent the tip of iceberg’

UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights: Reports of alleged torture and sexual violence in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal and revolting, but they only represent the tip of the iceberg, independent human rights experts* warned today.

“Israel’s widespread and systemic abuse of Palestinians in detention and arbitrary arrest practices over decades, coupled with the absence of any restraints by the Israeli State since 7 October 2023, paint a shocking picture enabled by absolute impunity,” the experts said.

Around 9,500 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently imprisoned—around one-third without charge or trial. Another unknown number are arbitrarily being held in detention facilities and ad hoc camps following a wave of arrest and abduction campaigns across Palestinian territory that targeted men, women and children particularly following 7 October.

The experts received substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault and rape, amid atrocious inhumane conditions, with at least 53 Palestinians apparently dying as a result in 10 months.

Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns. In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.

“Allegations of gang-rape of a Palestinian detainee, now shockingly supported by voices in the Israeli political establishment and society, provide irrefutable evidence that the moral compass is lost,” the experts said. In February 2024, a number of experts also expressed grave concern regarding the reports of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence committed against Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention.

(Read the full statement here.)

NOTE: The Cradle reported yesterday that US President Joe Biden has apparently agreed to guarantee that Israel will be able to resume the war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after the first phase of an exchange deal, according to Hebrew media. This is the “absolute impunity” to which this report referred.

A leaked photograph of the detention facility shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Obtained by CNN
A leaked photograph of the detention facility shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Obtained by CNN (photo)
Key takeaways from B’Tselem’s report on Israel’s ‘torture camps’

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians, including 21 from the Gaza Strip, who had been held in Israeli prisons since October 7.

The detainees spoke to B’Tselem following their release – here are some details:

The B’Tselem report reveals that more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities were converted into a network of camps “dedicated to the abuse of inmates” following October 7.
“Such spaces, in which every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering, operate in fact as torture camps,” it said.
The violations include “frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment”.
B’Tselem said at least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 7. Some 48 of them were from Gaza.
The report said that detainee testimonies demonstrate “a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners”. This policy, it said, is implemented under the direction of Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, with the full support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
B’Tselem also noted that the number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails has doubled to 9,623 since the war on Gaza began.
Executive summary of the B’Tselem report can be found here; full report here.

Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with stripped, bound, and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, Friday December 8, 2023
Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with stripped, bound, and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, Friday December 8, 2023 (photo)
UN probe into UNRWA not given full access to Israeli evidence

UNRWA reported earlier this week that an internal UN investigation concluded that nine UNRWA staff members “may have been involved” in the 7 October attacks.

The UN has now revealed that it does not have 100% conclusive evidence, and that the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services was never given full access to Israel’s evidence that it claims it has against the UN personnel.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ordered this internal review shortly after Israel leveled its claims against UNRWA personnel in late January. Now, because of legal and confidentiality reasons, this OIOS report will not be made public.

Meanwhile, since October 7, more than 200 UNRWA personnel have been killed due to Israel’s continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

In Less Than A Day, Israel Killed Twelve Palestinians In West Bank

IMEMC reports: The Israeli occupation army has killed, overnight and earlier Tuesday, twelve Palestinians in Jenin, Tubas, and Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

In Jenin, the army fired a missile at the eastern neighborhood of the city, killing five Palestinians whose bodies have been severely mutilated.

Wisam Bakr, the director of the Jenin Governmental Hospital, said the severely mutilated corpses of five Palestinians were transferred to the medical facility after the army fired a missile at them in the Eastern Neighborhood, and prevented Palestinian medics from entering the area for several hours.

Details on the deaths are here.

RECOMMENDED READING: Far right pulling masks off Israeli legal charade



Israelis continue to protest detention of soldiers accused of raping Palestinian prisoner

Al Jazeera reports: Israelis are demonstrating in front of the military court at the Beit Lid base in the center of the country, to protest the continued detention of five reserve soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner in Sde Teiman prison in the Negev desert.

Last week, dozens of Israeli protesters, including far-right members of the Knesset, clashed with military police after at least nine soldiers suspected of abusing a Palestinian prisoner were detained for questioning.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said the demonstration comes ahead of the start of a court hearing on the third extension of the detention of the five soldiers.

Demonstrators chanted slogans such as “This is the state of the Jews and it precedes democracy” and called for the release of the accused soldiers.

Israeli reservists fail polygraph probing sexual abuse allegations: Report

Al Jazeera reports: Two Israeli reservists suspected of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner have failed a polygraph test about the allegations, reports Israel’s Channel 12.

The soldiers, among five still detained over sexual abuse allegations at Israel’s Sde Teiman facility, denied committing or covering up an act of sexual assault during the polygraph examination, but the examiner deemed their responses deceptive, said the report.

The allegations against the reservists have divided Israeli society, with a group of far-right activists storming the facility they were held at last week demanding their release.

Israeli forces blindfold and strip Palestinian prisoners who are arbitrarily detained
Israeli forces blindfold and strip Palestinian prisoners who are arbitrarily detained (photo)
Poll: Most Americans don’t want to send troops to defend Israel

Responsible Statecraft reports: According to a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, only 41% of Americans support the idea of U.S. troops defending Israel, even if its neighbors attacked it. This is a decrease from 53% in 2021 and represents the lowest level of support since the the council started tracking the question in 2010.

According to the survey, 55% of Americans overall are against the idea of sending troops to defend Israel. These numbers show a decrease in support from Republicans, typically Israel’s biggest supporters, from 72% in 2021 to 55% today. Democrats went from 42% in favor of defending Israel with U.S. troops in 2021 to 35% today.

The poll was conducted online from June 21 through July 1.

Americans still believe in a peacekeeping mission, however, with 54 percent of Americans supporting sending peacekeeping troops if a deal between Israel and the Palestinians is arranged and kept, according to the survey.

One Year in Prison and a Fine: NY Mask Ban Targets Palestine Protesters

Palestine Chronicle reports: New York’s suburban Nassau County has passed a bill to ban the wearing of masks intended to hide the identity of pro-Palestinian protesters against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, Reuters has reported.

The mask ban will cover any sort of public protest, but lawmakers in the Republican-controlled county say that the bill aims to prevent protesters who engage in alleged violence and anti-Semitism from hiding their identity and avoiding accountability.

Civil rights advocates view the step as an infringement on free speech rights.

The bill was approved late on Monday, with all 12 Republicans in the county legislature voting in favor. The seven Democrats abstained.

Veterans for Peace call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Veterans for Peace call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza (screenshot)
Tim Walz called Gaza situation “Intolerable,” sought ceasefire, praised Uncommitted; Shapiro did not

Informed Comment reports: Presumptive Democratic Party standard-bearer Kamala Harris’ pick of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate has widely been implied to have something to do with his stance on the Gaza genocide.

On March 5, Super Tuesday, Abby Phillip at CNN asked Walz about the Gaza protest vote: “We’re seeing a fairly sizable, about 40,000 votes right now, 20 percent of the vote going to uncommitted. And we’ve seen that already in this primary in Michigan. What message are voters in your state trying to send to President Biden? And what do you want to see President Biden do in response?”

Walz replied, “Yeah, look, they’re engaged. We’re really proud of Minnesota civic responsibility. We have some of the highest voter turnouts. These are voters that are deeply concerned as we all are. The situation in Gaza is intolerable. And I think trying to find a solution, a lasting two-state solution, certainly the President’s move towards humanitarian aid and asking us to get to a ceasefire, that’s what they’re asking to be heard. And that’s what they should be doing. We’ve gone through this before. And we know that now we make sure we’ve got eight months. We start bringing these folks back in. We listen to what they’re saying.”

The important thing here is that Walz did not simply dismiss the Uncommitted movement or condemn it. He heard their concern and said it mirrored his own. “The situation in Gaza is intolerable.” He approved of getting “to a ceasefire” and humanitarian aid.

The Intercept reports: “Harris’s selection of Walz could also signal a shift from President Joe Biden’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.”

“Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, contrasted Walz with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was widely reported to be the other frontrunner for Harris’s running mate, and believes that rejecting Shapiro in favor of Walz bodes well for Harris’s approach to the world.”

“It’s impossible to know exactly what calculations were made and what issues mattered the most,” Duss said, referring to the Walz selection. “But I think it’s clear that there is a growing constituency in the Democratic Party that takes the issue of Palestinian rights much more seriously than in previous years, and it has to be engaged with and its views have to be taken into account.”

“By deciding against Shapiro, Duss said, Harris is showing that she is to some degree listening to this movement within the party…”

“Some observers also noted Walz’s antiwar record while a member of Congress, pointing to his opposition to a war in Syria in 2013 and his support of repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has given the White House broad powers to bypass Congress to conduct attacks and military operations in other countries.”

The NY times reports: “Selecting Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania could mollify many Jewish voters and other centrists over a subject that has bedeviled the Biden-Harris administration for nearly a year, Israel’s war in Gaza. It could also inflame the left, which has been protesting the administration for months.

“Ms. Harris’s selection of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota likely avoided fueling the Gaza demonstrations.”

[Tim Walz [File: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP]
[Tim Walz [File: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP] (photo)
Blinken says ceasefire negotiations have reached ‘final stage’

Al Jazeera reports: US Secretary of State Blinken has pressed for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and warned against the possibility of worsening regional escalation.

Here are a few of Blinken’s key remarks:

An agreement between Israel and Hamas is in the “final stage” and called on all parties to finalise it “as soon as possible”.
Further attacks “only perpetuate” conflict, instability and insecurity.
The US has told Iran and Israel “directly” that regional fighting must not escalate further.
The Cradle reported yesterday that the US has agreed to guarantee that Israel will be able to resume the war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after the first phase of an exchange deal, according to Hebrew media.

If the ceasefire agreement says that Israel can resume the war, it is unlikely that Hamas will agree.

Turkey submits bid to join ICJ case against Israel

Middle East Eye reports: Turkey has reportedly submitted its formal bid to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.

According to the report, Turkey’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Selcuk Unal, presented a “comprehensive and detailed” application to the UN court in The Hague on Wednesday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who announced the move on Monday, said that Ankara has prepared a dossier that will likely significantly impact the trial.

Turkey’s intervention is expected to be the most impactful in the case, and likely to encourage other countries to join.

International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands
International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands (photo)
US and UK to boycott Nagasaki bombing memorial after Israel disinvited

Middle East Eye reports: The American and British ambassadors to Japan have announced they will skip an upcoming ceremony commemorating the victims of the US’s 1945 atomic bombing because the city’s mayor did not invite the Israeli ambassador.

The Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have also been excluded from the event this Friday by Japanese authorities.

The Nagasaki Peace Memorial Ceremony is intended to mark the 79th anniversary of the US atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians, with many more later dying from radiation poisoning.

Pentagon confirms US troops injured in attack on Iraqi air base

The Cradle reports: At least five US soldiers and contractors were injured during a rocket attack that hit Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base late on 5 August, Pentagon officials have confirmed.

US defense officials revealed to Reuters that at least one person was “seriously injured.” “Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment,” the unnamed officials added.

The US military took control of Ain al-Assad in 2003 following the White House’s illegal invasion and occupation of the country but withdrew its forces in 2011 when Barack Obama failed to secure a new Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

However, US forces returned to the base under the pretext of training Iraqis to fight ISIS six months after the extremist group invaded and occupied Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June 2014. They have remained there since.

Ain al-Assad air base had been targeted at least twice over the past three weeks as local resistance groups working under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) umbrella have steadily resumed pro-Palestine operations that were halted earlier this year.

Wednesday’s attack comes just a few days after a US airstrike killed four members of the anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) north of Babil.

[Note: Israel partisans were largely responsible for the disastrous US decision to invade Iraq.]

RECOMMENDED READING: The U.S. has dozens of secret bases across the Middle East. They keep getting attacked.

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

Drop Site News: Microsoft Encourages Employee Donations to Illegal West Bank Settlements, While Barring UNRWA

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 6:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 6: at least 40,292* (39,677 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]

This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 615 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths.

Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 6: at least 97,065 (including at least 91,645 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 6: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.**

Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.

† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
“Well What SHOULD Israel Have Done After October 7?”
Welcome to Hell
More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own
U.S. media downplays and ignores ICJ ruling declaring Israeli occupation illegal
Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West
Searching for Gaza’s missing children
What Would You Do With An Extra $320 Million?
Assassination of Haniyeh an intentional, dangerous escalation – Parsi, Macgregor
When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’
Israel has turbocharged West Bank housing demolitions under the cover of war
Western media ignores Israeli confirmation of Hannibal Directive on 7 Oct
US Should Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu When He’s in Washington
Airwars investigation: Israeli airstrikes uniquely lethal (video)
Hesen Jabr paid the price of conscience
Gaza genocide denial
Why the news media’s job is to groom us
‘Disappeared, buried, detained’: The horrors of Gaza’s missing children
Hundreds of social media influencers attend Israel strategy summit in NYC
Supporting Israel Is Big Business in the U.S. for Israel partisans
Toys, spices, sewing machines: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza
Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli occupation, reactions, and take-aways
Russia attacks hospitals in Ukraine; Israel does the same in Gaza. The US response couldn’t be more different.
‘I have the prison inside me’: The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel
Israel has manufactured an industrial-scale version of Jim Crow rape hoaxes
If Americans Knew Mobile Billboard Truck at Republican Convention
Col. Douglas MacGregor: US is under the control of Israel, likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto

https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-killing-gaza-torture-rape-allegations-surface-day-304/

North Korea denounces NATO, US as 'most serious threat' to global peace
The Standard
A journalist casts a shadow next to logos on the day of the NATO 75th Anniversary celebratory event in Washington, U.S., July 9, 2024. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
A journalist casts a shadow next to logos on the day of the NATO 75th Anniversary celebratory event in Washington, U.S., July 9, 2024. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
North Korea said on Saturday it "most strongly denounces" a NATO declaration accusing Pyongyang of helping Russia's war against Ukraine and U.S. efforts to expand its alliances with the bloc and Asian countries.

NATO leaders on Wednesday accused North Korea and Iran of fuelling Russia's war by providing direct military support to Moscow. The summit also stressed a membership pledge for Kyiv and took a stronger stance on China's support for Moscow.

"The 'Washington Summit Declaration,' cooked up and made public on July 10, goes to prove that the U.S. and NATO, reduced to a tool for its confrontation, pose the most serious threat to the global peace and security," North Korea's state media KCNA quoted a foreign ministry spokesperson as saying.

It said the U.S. moves to expand military blocs with NATO countries and Asian partners, including South Korea and Japan were "the vicious root cause of seriously threatening the regional peace, extremely exacerbating the international security environment and sparking off worldwide arms race."



On the sidelines of the summit, South Korea and the United States signed guidelines on establishing an integrated system of extended deterrence for the Korean peninsula to counter nuclear and military threats from North Korea.

North Korea's defence ministry criticised those guidelines as "reckless provocation" making Pyongyang enhance its own nuclear deterrence capability.

"It would be incomprehensible for anyone to imagine the price that will be paid if this warning is ignored," the ministry said in a statement.

Reuters

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/6/218368/North-Korea-denounces-NATO,-US-as-'most-serious-threat'-to-global-peace

PSA: Check Your Ivermectin
Not all Ivermectin is Created Equal

Dr. Syed Haider
Covimectin 12 Ivermectin 12mg Tablets at Rs 250/strip of 10 tablets | Pharmaceutical Capsules in Nagpur | ID: 2852920640491
Every time I post about ivermectin on Twitter a dozen bots drop into my replies and start directing people to various online direct mail-order pharmacies that don’t require prescriptions.

These are almost all Indian pharmacies, but could also be located in China or Mexico.

So it’s important to understand that not all ivermectin is created equal.

Actually not all ivermectin is even ivermectin at all (same goes for the other meds they sell).

From a study done by the regulator in Australia:

"Three products that listed ivermectin on the label were also found to be counterfeit (Iversun-12, Covimectin-12, Ivilife-12)."

Indians in India don't even trust these pharmacies.

The only ivermectin that ever gave a patient of mine chest pain came from India.

She also tried European and American versions and no chest pain.

Don't trust stuff coming straight from India or China or Mexico.

Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

Buy American meds from FDA regulated pharmacies that buy from verified manufacturers.

It doesn't even matter if the bulk powder the pharmacies are using originates overseas in one of the no-go countries I listed (all of it does), because B2B bulk pharmaceuticals for export to the US are a different ballgame than direct to consumer products.

The stuff that get’s imported into the country by compounding pharmacies is the real deal from trusted and safe manufacturers - they even exceed our own standards because they are so grateful to be selling into our market they are extra cautious that they don’t harm their reputation by dropping the ball in any way.

But, what is listed on direct to consumer websites littering social media platforms is going to be diluted because no one’s checking to make sure it’s not and it makes more money if it is.

It may even have nothing of what’s listed on the label, since they can get away with it. It could have something harmful if taken in prescribed doses, it could have nothing but sand for all we know.

And there isn’t even any good reason to get meds from those online Indian pharmacies.

The only possible reason is saving money, but getting ivermectin from a regulated US compounding pharmacy with a prescription is cheaper mg for mg than overseas pharmacies when you use mygotodoc.com (and we beat every one of our competitors with a low price guarantee).

Last I checked we’re usually even cheaper than buying most US-sourced animal versions of human prescription drugs (eg ivermectin, amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, etc - these and others are prescribed in our disaster paks, antibiotic medkits and travel paks).

So when you see people recommending this stuff online, let them know that it’s not safe, it’s probably not real, and it’s not even cheaper.

Buy American.

Use mygotodoc: we’re as American as apple pie, and just as sweet.

140+ Patriotic Apple Pie Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty ...
Stock Up On Ivermectin

Oh and before I forget we also have a huge anniversary sale on our premium vitamins this entire month with 25% off at our sister site mygotostack.com.


And be sure to check out the bestsellers:

IMMUNITY [vitamins] the most popular pandemic supplement of the last 3 years, DETOX [spike buster] the most popular spike detox support on the planet and IMMUNITY [herbals] that rounds out what you need for treatment or recovery. The latter two are based on the McCullough and FLCCC protocols for detoxing spike and have to be separated into two products since the spike buster is taken without meals and the herbals are taken with food


START STACKING VITAMINS

https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/psa-check-your-ivermectin

When Israel Bombed AP’s Gaza Office

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Wednesday was Nakba Day—the day commemorating the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians with the creation of Israel, in 1948—but there was another anniversary worth remembering. The day a foreign country bombed the offices of a major U.S. press outlet, accusing it, without evidence, of harboring terrorists. And a significant portion of the US media spun the story to support the foreign country.

On May 15, 2021, as part of its “Operation Guardian of the Walls” military campaign in Gaza, Israel bombed the Associated Press offices’ building, based on the still evidence-free claim that the AP headquarters “housed Hamas”. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the week prior, IDF bombed two other office buildings that “housed more than a dozen international and local media outlets.”



Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) gave the tenants of the al-Jalaa Building in Gaza—which included AP, other news agencies including Al-Jazeera, and residential homes—a stern warning. IDF informed them they had one hour to evacuate their homes before the building would be bombed by Israeli missiles. Sixty minutes and three Israeli missiles later, the 12-story building was leveled to the ground.

The IDF posted a short vague statement that provided no evidence for their claim the building was being used by terrorists but made sure to repeat the term “Hamas terror organization” four times, in just four sentences—five times if you count “Hamas military intelligence” in the headline.



The AP’s CEO at the time, Gary Pruitt, said the news agency had been in the building for 15 years and “we have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building.”

So could Israel have been lying? Well, retired US Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson seems to think so.



Let me let me preface these remarks with I never, never, ever believe Israeli figures. I’ve been in the government too long to know that the Israelis are patent liars in their intelligence community, in their propaganda community, certainly, and in their leadership. They are inveterate liars. Let me say that again. They are liars. So you can’t believe anything that comes out of Jerusalem. It’s all propaganda.

The fact that Israel lied to the international press just one week prior about a fake ground invasion, to trick Hamas into giving up their positions, doesn’t help Israel’s case. On the contrary, it clearly shows that Israel puts military victory over truth, and has no respect for the press.



Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus claimed that “Hamas used the building for a military intelligence office and weapons development” but “could not provide evidence” to back up the claims without “compromising” intelligence efforts.

This “trust me I have the evidence” bullshit is reminiscent of the false narrative that fueled the 2003 Iraq War and the more recent Trump/Russia hoax. Such a pathetic cover story is enough to make most conservatives cringe but ultimately, many conservatives were tricked into celebrating anti-American terrorism—the bombing of civilian infrastructure that housed an American news outlet.

A pro-Israel disinformation campaign, attempting to justify the bombing, began at the Washington Free Beacon before spreading across conservative media. The Republican-aligned Beacon has a history of lying and smear campaigns. It was founded by Bil Kristol, famous for helping the Bush admin lie America into the disastrous Iraq War. It went on to fund the Fusion GPS anti-Trump research that would later, under Democrat tutelage, hire Christopher Steele, a crucial source of the Trump/Russia investigation hoax, and more recently, the Beacon reported the Jewish girl “Stabbed in the Eye” hoax as fact.

On the same day of the AP building bombing, the Beacon published an “exclusive” to defend IDF’s missile attack on the American press in Gaza. It cited two sources: (1) a Twitter post of Beacon contributor Noah Pollak, and (2) an old article published seven years prior in 2014 by Matti Friedman, a former AP reporter, and former IDF soldier.

Pollack’s Twitter post cited an anonymous source he described as, “a well-placed friend in the IDF,” claiming that the AP office building “contained multiple Hamas operations & offices including weapons manufacturing and military intelligence,” adding that, “The building also housed an Islamic Jihad office. And AP’s local reporters knew about it.”



“This info will come out soon,” he said.



Yes, that’s right. He said, “This info will come out soon.” Over three years later now, “this info” supporting his claims still hasn’t come out.

That alone is enough to completely discredit Pollak. But he’d already proven himself uncredible. He ran the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) (another “clown show” created by Kristol) which even the President of the Anti-Defanation League—not exactly an anti-Israel organization—called “misleading, distorted, inaccurate”. He was also caught leading an astroturfed pro-Israel counterprotest on a college campus. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?)

Nevertheless, Pollak’s completely unsubstantiated claims were published immediately by the usual suspects—Fox News, Newsmax, New York Post, etc. The Republican party-aligned outlets also followed the Beacon’s lead, citing its second source, Friedman’s 2014 article.

Like Pollak, Friedman also had a “well-placed friend” who “suggests there were indeed Hamas offices” in the AP building.




Oh boy, another anonymous “friend”! Despite sounding so sure of his “intimately familiar with military decision-making” friend’s secret information, Friedman also wrote on Twitter that “Contrary to what I’ve seen attributed to me today, I didn’t write [in 2014] that Hamas operated out of the same building, and don’t know if that’s true”.




The media citing Friedman typically omitted this. And I couldn’t help but notice that the media sharing his 2014 piece in The Atlantic accusing the AP of bias, and the piece itself failed to mention his own bias—his years of service in the IDF, and his “slightly rosier view of the IDF”, according to The Times of Israel.

Now pause for just a moment to ponder how insane it is—even if all of Friedman’s disputed 2014 claims were true—to rely on an article written in 2014 by an IDF vet, who worked at AP in 2006-2011, to justify the IDF bombing Associated Press in 2021, for which the IDF itself provided no evidence to justify.

This is the following 2014 excerpt that made the media rounds after the 2021 bombing:

“The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it. (This also happened.) Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying. (This too happened; the information comes from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge of these incidents.)”

AP’s Director of Media Relations Paul Colford said Friedman’s story was “filled with distortions, half-truths and inaccuracies”, arguing that Israel challenged the AP with as many dangerous obstacles as Hamas and that AP covered both sides of the conflict.

[Friedman’s] arguments have been filled with distortions, half-truths and inaccuracies…

Like other media covering this story, we dealt with numerous obstacles, including Hamas intimidation, Israeli military censorship, anti-media incitement on both sides of the border, Hamas rocket fire and intense Israeli airstrikes that made it dangerous and difficult to get around Gaza during the fighting.

Courageous AP staffers worked around the clock in Gaza, often at the risk of great personal harm. Intense Israeli airstrikes literally shook the high-rise building housing the AP’s office. Two AP employees were ultimately killed in Gaza, and a third critically wounded and maimed. Our body of work included images and stories about Hamas rocket fire from civilian areas, the suffering of the residents of southern Israel living under the threat of rocket, mortar and tunnel-based attacks, Hamas’ summary executions of suspected collaborators, the fears of Gazans to criticize the group, Hamas’ use of civilian areas for cover and the devastation wreaked on Gazan civilians by Israeli airstrikes and artillery attacks.

Colford confirmed that armed militants entered AP’s offices in the early days of the 2008-2009 Gaza War to intimidate AP but said that AP did not give in to the intimidation.

Regarding a few specific issues that Mr. Friedman has raised most recently:

The AP published numerous photos and TV footage of rockets being launched from Gaza City. AP’s Josef Federman and Hamza Hendawi collaborated on an investigation into Hamas’ use of civilian areas for rocket launches, comparing maps obtained from Israeli military intelligence to facts on the ground.

In the early days of the war, armed militants entered the AP’s offices in Gaza to complain about a photo showing the location of a specific rocket launch. The AP immediately contacted Hamas, which insisted the men did not represent the group. The photo was not withdrawn and the men were never heard from again. Subsequent videos similarly showed rocket launches from within the urban area. Such intimidation is common in trouble spots. The AP does not report many interactions with militias, armies, thugs or governments. These incidents are part of the challenge of getting out the news — and generally not themselves news.

The Beacon’s “exclusive” was just the beginning. The “trust us we have secret evidence” disinformation campaign continued as the pro-Israel media eagerly forwarded another empty Israeli government claim, from a nameless “senior diplomatic source”, who told the Jerusalem Post of “smoking gun” evidence that Hamas was using the same Gaza building as AP.

“We showed [the US] the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,” a senior diplomatic source said. “I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.”

What evidence? Who exactly did they “show”? I guess we’ll never know!

If there’s a satisfactory explanation for why IDF bombed an American news agency, you’d think Israel and the US might want to make that known. But they haven’t.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated the claim of secret “smoking gun” evidence on CBS’s Face the Nation, saying, “We share with our American friends all that intelligence”.

Hmmm. Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken appear friendly…

But no, Blinken said he “had not seen any evidence”.

When asked the next day if he’d received any evidence, Blinken didn’t quite confirm receiving anything. He said, “Um…uh…it’s my understanding that uh, we’ve uh, uh received uh, some further information through, uh, uh intelligence channels.” The only thing he actually confirmed was that it’s “not something that [he] can comment on.”

WAPO: Yesterday you said the US requested an explanation from Israel about its bombing of a high rise building containing U.S. and foreign media offices. Have you received anything? And what’s your assessment of that?

BLINKEN: Um. We uh. Did uh. Seek uh. Further information from, uh, Israel on this question. Uh, it’s my understanding that uh, we’ve uh, uh received uh, some further information through, uh, uh intelligence channels. And that’s not something that, that I can comment on.



Click here to watch the video

The following month, in June 2021, Israel’s Channel 12 news reported that IDF Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi said that the AP’s journalists drank coffee with Hamas each morning in the building’s cafeteria, whether they knew it or not. The AP called the comments “patently false”, noting “there was not even a cafeteria in the building”. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz told AP that the IDF General was speaking figuratively. However, Gantz, like all the Israeli officials before him, offered AP no evidence to support IDF’s bombing of the news agencies.

Gantz said Israel has shared its intelligence with the U.S. government. But he indicated that Israel has no intention of making the information public, saying it did not want to divulge its sources.

As usual, the propaganda was not limited to conservative media. The Democrat Party-aligned television network CNN platformed IDF Spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. Asked, “Can you show us the evidence?” Cornicus replied, “That’s in process, and I’m sure that, in due time, that information will be presented.”

It’s due time to come to grips with the reality that there is no evidence to justify the attack. Israel bombed an American news agency (with an American bomb), and the American government continues to cover for Israel and continues to fund continued death and destruction in Gaza.

*

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All images in this article are from the author

Ray Villard - Hubble Celebrates 34th Anniversary with a Look at the Little Dumbbell Nebula:

https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-013

#Hubble #Telescope #HST #LittleDumbbellNebula #M76 #PlanetaryNebula #WhiteDwarf #Astrophotography #Astrophysics #Astronomy

CSM Julian Ayers finished performing at his last American Trombone Workshop concert on active duty as the U.S. Army Concert Band played Henry Fillmore's Rolling Thunder for the finale of the 50th anniversary of The U.S. Army Band American Trombone Workshop. #ArmyBand #ConcertBand #Band #ArmyMusic #MilitaryMusic #Trombone #ATW2024 #ATW #Music

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 170: Israel assaults al-Shifa, Nasser, and al-Amal hospitals in one day
Mustafa Abu SneinehMarch 23, 2024
Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah for treatment following Israeli airstrikes, March 23, 2024. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)
Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah for treatment following Israeli airstrikes, March 23, 2024. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)
Casualties

32,223 + killed* and at least 74,518 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
435+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
594 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.

** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure.

*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”

Key Developments

Israeli forces commit eight massacres in Gaza, kill at least 84 people and injure 106.
Israeli forces shell and bomb vicinity of al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, killing one volunteer with PRCS.
PRCS says Israeli tanks and forces are “besieging both al-Amal Hospital and al-Naser Hospital amidst very intense shelling and heavy gunfire.”
Wafa reports infected wounds of injured Palestinians inside al-Shifa due to lack of essential medical supplies.
Al-Jazeera Arabic reports Israeli tanks ran over evacuating people from al-Shifa Hospital, shows blurred footage of Palestinian with marks of tank wheel on lower body.
Jamila al-Hissi, survivor of storming of al-Shifa, tells Al-Jazeera Arabic that “Palestinian women have been subjected to rape, torture, and execution by Israeli forces.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres says “horror and starvation stalk the people of Gaza” in visit to Rafah crossing.
U.S. Secretary of State warns Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Rafah offensive would “further isolate” Israel in the region.
Netanyahu hopes to invade Rafah with “the support of the U.S., but if we have to – we will do it alone.”
Hamas says 34-year-old Israeli captive died in Gaza as “he did not escape the lack of food and medicine.”
Dozens of settlers storm al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem to mark Jewish holiday of Purim.
Israeli forces block Palestinian Christians in occupied West Bank from entering Jerusalem to participate in Palm Sunday.
Al-Amal Hospital in ‘extreme danger’ as Israel attacks

Gaza’s two major hospitals were under attack on Sunday morning as thousands of Palestinians in the coastal enclave have been living under bombardment for the past 170 days.

Overnight, Israeli forces committed eight massacres in various areas of the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Health on Telegram, killing at least 84 people and injuring 106. Thousands remain under the rubble of bombed buildings.

Israeli forces shelled and bombed the vicinity of al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Amir Abu Aisha, a volunteer with the PRCS, was killed by Israeli gunfire inside al-Amal.

His last post on Instagram was a video of Israeli airstrikes near al-Amal.

PRCS said the medical team inside the facility are “in extreme danger…and are completely immobilized.”

“They are unable to bury the body of our colleague Amir Abu Aisha within the hospital’s backyard,” PRCS continued as Israeli forces razed and excavated the area.

Since October, Israeli bombardment killed at least 364 medical workers in the Gaza Strip, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, and damaged dozens of clinics and ambulances.

On Sunday morning, PRCS also said that Israeli tanks and forces are “besieging both Al-Amal Hospital and Al-Naser Hospital amidst very intense shelling and heavy gunfire.”

PRCS said that one of the displaced Palestinians at al-Amal was “injured in the head,” while Israeli drones are ordering that all people inside the hospital “leave it naked.”

“Smoke bombs are being launched at the hospital to force the staff, wounded, and displaced individuals to leave it,” the PRCS wrote on in a post on X.

“Israeli vehicles [are] surrounding Al-Amal Hospital and are now bulldozing the area in front and around it and closing the hospital gates with barriers,” the post added.

Israeli atrocities in al-Shifa, say eyewitnesses

In northern Gaza, al-Shifa Hospital has been under Israeli assault for a week.

Israeli forces continued to besiege, shell, and bomb al-Shifa Hospital and its vicinity for the seventh day in a row, saying that Hamas senior leaders had used the facility, a claim which the movement denies.

Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians and officials while storming al-Shifa, including Faiq al-Mabhouh, an officer in the Gaza Police force who was responsible for the successful deliveries of food, rice, and flour to thousands of inhabitants of northern Gaza.

Hamas accused Israel of attempting to spread chaos and civilian disorder by killing officials who coordinate with clans, the UN, and international groups to prevent a famine in the north Gaza.

On Saturday afternoon, at least five people were killed by Israel and several injured in the al-Shifa medical complex, while Palestinians and medical staff have been living with little food and water. Wafa news agency reported that the wounds of some injured Palestinians inside Al-Shifa got infected and inflamed amid the lack of essential medical supplies.

Al-Jazeera Arabic reported that Israeli tanks ran over Palestinians who were ordered to evacuate the hospital. Al-Jazeera released blurred footage of a person’s dead body with marks of a tank wheel on his lower body.

Jamila al-Hissi, a Palestinian woman who survived the Israeli storming of al-Shifa, told Al-Jazeera Arabic that “Palestinian women have been subjected to rape, torture, and execution by Israeli forces.”

“This is what we witnessed. They raped women. They kidnapped women. they executed women, pulled bodies from under the rubble, and unleashed their dogs to eat them. Is there anything worse?” Al-Hissi told Al-Jazeera in a phone call.

She left with her daughter, who was bleeding, and evacuated a building belonging to the UN Development Program (UNDP), which was set on fire by Israeli forces, who also burned and destroyed several buildings surrounding al-Shifa in the past days.

It is unclear how many people remain inside al-Shifa, but prior to Israel’s second storming of the hospital since November, there were 7,000 patients and injured people receiving treatment administered by hundreds of medical staff.

Al-Shifa is one of Gaza’s oldest medical facilities, built on top of a British barracks in 1946.

The complex includes several buildings for surgery, internal disease, obstetrics and gynecology, a nursery for premature babies, an emergency department, intensive care units, a radiology department, and a blood bank. Some of these buildings have been damaged, burned by Israel, or have ceased operating fully due to the lack of fuel to generate electricity.

The complex is built on 45,000 square meters of land west of Gaza City. Prior to October of last year, al-Shifa employed 1,500 medical staff, including 500 doctors and 760 nurses.

Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said on Sunday that “Horror & starvation stalk the people of Gaza.”

“Any further onslaught will make everything worse. Worse for Palestinian civilians, for the hostages, for all people of the region,” he added.

Guterres visited Egypt on Saturday to inspect the Rafah land crossing, and al-Arish General Hospital in northern Sinai to check on injured Palestinians receiving treatment.

Israeli forces bomb Rafah, Khan Younis, and Deir al-Balah

Wafa reported that Israeli forces bombed a house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least eight people in the al-Hakar area. Meanwhile, in Rafah, Palestinian rescue teams recovered the bodies of eight Palestinians under the rubble of a bombed house belonging to the Farwana family in the Jneina neighborhood.

In Khan Younis, Israeli forces heavily bombed areas in the southeastern part of the city, besieging the Nasser and al-Amal hospitals. In Rafah, they bombed a house near the Rabaa School, killing at least two people, Wafa reported.

The Israeli government has vowed to invade Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians are currently displaced and live in shelters. During his visit to Israel on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that an offensive on Rafah would “further isolate” Israel in the region, according to Reuters.

Blinken, who met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that “a major military ground operation in Rafah is not the way to do it,” although the U.S. shares Israel’s goal to “defeat Hamas.”

“It risks further isolating Israel around the world and jeopardizing its long-term security and standing,” Blinken said during a press briefing after the meeting.

Netanyahu, however, appeared to be undeterred in invading Rafah, stating in a video statement that he told Blinken, “I hope we will do it with the support of the U.S., but if we have to — we will do it alone.”

Meanwhile, fighting is still ongoing between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip. On Saturday, Hamas said that a 34-year-old Israeli captive died in Gaza.

“Although he survived the army’s attack, he did not escape the lack of food and medicine,” the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades wrote in a video message.

In another video, Hamas fighters fired al-Yaseen 105mm anti-tank shells on Israeli military vehicles in the vicinity of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

Israel had been blocking sufficient food and medical supplies from entering Gaza, although some of them were funded or sponsored by ally countries such as the UK.

The Foreign Secretary, Lord David Cameron, accused Israel last week of delaying U.K. aid to Gaza, which was stopped at the crossing point for three weeks.

Israeli settlers storm al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Pruim

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem on Sunday morning to mark the Jewish holiday of Purim, which ends on Monday.

Israeli forces emptied the al-Aqsa compound of Palestinian worshippers on Saturday evening in preparation for the settlers’ tour, Wafa reported. Israeli forces barred Palestinians from staying overnight in al-Aqsa’s al-Qibli mosque after Ramadan’s tarawih prayers ended, which were attended by 45,000 people.

During Ramadan, it is worshippers often stay in mosques overnight to pray after tarawih. In 2021, Israeli forces raided the al-Qibli mosque, firing bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas canisters at worshipers who were performing night prayers and reciting the Quran.

Israeli settlers’ storming of al-Aqsa further escalated tensions in the city, according to Wafa, as Israeli forces prevented Palestinians from entering the site on Sunday morning.

Wafa said that two settlers were dressed up as Jewish temple priests. Settlers have long stated their wish to rebuild the third Jewish temple in the middle of the al-Aqsa compound atop the Dome of the Rock.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces blocked Palestinian Christians in the occupied West Bank from entering Jerusalem to take part in the commemoration of Palm Sunday, the anniversary of Jesus’s entry into the city. Those who participated in the ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were Palestinians from Jerusalem or from inside Israel.

Israeli forces arrested 16 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank overnight, from the towns of Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Tulkarem, and also Jerusalem. Since October, 7,755 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This figure, released by the Ministry of Detainees’ and Ex-Destainees’ Affairs, does not include Palestinians who were released later or those arrested from the Gaza Strip.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-170-israel-assaults-al-shifa-nasser-and-al-amal-hospitals-in-one-day/

Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions
Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024

A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission.

On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland.

They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign.

Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza.

Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover.

I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus.

At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light.

During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria.

“Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.”

Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey.

Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy.

“I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team.

Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country.



The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus.

The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author
More Starvation Sanctions

Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington.


Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979.
In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020.


The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance
The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction.

Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation.


The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011
Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text.

With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032.


The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years.
Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence.

After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years.

Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935.

Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.”

“Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added.

In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.”

This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden.


Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria.


“We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained.

“We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.”

These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.”

Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian.

Stabilization for me but not for thee

The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services.

The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that.

Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest.

“Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.”




We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government.

Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota.




Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time.

He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib.

“I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen.

“You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!”




Overtures Towards Israel

The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.”

When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.”

Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light:

“The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…”




For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria.

Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate.

In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.”

He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.”

That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself.

As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia.

“If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.”
Starving Syrians Without A Mandate

Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory.

One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.”

Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there.

The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area.

As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war.

https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/20/anti-syria-lobbys-capitol-hill-sanctions/

Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions

A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission.

BY HEKMAT ABOUKHATER

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