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.

Related:


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

‘We Will Not Comply’ with Pandemic Treaty, 26 Republican Governors Tell WHO
2nd Smartest Guy in the World
by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

who logo and thumbs down sign
Twenty-six U.S. governors — over half of the nation’s state leaders — have stated publicly that they will not comply with a World Health Organization (WHO)-led global attempt at controlling U.S. Americans’ health.

In their Aug. 29 statement, the 26 governors — all Republicans — and the Republican Governors Association accused the WHO of “attempting one world control over health policy” by promoting a “pandemic agreement” or “pandemic treaty.”

“Put simply,” they wrote, “Republican Governors will not comply.”

Since 2021, the WHO has been drafting proposals for a pandemic agreement and amendments to its International Health Regulations.

During the organization’s most recent World Health Assembly session, which ended on June 1, WHO negotiators did not agree on a final draft of a pandemic agreement. However, they did make “concrete commitments to completing negotiations on a global pandemic agreement within a year, at the latest, and possibly in 2024,” the WHO stated.

Health freedom activist Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and founder of Door to Freedom, an organization that lobbied against the WHO pandemic treaty proposals, told The Defender the governors’ statement is “very necessary at this time” because the United Nations (U.N.) — which runs the WHO — “seeks to gain world control over emergencies such as cyber emergencies, supply chain emergencies or outer space emergencies.”

“The jig is up,” Nass said. “It has become widely understood that the U.N. system is being used in an attempt to centralize its control and usurp national sovereignty.”

The governors said they refuse to comply with a WHO pandemic agreement because it would consolidate power in the hands of the WHO, thereby threatening national sovereignty, states’ rights and U.S. Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

Nass said:

“This was every Republican governor in the United States with the single exception of Vermont Republican governor [Phil Scott]. He governs a state that is strongly Democrat and may have felt he could not expend the political capital required to go along and make this statement unanimous.”

The 26 governors pointed to a May 22 letter to President Joe Biden in which 24 Republican governors voiced their concerns about the WHO’s proposal.

According to the letter, the WHO’s proposed treaty would “empower the WHO, particularly its uncontrollable Director-General, with the authority to restrict the rights of U.S. citizens, including freedoms such as speech, privacy, travel, choice of medical care, and informed consent, thus violating our Constitution’s core principles.”

WHO fails to pass pandemic treaty but says it’s still committed to it

For more than two years, the WHO has been trying to pass a pandemic treaty deal.

In December 2021, the agency’s World Health Assembly established an “intergovernmental negotiating body” to draft an international agreement under the WHO’s constitution to strengthen the agency’s pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The U.S. federal government supported the initiative.

Although WHO negotiators disagreed on a final draft of the agreement during the most recent World Health Assembly session, they did approve a set of revisions to the WHO’s International Health Regulations.

However, the approved revisions did not include many of the most restrictive proposals that worried health freedom advocates, The Defender reported.

Nass wrote on her Substack that the World Health Assembly “had to adopt something to save face, and it had become apparent to the globalists that they would not do any better if they delayed a decision.”

U.S. states’ actions ‘central’ to defeating WHO pandemic plan

Action by U.S. states was “central” to defeating the WHO plan to centralize control of public health during declared emergencies, Nass told The Defender.

“Children’s Health Defense and Door to Freedom were central in devising this strategy,” she said, adding:

“The Constitution’s 10th Amendment reserves for the states all powers that were not specifically granted to the central government. Healthcare was never a federal authority.

“Therefore, we urged citizens to contact their attorneys general, governors, legislators — and federal officials — to demand they not turn over authority for health to the WHO.”

In May, in addition to 24 governors writing their letter of opposition, 49 senators called on the Biden administration to reject the WHO agreement.

Additionally, 22 attorneys general told Biden they would “resist any attempt to enable the WHO to directly or indirectly set public policy for our citizens.”

Numerous states — including Utah, Florida, Louisiana and Oklahoma — wrote legislation to prevent the WHO from overriding states’ authority on matters of public health policy.

“I am certain,” Nass added, “that these efforts reverberated around the world and helped lead to rejection” of the WHO’s proposals.


The list of signatories: Governor Kay Ivey (AL), Governor Mike Dunleavy (AK), Governor Sarah Sanders (AR), Governor Ron DeSantis (FL), Governor Brian Kemp (GA), Governor Brad Little (ID), Governor Eric Holcomb (IN), Governor Kim Reynolds (IA), Governor Jeff Landry (LA), Governor Tate Reeves (MS), Governor Mike Parson (MO), Governor Greg Gianforte (MT), Governor Jim Pillen (NE), Governor Joe Lombardo (NV), Governor Chris Sununu (NH), Governor Doug Burgum (ND), Governor Mike DeWine (OH), Governor Kevin Stitt (OK), Governor Henry McMaster (SC), Governor Kristi Noem (SD), Governor Bill Lee (TN), Governor Greg Abbott (TX), Governor Spencer Cox (UT), Governor Glenn Youngkin (VA), Governor Jim Justice (WV), and Governor Mark Gordon (WY).

They want you dead.

Do NOT comply.






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https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/we-will-not-comply-with-pandemic

Even GAZA KIDS as GATES’ Human GUINEA-PIGS! - VT Foreign Policy
September 1, 2024
VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel

$ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.

by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio

VERSIONE IN ITALIANO

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Among the approximately 600,000 children displaced from their homes in the Gaza Strip (and now also from the West Bank after the new raids of attacks by the Israeli Army in violation of all international law as denounced by the UN) thousands of them have been ferociously injured by the consequences of the bombings that have also destroyed the hospitals where they could have been treated, and most of them are severely malnourished due to the criminal blockade of humanitarian aid imposed at the Rafah crossing by the Zionist regime of Benjamin Netanyahu (hit by an international arrest warrant for war crimes).

Infanticide Survivors must be Vaccinated but not Feeding

They are the survivors of the diabolical infanticide committed by Israel that has claimed well over 15,000 victims, now perhaps almost 20,000, leaving thousands orphaned by their parents or with amputated legs or arms.

In the midst of this satanic holocaust that makes Adolf Hitler look like an amateur, the main concern of the UN, increasingly a Non-Useful Organization, is not to impose a truce in any way to feed the children but to support Bill Gates’ global immunization project.

The children of Gaza can continue to die of hunger or booze but they will be able to do so by being vaccinated against polio, thus becoming guinea pigs for a project that will measure the impact of vaccinations on a population that is dying of malnutrition, as already happened in the war in Yemen where tens of thousands of children died of hunger.

“The United Nations has reached a provisional agreement with the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a humanitarian pause that would allow anti-polio vaccination in the Gaza Strip. This was told to journalists – reports Tass – by the representative of the WHO for the West Bank and Gaza, Richard Peeperkorn. “We have a preliminary commitment to specific humanitarian policies, during the vaccination campaign,” he said, “we call on all parties to suspend fighting to allow children and families to access health facilities safely.”

Mainstream newspapers emphatically report.

Truce for POLIO Vaccines Begins After Only One Confirmed Case

“The much-vaunted polio vaccination campaign will begin on Sunday (September 1, 2024 – ed.) in Gaza. This was announced in a note from the Israeli government, followed shortly thereafter by a confirmation statement from Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has calibrated the words, commas, and spaces in the statement to avoid invoking a “truce” and a “humanitarian pause.” The operations, this is the only indication from his security cabinet, will take place in “certain locations” in the Strip “assigned” to health personnel,” writes the Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire.

It is the first time in months that Hamas and Israel have reached an agreement that smells of respite. The last one dates back to the week between November 24 and December 1, 2023, when the parties agreed to release 110 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The turning point, now, is due to polio, which, completely eradicated in Western countries in the 1980s, was detected in Gaza’s wastewater as early as June.


Abdul Rahman, 11 months old, whose left leg was partially paralyzed by type 2 of the virus
“The first confirmed case in Gaza in 25 years concerns Abdul Rahman, 11 months old, whose left leg was partially paralyzed by type 2 of the virus. The photo showing him in a tent in the al-Mawasi refugee camp, asleep in his car seat with an older girl fanning fresh air on his face, has gone around the world. His mother, Niveen Abu al-Jidyan, said: “He had not been vaccinated because of our constant travel. When we left the North he was only one month old”» adds the article.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that the poor hygiene conditions of the camps, the heat and malnutrition are putting the lives of 640,000 unimmunized children under 10 at risk.

ITALY & VATICAN ACCOMPLICES OF GAZA GENOCIDE (video). They Denounce the Horrific SIN, but not their Zionist Sinners Friends

It is truly curious to note that the UN is capable of mobilizing a massive vaccination campaign obtaining an exceptional diplomatic result AFTER A SINGLE CONFIRMED CASE OF POLIO while it was unable to do anything to protect its workers, killed by the hundreds by the Israeli army, and 15,000 children exterminated by bombs supplied by the West, the USA and also by Italy to the Zionist government of Tel Aviv.

UN Convoy Attacked by Israel: Humanitarian Activities in Gaza Interrupted

As the American and Jewish Senator Bernie Sanders rightly pointed out, it is not anti-Semitism to condemn the Zionists guilty of a genocide of children.

Zionists’ Kids-Genocide as Never in the Wars! Jew US Senator: “Is not Antisemitism to Point out the Racist Netanyahu Govt Killings’

But the rhetoric of the Western mainstream that has seen Zionism proliferate thanks to Freemasonry and the Rothschilds continues to cling to the condemnation of ideology without being capable of mercilessly condemning an international criminal like Netanyahu by cutting off not only his ammunition but also his financial business.

The EU sanctions on Israeli ministers are “unreal”. This was said by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Brussels, responding to the proposal of the EU High Representative Borrell against the politicians of the Zionist government who explicitly incited the depopulation of Gaza through bombings.

Final Countdown to Complete 1948’s Nakba. Israeli Govt admits the ZioNazi Genocide’s Goal: Depopulate Gaza Strip

As the vaccination campaign is about to begin, the UN itself is struggling more than ever.

The UN’s humanitarian aid operations in Gaza have been suspended in recent days, following Israel’s new order to evacuate Deir Al-Balah in the central part of the Strip.

A senior UN official said. “We are not able to work today in the conditions we are in,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We are not going to leave Gaza because people need us there.” “We are trying to balance the needs of the population with the need for security and protection of UN personnel,” he added.

FREEMASONRY & ZIONISM – 1. Apocalyptic “Cataclysms” by Synagogue of Satan: Genocides in Palestine & Plotted Pandemic for Lethal Vaccines.

Since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October, the UN has had to “delay or pause” its operations at times, “but never to the point of actually announcing that it can no longer do anything,” as is happening now, the official added.

The Israel Defense Forces carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza, aiming to target “armed assailants” trying to hijack it, but the charity that organized the aid said those killed in the attack were employees of the transport company it was working with. The convoy, organized by the US-based NGO Anera, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah on Thursday evening.

Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF. Preliminary reports say five people were killed in the attack. The airstrike on the convoy came hours after Israeli soldiers opened fire on a World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle, clearly marked with United Nations insignia.

13 Countries Join South Africa’s Case Against Israel on Genocide In Gaza

Why did they find the path clear in the vaccination campaign?

Simple because it is part of a global project launched by the usual Gates in 2023 that follows the one presented in Italy with the Rockefeller Foundation in 1999 from which the pilot project of the highly contested 10 mandatory vaccinations in school age in Italy was born.

The Global Vaccination Project by UNICEF and Gates

«The World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with Immunization Agenda 2030 and many other global and national health partners, are today joining forces to call for “The Big Catch-up”, a targeted global effort to boost vaccination among children following declines driven by the COVID-19 pandemic» reports the UNICEF website in a statement dated 24 April 2023.

WUHAN-GATES – 62. MANMADE SARS-Cov-2 FOR GOLDEN VACCINES: Metabiota, CIA, Biden, Gates, Rockefeller intrigued in Ukraine, China and Italy

«With over 25 million children missing at least one vaccination in 2021 alone, outbreaks of preventable diseases, including measles, diphtheria, polio and yellow fever are already becoming more prevalent and severe. The Big Catch-up aims to protect populations from vaccine-preventable outbreaks, save children’s lives and strengthen national health systems».

While calling on people and governments in every country to play their part in helping to catch up by reaching the children who missed out, The Big Catch-up will have a particular focus on the 20 countries where three quarters of the children who missed vaccinations in 2021 live: Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Cameroon, Chad, DPRK, DRC, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Tanzania, Viet Nam.

“Vaccinated at Higher Risk for Covid Infection and Hospitalization”. Vital, Heavy Study by Estonian University of Tartu

The genocide in the Holy Land now allows the plan to be extended to Palestine. The meaning of the UN action is clear: in Gaza, children can die of bombs and hunger every day, as long as they die vaccinated as Gates wants.

Just like the mRNA Covid genetic serums, however, anti-polio vaccines can also have serious adverse reactions.

In India, a confirmed case of Polio triggered by vaccines

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Fabio G. C. Carisio
Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal.

His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…

Most popolar investigation on VT is:

Rumsfeld Shady Heritage in Pandemic: GILEAD’s Intrigues with WHO & Wuhan Lab. Bio-Weapons’ Tests with CIA & Pentagon

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.

For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.

With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.

In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.

In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates

His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others

He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.

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https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/09/even-gaza-kids-as-gates-guinea-pigs-un-truce-for-vaccines-not-for-delivering-food-and-stopping-bombs/

Israeli minister’s proposal to build synagogue inside Aqsa Mosque escalates tensions, warns UN
Tuesday, 27 August 2024 10:44 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 27 August 2024 10:44 AM ]

Global condemnations have poured in after the remarks by far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir about his plan to build a synagogue at the Al-Asqa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds.

The United Nations roundly denounced the remarks, with spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying, “These types of statements are highly counterproductive, to say the least. They risk inflaming a situation which is already bone dry.”

At a news conference on Monday, Dujarric highlighted the sensitivity surrounding the status of holy sites in the city of al-Quds, stating, there is a status quo agreed to the parties for the holy sites in the city “that must be respected by all.”

He urged adherence to the agreement, in actions as well as public statements, to avoid further escalation of tensions.

The UN joined Qatar, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in publicly denouncing Ben-Gvir.

Earlier, the far-right Israeli minister claimed that Jews have the right to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque, saying that he would build a synagogue at the site.

“If I could do what I wanted, a synagogue would also be established on the Temple Mount,” the extremist Israeli minister, who has a long record of making inflammatory statements, told Israel's Army Radio on Monday morning.

OIC condemns Ben-Gvir’s remarks

Meanwhile, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has condemned in the strongest terms the statements made by Ben Gvir regarding plans to establish a Jewish synagogue inside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The OIC said in a statement that it considers the “statements of the extremist minister” and the “continued storming and desecration of the courtyards of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque” by Israeli settlers and ministers to be “a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law.”

Hamas warns against Israeli hawkish minister's plan to build temple at al-Aqsa Mosque
Hamas warns against Israeli hawkish minister's plan to build temple at al-Aqsa Mosque
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has warned that the confirmation by Israeli extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of his intention to build a Jewish synagogue inside al-Aqsa Mosque is a dangerous declaration.
“The city of al-Quds is an integral part of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, and the capital of the State of Palestine,” the intergovernmental organization noted, emphasizing that “all decisions and measures taken by the occupying Israeli regime aimed at Judaization of the occupied city of al-Quds have no legal effect”.

The OIC also said it held Israel “fully responsible” for any fallout from Ben-Gvir’s remarks and Israel’s “systematic violations and attacks that constitute a provocation to the feelings of Muslims all over the world.”

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site for Muslims.

Under an agreement signed between Israel and the Jordanian government in the wake of the regime’s occupation of al-Quds in 1967, non-Muslim worship at the holy compound is prohibited. But the ban is a mere phrase and, in action, circumstances have been against Muslims.

Ben-Gvir’s controversial remarks about the al-Aqsa Mosque compound come as the regime keeps its bloody war machine running in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has killed at least 40,476 Palestinians in Gaza since early October. Another 93,647 Palestinians are also injured.

The barbarous campaign began after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched an unprecedented military operation into the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories near Gaza.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/08/27/732161/Israeli-minister%E2%80%99s-proposal-to-build-synagogue-in-Aqsa-Mosque-escalates-tensions,-warns-UN

New confessions of spy cell reveal US targeting of political reality in Yemen
New confessions of spy cell reveal US targeting of political reality in Yemen
SANA'A August 18. 2024 (Saba) - New confessions of the US-Israeli spy cell broadcast by the security services this evening revealed the extent of the American targeting of the political reality in Yemen before and during the youth revolution in 2011.

The confessions included the American side's recruitment and polarization of party leaders, controlling the course of the elections, as well as fueling conflicts among parties, in addition to targeting the parliament and recruiting some of its members to work on implementing the American agenda.

The confessions in this aspect also included the major American role in infiltrating the youth revolution, recruiting leaders in the arena, and supporting certain components to control the revolution.

In this context, spy Shayef al-Hamdani explained that the democratic sector worked from the beginning to determine the president who manages Yemen by supporting the presidential elections and controlling the High Election Commission.

The spy Abdul Moeen Azzan explained that the election program at the American Democratic Institute was run by a Yemeni expert named Murad Zafer, and it was apparent that the program would provide technical support to political parties regarding the elections, how to participate in the elections, target voters and others, and on the basis that it also provides technical support to the Supreme Elections and Referendum Commission.

He pointed out that the election program was no different from other programs, as it had a hidden intelligence role, most notably attracting party leaders who were interested in the subject of elections, and most importantly, the institute and its successor the embassy and US intelligence were seeking through the program to obtain the electoral register of citizens, with the justification of seeking to automate the record, which was then paper.

In the context of his confessions, spy Shayef al-Hamdani revealed that USAID in Yemen worked with the rest of the offices and attachés at the US embassy with the High Election Commission on the days of the presidential elections between Ali Abdul Allah Saleh and Faisal bin Shamlan.

He acknowledged that he was part of a team consisting of various departments of the US embassy managed by "Brad Hansen", who assigned him to follow up on the Supreme Election Committee to find out that the election process is going according to what America wants and to see the progress of work and arrangements made by the committee and to go to the most prominent constituencies and electoral centers in terms of the number of voters, with a focus on the districts in which there is the public weight that will determine who will win the elections.

He explained that "Brad Hansen" was assisting the High Election Commission and his administration was likely to win Ali Abdul Allah Saleh in the elections at the time.

Recruitment of party leaders

According to spy Abdul Moeen Azzan, he worked indirectly for US intelligence through Murad Zafer, who was then the director of programs and played a role in preparing Yemeni employees and preparing them to work later for US intelligence, as he gave him instructions on how to recruit, obtain information and establish relationships.

The party platform, which was run by a Serbian woman named Saša Pšvić, ostensibly provided support to Yemeni political parties and leaders, when in fact it was working to attract party and political leaders and recruit them for US intelligence, he said, and also worked to convince the parties that the US embassy is the sponsor of the political process in Yemen and the arbitrator of political disagreement and conflict between the various parties.

In turn, the spy Shayef Al-Hamdani said that support was provided to people in certain political parties to strengthen their parties, so everyone was seeking to please America in terms of building a relationship with it, and all parties and personalities were seeking to satisfy it, such as Dr. Yassin Saeed Noman, who was one of the closest confidants and friends of the US embassy, and Abdulmalik Al Mekhlafi from the Nasserite party.

About the Islah Party, the spy Al-Hamdani explained that the meeting was taking place with the leader of the party, Abdul Wahab Al-Ansi, and others, but on the military side, there was an intimate relationship between Lieutenant General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar and the US Embassy, especially with Ambassador "Fire Stein", who frequented him a lot and had many joint visits between them.

He stated that one of the most important goals sought by the embassy and the agency was to have an integral role between the various agencies of the embassy concerning the aspect of democracy and good governance until joint decisions were reached that provide support or intelligence benefit for everything, by attracting these figures to work to create unrest between political parties, so that reform cannot tolerate the General People's Congress, and does not tolerate socialism for ideological reasons, so all parties were involved in conflicts at the behest of America. So that the political situation remains sleazy.

According to the spy Azzan, there was a program that ostensibly sought to build the capacity of parties to be able to participate in elections and attract voters and others, but its real goal was to attract large political elites, especially those who refused to deal with the Americans at that period. He pointed out that the entry of the Institute at the end of the nineties coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union and the beginning of what was called the new world order "unipolar system" that Clinton was heralding.

He pointed out that most of the Yemeni parties were nationalist, leftist, and Islamist, and all of them were not favored to work or cooperate with America, but the Democratic Institute played a role in attracting many of the leaders of these parties to work to support the American agenda, which enabled the US embassy to play a role larger than its size due to the different roles played by the programs of the Democratic Institute.

The spy Azzan admitted that he worked as an assistant to the head of the parliament program at the institute, who was of Canadian nationality, in following up the sessions of the House of Representatives daily and making summaries, both from the news and later through journalists who were working inside the House and even from deputies. He indicated that he was communicating with MPs on behalf of the Canadian person to get the information he wanted.

"During my work at the Democratic Institute within the parliamentary program, Murad Zafer, along with a Lebanese expert named Ali Shaheen, was studying mainly the emergence of the emerging movement at the time, the Ansar al-Allah movement, its movements, size, activity, and others, and they were very interested in it, and I also helped in the studies and reports they were preparing about the Ansar Allah movement at that time," he said.

The spy Azzan pointed out that he was promoted to an official in the parliament program and continued to manage the program until mid-2009 when the program attracted a group of parliamentarians through a person named "Saad Eddin bin Talib", who was a member of parliament before joining the Institute, and he is a CIA and he attracted a group of deputies and made personal relations with them.

He pointed out that the so-called student used to host parliamentarians in his house and exploit, as is the American method, the conflict between the authority and the opposition in promoting the role that America provides, whether to the authority by maintaining it in its hand, or to the opposition by helping it to reach power.

The spy Azzan revealed that one of the intelligence works carried out by attracting parliamentarian "Abdul Moez Dibwan", through which he obtained a lot of information and sites, some of which were used in the oil side in Yemen and work for oil companies, explorations, and others.

He explained that he was reporting directly to the head of the Yemen office within the administration of the Democratic Institute in Washington, "Katherine Miles," on the Yemeni parliament and its conditions, especially about the aspects of oil, exploration, and others.

The role of the embassy in targeting parliament

On the negative role of the US embassy in targeting the parliament, spy Abdul Qader Al-Saqqaf explained that the embassy was intensifying meetings with active members of parliament, establishing extensive relations with them, sending them to courses in America, visits to the US House of Representatives, and also within the international visitor program, which is a tourism program to strengthen relations with them.

He pointed out that the embassy was keen on the presence of parliamentarians in the parties held annually as well as the parties held in foreign and Arab embassies, so that during these intensive meetings coordination with them regarding what is addressed in parliament, to pass what the Americans request concerning loans and the purchase of weapons, and any agreements in the field of security, counter-terrorism, economic fields and any projects in favor of the Americans, as well as obstructing projects that are not in the interest of the American side.

He stated that one of the most prominent parliamentarians who had a strong relationship and communicated with the US embassy was "Sultan al-Barakani" and sometimes invited the political attaché at that time to attend the sessions as a guest of honor, and arranged many meetings.

"Some mixed parliamentarians had an organization called Parliamentarians Against Corruption, including Sakhr al-Wajeeh, Muhammad Ali al-Shaddadi, and others, who were holding their meetings at al-Shadadi's house when the organization was in the process of being formed, and the political attaché of the US embassy attended these meetings," he said.

Al-Saqqaf pointed out that meetings were also held between Mohamed Al-Hazmi of the Islah bloc and the political official at the US embassy in 2009 or 2010, as well as between Hashem Al-Ahmar at his home with the assistants of the political attaché.

He pointed out that MP Othman Megally was preparing to meet with the US ambassador directly at the embassy headquarters, and there were meetings of the embassy with other members such as Shawqi Al-Qadi, who had an organization to train mosque preachers and had a relationship with the Media and Cultural Attaché in the Middle East Partnership Initiative "MEPI" department, where he used to get ideas and proposals on how to implement training courses for preachers and obtain financial grants to run this organization.

He reported that the head of the Islah parliamentary bloc, Zaid al-Shami, and his deputy, Abdul Razzaq al-Hijri, had meetings with the political attaché at the headquarters of the Islah party on parliamentary and party matters.

Intelligence work across organizations' projects

The spy Hashem al-Wazir revealed that all USAID projects and any Western projects of the United Nations and other Western organizations have always come under the banner of providing aid to the country and the people, but they include a more important and dangerous hidden part related to intelligence work through these projects, regardless of their different fields.

"For example, the NDI Institute is entrusted with the process of attracting VIPs, recruiting them, and linking them directly to the US embassy, specifically with the US ambassador and the deputy ambassador, so that they manage from them directly and provide information directly to the CIA, which is the most important department in the embassy and the most important US agency in formulating foreign policies," he said.

"The institute was entrusted with the recruitment process, the departments of media figures, leaders of civil society organizations, women and youth, who were usually managed by American diplomats who are heads of departments concerned with these topics and provide information to them to be submitted directly to the CIA department at the embassy," he said.

This spy explained that the RGP project had a similar work in providing networks of American labor in the various entities in which it worked under the name of capacity building, whether in the Presidency of the Republic, for example, or in the Prime Minister's Office by recruiting department managers, deputy directors, director of the Prime Minister's Office and spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, who are linked to the project manager, who connects them directly to both the director of the agency and his deputy, who manage them for the CIA department through Take information from them directly.

He explained that opposition political elites were also attracted by inviting them to various embassy meetings and parties, where most political figures used to come to those occasions, and these figures were also sent in programs related to the exchange of visits with the United States. He pointed out that these visits were carried out by several personalities with political, economic, and social weight until the matter reached the level of judges who participated in the international visitor program.

The minister confirmed that these people were closely connected to the cultural attaché and the US embassy in general and were a source of data and information, especially about the judiciary and law-making.

Federalism is an American scheme for the division of Yemen

In this context, the spy Hisham Al-Wazir explained that through his review of documents in the United States Agency for Development, he noticed that there were projects supported by the Ministry of Local Administration during the period in which the Agency was opened in 2004 to 2010, and coordination was at the highest level between the Agency and the Americans themselves and other donors, and the United Nations Development Program participated in this matter with the support of local councils and decentralization between the years 2005 to 2009 with the Ministry of Local Administration, and There is coordination at the highest level on this issue with the Germans through the German Development Agency, the British, the Dutch and the World Bank.

He stressed that working on the issue of federalism in Yemen is a previous American work. He pointed out that during his work in the commercial department, he heard the US ambassador say that "the solution to the problems of Yemen is federalism," and when he joined the US Agency for Development, he heard the same words from his co-worker, Afrah Al-Zoba, who reported that she was informed in one of her visits to Washington that Yemen as a unified state will end and will not exist anymore and there will be a federal state divided into several sections.

American targeting of the youth revolution

In this aspect, spy Shayef Al-Hamdani revealed that when the youth revolution began in 2011, there was a hidden role for the US embassy in general, including the United States Agency for Development through the democracy and good governance sector, where some youth components were secretly supported to ensure building relationships with those who have a decision regarding the youth revolution.

"I am talking about the leaders of this youth revolution, including Tawakkol Karman, who participated in the International Visitor Program through the United States Agency for Development, as well as Hossam Al-Sharjabi, Afrah Al-Zouba and Osama Al-Roaini, who had a prominent role in this context," he said.

He pointed out that the aim is to form personalities with a future role in reaching the decision-making center and enabling the United States to control the decision through these people, and there was interest by the US embassy to control the revolution to keep the political, economic and social situation in Yemen under their control, so the focus was on the youth component as they are the largest segment in society. He pointed out that many personalities have reached prominent positions in the national dialogue, such as Osama Al-Roaini, Afrah Al-Zoba, Hossam Al-Sharjabi, and other young people who have reached government centers that can make decisions, such as Jalal Yaqoub, who also reached the position of Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance.

In the context, the spy Abdul Moeen Azzan also revealed the intelligence role assigned to him in 2011 during the protests in the squares, where civil society organizations present in the square or their representatives were contacted to obtain information about the square and any movements or orientations of young people and the various blocs within the square through these organizations that were partners of the so-called "MEPI", which in turn carried out activities inside the tents in the square.

He explained that these organizations were receiving support and grants from the MEPI, which had relations and contacts with the various youth groups within the arena, and reports with all the information were submitted to Joan Cummins.

Spy Mohamed al-Kharashi said groups were sent to monitor the squares and find out which prominent figures joined them daily, as well as the most prominent events, and worked to write them in a report and send them to the regional security officer immediately.

Ali Mohsen's joining is a service to America

According to spy Shayef al-Hamdani, the United States noticed that the revolution in Yemen began to take another dimension and worked to preserve its interests through the component of the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, so Ali Mohsen was instructed to announce his separation from the armed forces and join the youth revolution, as well as other figures from the Islah Party such as Hamid al-Ahmar and others to provide support and control over the youth revolution at the time for political goals that serve American interests.

"Through my work during this period in the political attaché at the US embassy, it was clear that the American interventions led to the disruption of society and the creation of inter-conflict until we reached 2011, which witnessed a division in society, parties, and even within the framework of the ruling conference itself," he said. He pointed out that all this prepared for foreign interventions, which brought the idea of the Gulf initiative adopted by Saudi Arabia with the help of the five permanent members and other supporting countries that became called the "ten countries sponsoring the initiative", which led to the expansion of chaos.

He pointed out that with the widening circle of chaos, the UN envoy was sent to save the national dialogue, which ultimately serves the interest of America through the so-called "Yemen regionalization project", which is part of the plan to fragment the country required.

E.M


https://www.saba.ye/en/news3360012.htm

Who Really Runs the World? Conspiracies, Hidden Agendas & the Plan for World Government
May 22, 2013

Andrew Gavin Marshall, New Dawn
Waking Times

So, who runs the world? It’s a question that people have struggled with since people began to struggle. It’s certainly a question with many interpretations, and incites answers of many varied perspectives.

Often, it is relegated to the realm of “conspiracy theory,” in that, those who discuss this question or propose answers to it, are purveyors of a conspiratorial view of the world. However, it is my intention to discard the labels, which seek to disprove a position without actually proving anything to the contrary. One of these labels – “conspiracy theorist” – does just that: it’s very application to a particular perspective or viewpoint has the intention of “disproving without proof;” all that is needed is to simply apply the label.

What I intend to do is analyse the social structure of the transnational ruling class, the international elite, who together run the world. This is not a conspiratorial opinion piece, but is an examination of the socially constructed elite class of people; what is the nature of power, how does it get used, and who holds it?

A Historical Understanding of Power

In answering the question “Who Runs the World?” we must understand what positions within society hold the most power, and thus, the answer becomes clear. If we simply understand this as heads of state, the answer will be flawed and inaccurate. We must examine the globe as a whole, and the power structures of the global political economy.



The greatest position of power within the global capitalist system lies in the authority of money-creation: the central banking system. The central banking system, originating in 1694 in England, consists of an international network of central banks that are privately owned by wealthy shareholders and are granted governmental authority to print and issue a nation’s currency, and set interest rates, collecting revenue and making profit through the interest charged. Central banks give loans to both governments and industries, controlling both simultaneously. The ultimate centre of power in the central banking system is at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basle, Switzerland; which is the central bank to the world’s central banks, and is also a private bank owned by the world’s central banks.
As Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley wrote:

[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.1

The central banks, and thus the central banking system as a whole, is a privately owned system in which the major shareholders are powerful international banking houses. These international banking houses emerged in tandem with the evolution of the central banking system. The central banking system first emerged in London, and expanded across Europe with time. With that expansion, the European banking houses also rose and expanded across the continent.

The French Revolution resulted with Napoleon coming to power, who granted the French bankers a central bank of France, which they privately controlled.2 It was also out of the French Revolution that one of the major banking houses of the world emerged, the Rothschilds. Emerging out of a European Jewish ghetto, the Rothschilds quickly rose to the forefront in banking, and established banking houses in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna and Naples, allowing them to profit off of all sides in the Napoleonic wars.3

As Carroll Quigley wrote in his monumental Tragedy and Hope, “The merchant bankers of London had already at hand in 1810-1850 the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, and the London money market,” and that:

In time they brought into their financial network the provincial banking centres, organised as commercial banks and savings banks, as well as insurance companies, to form all of these into a single financial system on an international scale which manipulated the quantity and flow of money so that they were able to influence, if not control, governments on one side and industries on the other.4

At the same time, in the United States, we saw the emergence of a powerful group of bankers and industrialists, such as the Morgans, Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Carnegies, and they created massive industrial monopolies and oligopolies throughout the 19th century.5 These banking interests were very close to and allied with the powerful European banking houses.

The European, and particularly the British elites of the time, were beginning to organise their power in an effort to properly exert their influence internationally. At this time, European empires were engaging in the Scramble for Africa, in which nearly the entire continent of Africa, save Ethiopia, was colonised and carved up by European nations. One notable imperialist was Cecil Rhodes who made his fortune from diamond and gold mining in Africa with financial support from the Rothschilds,6 and “at that time [had] the biggest concentration of financial capital in the world.”7

Cecil Rhodes was also known for his radical views regarding America, particularly in that he would “talk with total seriousness of ‘the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire’.”8 Rhodes saw himself not simply as a moneymaker, but primarily as an “empire builder.”

As Carroll Quigley explained, in 1891 three British elites met with the intent to create a secret society. The three men were Cecil Rhodes, William T. Stead, a prominent journalist of the day, and Reginald Baliol Brett, a “friend and confidant of Queen Victoria, and later to be the most influential adviser of King Edward VII and King George V.” Within this secret society, “real power was to be exercised by the leader, and a ‘Junta of Three.’ The leader was to be Rhodes, and the Junta was to be Stead, Brett, and Alfred Milner.”9

The purpose of this secret society, which was later headed by Alfred Milner, was: “The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise… [with] the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of a British Empire.” [Emphasis added]10 Essentially, it outlined a British-led cosmopolitical world order, one global system of governance under British hegemony. Among key players within this group were the Rothschilds and other banking interests.11

After the 1907 banking panic in the US, instigated by JP Morgan, pressure was placed upon the American political establishment to create a “stable” banking system. In 1910, a secret meeting of financiers was held on Jekyll Island, where they planned for the “creation of a National Reserve Association with fifteen major regions, controlled by a board of commercial bankers but empowered by the federal government to act like a central bank – creating money and lending reserves to private banks.”12

It was largely Paul M. Warburg, a Wall Street investment banker, who “had come up with a design for a single central bank [in 1910]. He called it the United Reserve Bank. From this and his later service on the first Federal Reserve Board, Warburg has, with some justice, been called the father of the System.”13President Woodrow Wilson followed the plan almost exactly as outlined by the Wall Street financiers, and added to it the creation of a Federal Reserve Board in Washington, which the President would appoint.14

Thus, true power in the world order was held by international banking houses, which privately owned the global central banking system, allowing them to control the credit of nations, and finance and control governments and industry.

However, though the economic system was firmly in their control, allowing them to establish influence over finance, they needed to shape elite ideology accordingly. In effect, what was required was to socially construct a ruling class, internationally, which would serve their interests. To do this, these bankers set out to undertake a project of establishing think tanks to organise elites from politics, economics, academia, media, and the military into a generally cohesive and controllable ideology.

Constructing a Ruling Class: Rise of the Think Tanks

During World War I, a group of American scholars were tasked with briefing “Woodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world once the Kaiser and imperial Germany fell to defeat.” This group was called, “The Inquiry.” The group advised Wilson mostly through his trusted aide, Col. Edward M. House, who was Wilson’s “unofficial envoy to Europe during the period between the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the intervention by the United States in 1917,” and was the prime driving force in the Wilson administration behind the establishment of the Federal Reserve System.15

“The Inquiry” laid the foundations for the creation of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most powerful think tank in the US and, “The scholars of the Inquiry helped draw the borders of post World War I central Europe.” On May 30, 1919, a group of scholars and diplomats from Britain and the US met at the Hotel Majestic, where they “proposed a permanent Anglo-American Institute of International Affairs, with one branch in London, the other in New York.” When the scholars returned from Paris, they were met with open arms by New York lawyers and financiers, and together they formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. The “British diplomats returning from Paris had made great headway in founding their Royal Institute of International Affairs.” The Anglo-American Institute envisioned in Paris, with two branches and combined membership was not feasible, so both the British and American branches retained national membership, however, they would cooperate closely with one another.16 They were referred to, and still are, as “Sister Institutes.”17

The Milner Group, the secret society formed by Cecil Rhodes, “dominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the formation and management of the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it.”18

There were other groups founded in many countries representing the same interests of the secret Milner Group, and they came to be known as the Round Table Groups, preeminent among them were the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, and parallel groups were set up in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.19

These were, in effect, the first international think tanks, which remain today, and are in their respective nations, among the top, if not the most prominent think tanks.

In 2008, a major study was done by the University of Philadelphia’s International Relations Program – the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program – which sought to analyse and examine the most powerful and influential think tanks in the world. While it is a useful resource to understanding the influence of think tanks, there is a flaw in its analysis. It failed to take into account the international origins of the Round Table Group think tanks, particularly the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States; Chatham House or the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London; the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, now renamed the Canadian International Council; and their respective sister organisations in India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Further nations have since added to this group of related think tanks, including Germany, and a recently established European Council on Foreign Relations. The report, while putting focus on the international nature of think tanks, analysed these ones as separate institutions without being related or affiliated. This has, in effect, skewed the results of the study. However, it is still useful to examine.

The top think tanks in the United States include the Council on Foreign Relations, (which was put at number 2, however, should be placed at the number 1 spot), the Brookings Institution, (which was inaccurately given the position of number one), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND Corporation, Heritage Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the American Enterprise Institute, among others.

The top think tanks in the world, outside of the United States, are Chatham House (sitting at number one), the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK, the German Council on Foreign Relations, the French Institute of International Relations, the Adam Smith Institute in the UK, the Fraser Institute in Canada, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group in Belgium, and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.20

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was founded in the Netherlands. Every year since then the group holds a secretive meeting, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as “an informal network of influential people who could consult each other privately and confidentially.”21

Regular participants include the CEOs or Chairmen of some of the largest corporations in the world, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and Total SA, as well as various European monarchs, international bankers such as David Rockefeller, major politicians, presidents, prime ministers, and central bankers of the world.22 The Bilderberg Group acts as a “secretive global think-tank,” with an original intent “to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War.”23

In 1970, David Rockefeller became Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, while also being Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan. In 1970, an academic who joined the Council on Foreign Relations in 1965 wrote a book called Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era. The author, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called for the formation of “A Community of the Developed Nations,” consisting of Western Europe, the United States and Japan. Brzezinski wrote about how “the traditional sovereignty of nation states is becoming increasingly unglued as transnational forces such as multinational corporations, banks, and international organisations play a larger and larger role in shaping global politics.”

So, in 1972, David Rockefeller and Brzezinski “presented the idea of a trilateral grouping at the annual Bilderberg meeting.” In July of 1972, seventeen powerful people met at David Rockefeller’s estate in New York to plan for the creation of another grouping. Also at the meeting was Brzezinski, McGeorge Bundy, the President of the Ford Foundation, (brother of William Bundy, editor of Foreign Affairs) and Bayless Manning, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.24 In 1973, these people formed the Trilateral Commission, which acted as a sister organisation to Bilderberg, linking the elites of Western Europe, North America, and Japan into a transnational ruling class.

These think tanks have effectively socially constructed an ideologically cohesive ruling class in each nation and fostered the expansion of international ideological alignment among national elites, allowing for the development of a transnational ruling class sharing a dominant ideology.

These same interests, controlled by the international banking houses, had to socially construct society itself. To do this, they created a massive network of tax-exempt foundations and non-profit organisations, which shaped civil society according to their designs. Among the most prominent of these are the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The “Foundations” of Civil Society

These foundations shaped civil society by financing research projects and initiatives into major social projects, creating both a dominant world-view for the elite classes, as well as managing the other classes.

These foundations, since their establishment, played a large part in the funding and organising of the eugenics movement, which helped facilitate this racist, elitist ideology to having enormous growth and influence, ultimately culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. From then, the word “eugenics” had to be dropped from the ideology and philanthropy of elites, and was replaced with new forms of eugenics policies and concepts. Among them, genetics, population control and environmentalism.

These foundations also funded seemingly progressive and alternative media sources in an effort to control the opposition, and manage the resistance to their world order, essentially making it ineffective and misguided.

The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1912, and immediately began giving money to eugenics research organisations.25 Eugenics was a pseudo-scientific and social science movement that emerged in the late 19th century, and gained significant traction in the first half of the 20th century. One of the founding ideologues of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, an anthropologist and cousin to Charles Darwin, wrote that eugenics “is the study of all agencies under social control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations.”26 Ultimately, it was about the “sound” breeding of people and maintaining “purity” and “superiority” of the blood. It was an inherently racist ideology, which saw all non-white racial categories of people as inherently and naturally inferior, and sought to ground these racist theories in “science.”

The vast wealth and fortunes of the major industrialists and bankers in the United States flowed heavily into the eugenics organisations, promoting and expanding this racist and elitist ideology. Money from the Harriman railroad fortune, with millions given by the Rockefeller and Carnegie family fortunes were subsequently “devoted to sterilisation of several hundred thousands of American ‘defectives’ annually, as a matter of eugenics.”27

In the United States, 27 states passed eugenics based sterilisation laws of the “unfit,” which ultimately led to the sterilisation of over 60,000 people. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the Carnegie and especially the Rockefeller Foundation, funded eugenics research in Germany, directly financing the Nazi scientists who perpetrated some of the greatest crimes of the Holocaust.28

Following the Holocaust, the word “eugenics” was highly discredited. Thus, these elites who wanted to continue with the implementation of their racist and elitist ideology desperately needed a new name for it. In 1939, the Eugenics Records Office became known as the Genetics Record Office.29 However, tens of thousands of Americans continued to be sterilised throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s, the majority of which were women.30

Edwin Black analysed how the pseudoscience of eugenics transformed into what we know as the science of genetics. In a 1943 edition of Eugenical News, an article titled “Eugenics After the War,” cited Charles Davenport, a major founder of eugenics, in his vision of “a new mankind of biological castes with master races in control and slave races serving them.”31

A 1946 article in Eugenical News stated that, “Population, genetics, [and] psychology, are the three sciences to which the eugenicist must look for the factual material on which to build an acceptable philosophy of eugenics and to develop and defend practical eugenics proposals.” As Black explained, “the incremental effort to transform eugenics into human genetics forged an entire worldwide infrastructure,” with the founding of the Institute for Human Genetics in Copenhagen in 1938, led by Tage Kemp, a Rockefeller Foundation eugenicist, and was financed with money from the Rockefeller Foundation.32

Today, much of civil society and major social projects are a product of these foundations, and align with various new forms of eugenics. The areas of population control and environmentalism are closely aligned and span a broad range of intellectual avenues. The major population control organisations emerged with funding from these various foundations, particularly the Rockefeller foundations and philanthropies.

These organisations, such as the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funded major civil society movements, such as the Civil Rights movement, in an effort to “create a wedge between social movement activists and their unpaid grassroots constituents, thereby facilitating professionalisation and institutionalisation within the movement,” ultimately facilitating a “narrowing and taming of the potential for broad dissent,” with an aim of limiting goals to “ameliorative rather than radical change.”33

Two major organisations in the development of the environmental movement were the Conservation Foundation and Resources for the Future, which were founded and funded with money from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and helped “launch an explicitly pro-corporate approach to resource conservation.”34 Even the World Wildlife Fund was founded in the early 1960s by the former president of the British Eugenics Society, and its first President was Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a founding member of the Bilderberg Group.

While the environmental movement positions people as the major problem for the earth, relating humanity to a cancer, population control becomes a significant factor in proposing environmental solutions.

In May of 2009, a secret meeting of billionaire philanthropists took place in which they sought to coordinate how to “address” the world’s environmental, social, and industrial threats. Each billionaire at the meeting was given 15 minutes to discuss their “preferred” cause, and then they deliberated to create an “umbrella” cause to harness all their interests. The end result was that the umbrella cause for which the billionaires would aim to “give to” was population control, which “would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.” Among those present at the meeting were David Rockefeller, Jr., George Soros, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and even Oprah Winfrey.35

Conclusion

At the top of the list of those who run the world, we have the major international banking houses, which control the global central banking system. From there, these dynastic banking families created an international network of think tanks, which socialised the ruling elites of each nation and the international community as a whole, into a cohesive transnational elite class. The foundations they established helped shape civil society both nationally and internationally, playing a major part in the funding – and thus coordinating and co-opting – of major social-political movements.

An excellent example of one member of the top of the hierarchy of the global elite is David Rockefeller, patriarch of the Rockefeller family. Long serving as Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan bank, he revolutionised the notion of building a truly global bank. He was also Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission, heavily involved in the family philanthropies, and sits atop a vast number of boards and foundations. Even Alan Greenspan, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, said that David Rockefeller and the CFR have, “in many respects, formulated the foreign policy of this country.”36

In another speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, then World Bank President James Wolfesohn, said in 2005, in honour of David Rockefeller’s 90th birthday, that, “the person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally in this country, and I’m very happy to say personally there afterwards, is David Rockefeller.” He then said, “In fact, it’s fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller’s in the whole issue of globalisation and in the whole issue of addressing the questions which, in some ways, are still before us today. And for that David, we’re deeply grateful to you and for your own contribution in carrying these forward in the way that you did.”37

David Rockefeller, himself, wrote, “For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicised incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”38



About the Author

ANDREW G. MARSHALL is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization based out of Montreal, Canada (www.globalresearch.ca). He has written extensively on issues imperialism in the Middle East and Africa, the environment, Homeland Security, war, terrorism and the global economy. He is currently studying Global Political Economy and the History of the Middle East and Africa at Simon Fraser University (Canada).

Footnotes:

1. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, New York: Macmillan Company, 1966, 324

2. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 515; Robert Elgie and Helen Thompson, ed., The Politics of Central Banks, New York: Routledge, 1998, 97-98

3. Sylvia Nasar, ‘Masters of the Universe’, The New York Times: January 23, 2000; ‘The Family That Bankrolled Europe’, BBC News: July 9, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/389053.stm

4. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 51

5. Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Harper Perennial: New York, 2003, 323

6. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 130

7. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, New York: Basic Books, 2004, 186

8. Ibid, 190

9. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, GSG & Associates, 1981, 3

10. Ibid, 33

11. Ibid, 34

12. William Greider, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 276

13. John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1975, 121-122

14. William Greider, op.cit., 277

15. H.W. Brands, ‘He Is My Independent Self’, The Washington Post: June 11, 2006:www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801104.html

16. CFR, ‘Continuing the Inquiry. History of CFR’: www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/inquiry.html

17. Chatham House, ‘CHATHAM HOUSE (The Royal Institute of International Affairs): Background’, Chatham House History: www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/history/

18. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, op.cit., 5

19. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, op.cit., 132-133

20. James G. McGann, Ph.D., The Global “Go-To Think Tanks”: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World, The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program: University of Pennsylvania, International Relations Program, 2008, 26-28

21. CBC, ‘Informal forum or global conspiracy?’, CBC News Online: June 13, 2006:www.cbc.ca/news/background/bilderberg-group/

22. Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management, South End Press: 1980, 161-171

23. Glen McGregor, ‘Secretive power brokers meeting coming to Ottawa?’, Ottawa Citizen: May 24, 2006

24. Holly Sklar, ed., op.cit., 76-78

25. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York: Thunders’s Mouth Press, 2004, 93

26. Ibid, 18

27. Ibid, 101-102

28. Edwin Black, ‘Eugenics and the Nazis – the California connection’, The San Francisco Chronicle: November 9, 2003

29. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, op.cit., 396

30. Ibid, 398

31. Ibid, 416

32. Ibid, 418

33. Michael Barker, The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection, Capitalism Nature Socialism: 19, (2), June 2008, 18

34. Ibid, 19-20

35. John Harlow, ‘Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation’, Times Online: May 24, 2009

36. CFR, Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations Annual Corporate Conference, Transcripts: March 10, 2005:www.cfr.org/publication/7908/remarks_at_the_council_on_foreign_relations_annual_corporate_conference.html

37. CFR, Council on Foreign Relations Special Symposium in honor of David Rockefeller’s 90th Birthday, Transcript: May 23, 2005:www.cfr.org/publication/8133/council_on_foreign_relations_special_symposium_in_honor_of_david_rockefellers_90th_birthday.html

38. David Rockefeller, Memoirs, New York: Random House: 2002, 405

The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 118 (Jan-Feb 2010).

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Gazans are “running from death to death” – Day 309
[email protected] August 12, 2024 al-aqsa mosque, evacuation, fajr massacre, fake terrorist list, truce talks, US warships
Gazans are “running from death to death” – Day 309
Palestinians inspect the destruction following the Israeli attack on the Al-Taba’een school, where displaced people took shelter, in al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on August 10, 2024. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency] (photo)
Evacuation orders keep exhausted Palestinians on the move; the “Fajr massacre” left no intact bodies behind; Israeli “terrorist” hit list is fake; dwindling numbers of aid trucks means famine; US warships assembling in Middle East; Hamas calls for enforcing Biden’s truce instead of more talks; Israeli settlers storm Al Aqsa mosque under heavy police protection; Hamas claims responsibility for shooting Israeli in the Jordan Valley; Israel poised to ban another media company

By IAK staff, from reports.

‘We’re running from death to death’: Palestinian in Khan Younis

Al Jazeera reports: Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes and shelters in the middle of the night in Khan Younis, heading west towards al-Mawasi and north towards Deir el-Balah, already overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

“We’re exhausted. This is the 10th time I and my family have had to leave our shelter,” said Zaki Mohammad, 28, who lives in the Hamad housing project in western Khan Younis, where the occupants of two multistorey buildings were ordered to leave.

“People are carrying their belongings, their children, their hopes and their fears and running towards the unknown, because there is no safe place,” he said. “We are running from death to death.”



The Fajr massacre: Every 70 kg bag of human remains is considered a martyr

Mondoweiss: At dawn on Saturday, August 10, the Israeli army bombed a mosque while dozens of displaced people were praying the Fajr prayer, the daily Islamic prayer offered in the early morning. The bombing killed more than a hundred people, most of whom were dismembered or destroyed beyond recognition. For this reason the identification of the bodies has so far been incomplete.

The majority of the martyrs in this latest massacre are first- or second-degree relatives because the prayer hall that the Israeli army bombed belongs to a school housing displaced families from Gaza City. The decimated prayer hall belongs to the Tabi’in School, and is only used by the displaced people sheltering in the school.

At the time of the bombing the prayer hall was filled with men. Now, many women who may have become widows and many children who may have become orphans, are sitting in front of the classrooms that were not reached by the bombing waiting to be told the fate of their families.

The Israeli army said that it bombed the prayer hall because there were armed elements from the Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas there, but the displaced people in the school confirmed that there were no armed men among them. Hamas also denied the Israeli allegations and issued a statement saying that there were no armed men in the school.

(Read the full article here.)

RECOMMENDED READING: US weapon used in Gaza City school massacre that killed 100




Israeli military “terrorist” hit list is a fake

Al Jazeera reports: The Israeli military claimed that it killed 19 members of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in its attack on the school in Gaza City, but more accounts are coming out that are challenging that narrative.

Ramy Abdul, a Palestinian national and chairman of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, wrote after investigating sources on the ground that of the 19 people identified by the Israeli military, at least three were killed in prior incidents and nine were civilians, including university and municipality officials.

Ahmed Ihab Baker al-Jaabari, who was claimed to be a PIJ operative, was a civilian killed in December, according to the rights group.



More identified civilians here.

Gaza confronting Israeli-created Famine as Kerem Shalom Food Aid Trucks drop 80% to 24 Trucks a Day

Juan Cole reports: Although the United Nations has not officially declared a famine in Gaza, people living there are in no doubt about it.

The New Humanitarian quotes Diana Harrara, a 33-year-old mother of three in Gaza: “No word better describes what we’re experiencing than ‘famine.’ Firstly, we have nothing to eat but flour and canned food which we can only obtain as aid. This aid is inconsistent – either small in quantity or infrequent. And even when we do get it, we end up leaving the food behind when rushing from one shelter to the next.”

The severe food shortages in Gaza is caused by Israeli bombing of farms and gardens and its restrictions on the number of aid trucks permitted in, as well as the chaos and destruction wrought on the networks of food delivery activists.

Last week Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich ignited a firestorm when he maintained that it would be morally and legally justified to starve all 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza to death.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported this week that since early May, the quantity of aid shipments that entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom Crossing and were collected by relief organizations plummeted by more than 80%, declining

from an average of 127 trucks per day in April
to approximately 23 trucks per day in July.
(Read more here.)

Palestinians in Jabalia Refugee Camp wait in line to receive food distributed by charitable organizations in Jabalia, Gaza on August 1, 2024. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency]
Palestinians in Jabalia Refugee Camp wait in line to receive food distributed by charitable organizations in Jabalia, Gaza on August 1, 2024. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency] (photo)
US deploys guided missile submarine to Middle East

Reuters reports: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the deployment of a guided missile submarine to the Middle East, the Pentagon said.

While the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered submarine, was already in the Mediterranean Sea in July, according to a US military post on social media, it was a rare move to publicly announce the deployment of a submarine.

In a statement after Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, the Pentagon said Austin had ordered the Abraham Lincoln strike group to accelerate its deployment to the region.

“Secretary Austin reiterated the United States’ commitment to take every possible step to defend Israel and noted the strengthening of US military force posture and capabilities throughout the Middle East in light of escalating regional tensions,” the statement added.

The US military had already said it will deploy additional fighter jets and Navy warships to the Middle East as Washington seeks to bolster Israeli defenses.

Israel drops leaflets with cigarettes in Gaza as reward for information

Al Jazeera reports: An Israeli quadcopter has dropped leaflets over the tents of displaced people in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, footage shared on social media shows.

The leaflets, which had single cigarettes attached, said people who call a number with information about fighters in Gaza would receive more tobacco.

The leaflets read: “Hamas is burning Gaza” and “Smoking is dangerous, but Hamas is even more so. Want more? Give us a call.”


Hamas calls for enforcing Biden truce outline instead of more talks


Middle East Eye reports: Hamas has urged mediators to focus on implementing the ceasefire deal currently on the table rather than initiating new talks, which it says aims to provide Israel with “cover” to continue its war on Gaza.

The call, made on Sunday, comes days after US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators invited Israel and Hamas to attend a summit on 15 August to finalise an agreement.

While Hamas did not confirm whether it would participate or boycott the meeting, the Palestinian movement appeared to doubt participating.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been accused of blocking a ceasefire and perpetuating the war, said he would send a negotiations team to the summit.

In its statement, Hamas said that it had previously accepted a ceasefire proposal from mediators in May, welcomed US President Joe Biden’s outline later the same month and showed further flexibility towards new Israel demands.

Israeli colonists break into Al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy Israeli police protection

WAFA reports: Sunday morning, scores of Israeli colonists forcefully entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem, under the protection of Israeli police forces. According to eyewitnesses, the colonists broke into the mosque in groups, performing Talmudic rituals within its courtyards.

Coinciding with the incursion, Israeli police transformed the Old City of Jerusalem into a heavily fortified military zone. Hundreds of officers were deployed in close proximity around the mosque’s gates and throughout the Old City. The heightened security measures included strict controls on access for worshippers.

Preparations are underway by groups affiliated with the so-called Temple Mount movement to commemorate what they refer to as the “Destruction of the Temple.” Their plans include a human chain around the walls of the Old City scheduled for Monday evening, with the event starting from the Buraq Wall and extending towards the Old City. This will be followed by a flag-waving march.

Additionally, these groups are calling for a large-scale incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday to mark the same event.

Israeli forces take safety measures as fanatic Jewish settlers organize a provocative march in the Old City under the protection of Israeli forces on July 27, 2024 in Hebron, West Bank. [Amer Shallodi – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli forces take safety measures as fanatic Jewish settlers organize a provocative march in the Old City under the protection of Israeli forces on July 27, 2024 in Hebron, West Bank. [Amer Shallodi – Anadolu Agency] (photo)
Hamas claims responsibility for Jordan Valley attack

Middle East Eye reports: Hamas has taken responsibility for a shooting attack in Jordan Valley, which killed an Israeli and injured another.

In a statement, the military wing of Hamas, Qassam Brigades, identified the man as 23-year-old Yonatan Deutsch, who was killed in the attack near an illegal Israeli settlement, and said he was a “Zionist soldier”.

It said the attack on the Israeli soldier comes as a response to the killing of more than a 100 people in Tabin school in Gaza on Saturday, stating that Hamas fighters in the occupied West Bank have “renewed their allgiance” to the new Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Israel approves proposal to ban another media company

The Cradle reports: Israel approved on Sunday a proposal by Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi to ban the Al Mayadeen media network from working inside of Israel for a second time. The decision includes the confiscation of its equipment and the blocking of its websites.

The Israeli government issued a previous order to block the Lebanese-based network from working in Israel in November 2023, claiming harm to Israel’s national security. The order expired in January, and Al Mayadeen resumed its work.

The decision to again block the network, viewed as sympathetic to the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, came after “the reappearance of terrorist representatives posing as journalists about two weeks ago,” a spokesman for Karhi said in a statement.

Al Mayadeen’s Hanaa Mahameed reported from Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, one day after a rocket killed 12 children on a soccer field there.

Mahameed reported that the rocket was fired by Israel, while Israel claimed it was fired by Hezbollah and that the children were Israeli rather than Syrians under Israeli occupation.

Days later, Israel used the killing of the 12 children as a pretext to launch an airstrike to assassinate top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. Israel assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh one day after killing Shukr.

Al Jazeera has also been banned from reporting in Israel.


MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 11:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 11: at least 40,519* (39,897 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 622 in the West Bank (~145 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 11: at least 97,572 (including at least 92,152 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 11: ~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)
Palestinians’ harrowing stories of rape by Israeli soldiers (including female soldiers)
A Palestinian journalist visited Ismail Haniyeh’s home in Gaza to report on his death. Israel assassinated him too.
I reported a piece for the New York Times on antisemitism. I found a major error, but the Times didn’t care.
How Israel plans to whitewash its war crimes in Gaza
Why the West Bank is on the verge of economic collapse
Netanyahu’s plan to involve US in regional war on its behalf
Western media continue to withhold the truth about Israel and Gaza – 4 stories
“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
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Putin still kicking Khazarian butts
Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorMarch 8, 2022
Question: My question concerns the current situation in Ukraine. We all support your actions and the special operation that is underway there. Naturally, the most important question, which, one way or another, all of us have asked ourselves, is why this special operation has started. Could it not have been avoided? Rationally, we do understand and support your actions, but as women we cannot help but worry: for our family, relatives, for those who are in Ukraine. We know that the civilians are not impacted. But nevertheless, tell us, reassure us: what are we to expect at the end of this road? What will be the end result of the military operation in Ukraine?

Putin: I will be brief but still will have to start, as they say, from “the center of the field”. I said about this at the start of the operation and also spoke about this before this decision has been made, a hard decision, without a doubt.

What is this about? The fact of the matter is that after the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine, which, unfortunately, was strongly supported by the Western countries – let us face it. They do not even hide the fact that they have spent $5 billion on it, not to mention cookies given away on Maidan, and so on.



[JEA: The last statement is certainly a reference to Victoria Nuland, who openly admitted that the United States spent $5 billion in orchestrating a coup in Ukraine in 2014. Nuland also wasted no time in giving out cookies to rabble-rousers in the same region.]

And after that, instead of bringing the situation back on track, even if it had spiraled out of control, even if it had been the act of the overzealous locals – there is such legal term, i.e. planned one thing, but the result turned out to be something else – they still could have, and should have, returned the situation back onto the political track.

Furthermore, shortly before the coup, the foreign ministers of the three countries came to Kiev in 2014 and signed an agreement with the Ukrainian government acting as guarantors of this agreement to ensure that the situation would be developing in the political sphere. But nothing like that occurred. They organized a coup d’état and supported the perpetrators.

What followed were the well-known events related to the Crimea and the southeast of Ukraine, Donbass, where people refused to support the coup. As we know, the Crimea made a decision; people came to vote in a referendum to return to the Russian Federation. Naturally, yes, naturally, we cannot but support that decision, al the more so, since they felt they were in danger from the nationalists and neo-Nazis. There is strong evidence that they were absolutely right in that.

Later, or, rather, in parallel, the events in Donbass were taking place. What have these events led to? People resisting the results of the coup were persecuted. Eventually, the new Kiev authorities initiated a military operation on that territory. They have conducted two large-scale punitive operations using of heavy weapons and combat aviation. They directly attacked Donetsk destroying the city squares with aviation, using tanks and artillery. Both these military campaigns failed. The Ukrainian army suffered defeat. After that, so-called Minsk agreements, or the Package of Measures, to use the official term, have been concluded. The agreements offered a path for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

We did everything we could to direct the events along this path, to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as to protects the interests of the people living in these territories. What did these people demand? Nothing but the basic things: the right to speak their mother tongue, i.e. the Russian, and maintain their traditions and culture. These were by no means extraordinary demands. But no.

These territories were put under economic blockade; disconnected from the banking system; the supplies of food were stopped; the payments of the pensions and social assistance were suspended. Sometimes, some handouts were given, but in order to get those pensions and benefits a person had to cross the separation line.

Now listen. I will now say something that may sound rough but the situation compels me to say it. You know that occasionally in some regions packs of stray dogs attack people, injure or even kill them (this is a separate problem, and it is for the local authorities to deal with). But then these animals are poisoned or shot dead. But people of Donbass are not stray dogs.

Approximately 13,000-14,000 people have been killed during these years. Over 500 children have been killed or injured. But what is particularly intolerable is that the so-called “civilized” West has preferred all these years to look the other way. All these years – 8 years! Eight years!

Moreover, lately the Kiev authorities started to say openly and publicly that they are not going to fulfill the Minsk agreements. They are saying this from the TV screens and online. They are saying this everywhere on the record: We don’t like them; we will not do it. And all this time, Russia has been accused of not fulfilling the agreements.

This is simply nonsense; the theater of the absurd; white is called black and black is called white. Lately, things got even worse. Actually, the talk has started long ago, but intensified of late. More and more often we hear that Ukraine would be admitted into NATO. Do you understand what this could lead to? Or can lead to still?

If Ukraine is a NATO member, then according to the North Atlantic Treaty, all other members must support the country in case of a military conflict. No one besides us has recognized Crimea as a Russian territory. The yare conducting military operations in Donbas but also could move onto Crimea, and in such case we would have to fight with the whole of NATO. What is that? Do you understand the consequences? I think everyone understands.

Now they (Ukraine) are talking about acquiring the nuclear status, i.e. developing nuclear weapons. We cannot possibly ignore such things, particularly considering that we know how the so-called West behaves with regard to Russia. First, Ukraine has some nuclear competence left from the Soviet time. As far as enrichment and nuclear material are concerned, they would be able to organize that work. They have missile abilities: suffice is to mention Yuzhmush.

This company used to build intercontinental ballistic missile equipment for the Soviet Union. They could recover that ability and do it. And those from across the ocean would even help them do it. And after that would say: “Well, we do not recognize the nuclear status; they have done everything themselves”.

And then they would put these complexes under control, and from that moment on, from that very second, the fate of Russia will be completely different. Because in that case, our strategic adversaries would not even need intercontinental ballistic missiles. They would keep us right here at the nuclear gunpoint, that is all. How could we disregard such a thing? These are absolutely real threats, not some far-fetched silly fantasy.

Our boys who are now fighting and risking their lives, they are fighting and giving their lives for our future, for the future of our children. This is something perfectly obvious. And the people who do not want to understand that, particularly those among today’s leaders (of Ukraine), have to understand that if they keep doing what the have been doing – I have spoken about this before – they put at risk the very future of the Ukrainian statehood. If this happens, that will be entirely their fault.

What is going on now? I have already mentioned our objectives in this operation. First, of course, is to protect the people living in Donbass. How? By demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine as well as establishing its neutral status. Why? Because the neutral status means Ukraine will not be joining NATO. They have it written in the Constitution that the country will be joining NATO. You understand – they have included that into the Constitution!

Denazification – what does this mean? I have spoken with my Western colleagues about this. They say:” What is the problem? You also have the radical nationalists”. Yes, we do. But we do not have them in the government, but everybody agrees that they (the Ukrainians) do.

Perhaps, we have some idiots running around with swastika, but do we support that at the government level? Do thousands of people march with torches and swastikas on the streets of our capital or other cities in Russia, like it happened in 1930s in Nazi Germany? Is something like that happening in Russia? But it happens in Ukraine, and it is supported. Do we support those who killed the Russians, Jews, or the Poles during the war? Do we hail them as heroes? But in Ukraine, they do.

The current events are also very important. Look, the foreign citizens have been taken hostages in Sumy and Kharkov – over 6,000 young people, students. They have been driven together into a railway station and kept there for 3 days. Listen, they have been held there for the third day.

We have told everybody about this and informed the current Ukrainian authorities. They said: “Yes, yes, of course, we will deal this this right now”. We have informed the leaders of the major European countries, I personally talked to them. “Yes, yes, we will put pressure on Ukraine right now”. We informed the UN Secretary-General: “Yes, yes, we will solve the problem right away”. Nobody is doing anything.

People who are considered the citizens of Ukraine are treated even worse. They are simply used as a human shield. Right now, in this very moment, this is happening in Mariupol. The Kiev government called our military: ”Provide humanitarian corridors so people could leave”.

Naturally, our people instantly responded, even suspended the military activities, and were observing what was happening. But no one was allowed to leave. You understand, no one was allowed out. They do not anybody leave but instead use the people as a human shield. Who are they? The neo-Nazis, of course.

We already observe the presence of the militants from the Middle East and some European countries. We know about them; we can hear them speak on the radio. They are using so-called jihad-mobiles, i.e. cars stuffed with explosives, which they drive towards the Russian troops.

But they do not achieve anything, and they will fail in the end. Who are they, then, if not neo-Nazis? By such actions, they are destroying their own country and their own statehood.

That is why one of our key demands is demilitarization. In other words, we are helping people of Donbass by working towards the neutral status of Ukraine and the demilitarization of the country. We have to know with certainty what weapons are there, where they are deployed, and who controls them.

A number of options are on the table. We are discussing them now, including with the Kiev government representatives in our talks in Belarus. We are grateful to the President Lukashenko for organizing the meetings and helping us to conduct these negotiations. Our proposals are on the table for the groups of the negotiators from Kiev to study. We hope that Kiev will respond positively to our proposals. This is pretty much all I wanted to say.

Please, let us continue.

Question: Schvidko, Yulia, the second pilot of the Aeroflot airline. Vladimir Vladimirovich, good afternoon. My question is about the current situation. Many rumors are circulating about possible introduction of the marshal law, drafting of volunteers and reservists, and that the draftees will be sent to Ukraine. Could you clarify whether the marshal law will be declared and whether the drafted soldiers will be deployed to Ukraine.

Putin: Many of what we now see and what is happening is undoubtedly a technique to fight against Russia. By the way, the sanctions imposed today are close to a declaration of a war. But fortunately, we are not there yet. I believe that our so-called “partners” still retain some understanding of what a war would mean and what danger it presents for everybody.

That is despite that irresponsible statements, such as made by the British Foreign Minister, when she blurted that NATO could involve itself in the conflict. At that point, we had to immediately make a decision to put our strategic forces on high alert. They reacted by saying that they did not mean anything of the sort.

However, nobody put the Minister in her place, and nobody disavowed her statement. No one said anything to us about that statement, like it was her personal opinion, do not pay attention, or something like that. Nothing. What are we supposed to think about that? That is why we reacted the way we did.

Now about your question. The marshal law is introduced by the order of the President supported by the Federation Council in the case of the external aggression, specifically in the regions where the military activity takes place. We are not in that situation now, and I hope will not be. This is first. The second point – there is also, in addition to the marshal law, a special status.

This status is also declared by the Federation Council in case of a significant internal threat. The third regime is the state of emergency, which is usually declared in particular regions, although could also be adopted in the entire territory of the country. This regime is for technological and natural disasters.

Thanks God, this is also not happening. We are not planning to declare any of these regimes on the territory of the Russian Federation. There is no need for that today.

We can see that attempts are being made to stir up trouble in our society, which is again a conformation of my words that we are dealing with not just the radicals but with the neo-Nazis. Here people are expressing their opinion about what they like or dislike in our action in Ukraine.

But there, in Ukraine, people that express the opinions similar to those expressed by the so-called ‘liberal” part of our society, are being detained on the streets and shot – we do have confirmation of that. Our special services are now collecting this information and we will be presenting it soon. Our liberal intellectuals are protesting, whereas in Ukraine people that say anything in favor of Russia are been executed without trial.

I repeat, that the marshal law is declared in case of the external aggression, which I hope will not happen despite irresponsible statements of some officials. We hear that a no fly zone should be established over the Ukrainian territory. This is impossible to do in the territory of Ukraine itself; this is only possible to organize from the territories of the neighboring countries.

However, we will consider any movement in this direction as active participation in the military conflict by a country, the territory of which is used to create danger for our servicemen. We will in a second consider them as a party to the military conflict. I hope this is also understood, and it will not come to that.

Only professional military personnel are taking part in this operation, officers and contract servicemen. Not a single drafted soldier is participating, and we are not planning to send them to Ukraine, and we will not. I repeat only men who have made a voluntary responsible decision in their lives – to defend their country – are in Ukraine, and they are doing their duty with honor.

Why this is the case, why we have the right to say these words, I have just explained to you. This also applied to reserve personnel undergoing periodic military training – we are not planning to deploy them to Ukraine. They are summoned to the military training on the regular basis – this happens now and will be happening in the future – but we will not enlist these people for the active military service, and they will not participate in this conflict. We have sufficient resources to achieve our objectives employing only our professional army.

I would like to comment on the military operation itself. I know many rumors and stories are being circulating. I do not have much time to learn about this, but I have been informed that people talk a lot about what is happening and how the operation is proceeding. All analysts know what is going on, so I am not going to reveal any secrets here.

We could have acted in many different ways. We could have helped the Donbass republics directly on the separation line, i.e. on the front, using our Russian army to support them. But in such case, considering the unconditional support by the West of the radical nationalists, the Ukrainian side would have received constant support by weapons, material, ammunition, and all.

That is why our General Staff and the Ministry of Defense decided on a different strategy. First that was done is the elimination of the military infrastructure. Not entirely, but largely. The weapon depots, ammunition depots, aviation, air defense systems. The destruction of the air defense systems requires certain time. You are civilians but you do work in aviation.

You understand that these systems need to be uncovered and then destroyed; by now this work is largely done. That is what brings about the demands for a no fly zone. However, an attempt to put this into effect would lead to enormous and catastrophic consequences not only for Europe, but also for the entire world. I do believe that the people on the other side do understand that. That is why we have chosen this path, correctly, as it turned out. Our military is working responsibly doing everything possible to protect the civilians.

Unfortunately, those neo-Nazi bandits do not have any consideration for the people. They even shoot their own servicemen who do not want to continue fighting – we do have evidence of that. Yes, those nationalists, neo-Nazis shoot their own servicemen. The nationalists are embedded in practically every Ukrainian military unit, several dozens of them in each, and they act in such a cruel way.

I repeat one more time: we will not deploy draftees or reservists to Ukraine to participate in this military operation. I am convinced that our army will achieve all our objectives. I do not doubt that for a second. This is evident from the way the operation is proceeding, which is strictly according to the plan, to the schedule; all is happening the way it had been planned by the General Staff.



Oh, regarding volunteers, the young people who come to the recruiting stations – we are grateful to them for their patriotic sentiments, the desire to support their country and its army in this time. The very fact that they come is significant. However, their help is not required at this time. And I am convinced will not be needed. Now I am turning towards the camera. They will see me and hear what I am saying – thank you.

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https://veteranstoday.com/2022/03/08/putin-still-kicking-khazarian-butts/

As Gazans starve, Israeli rhetoric grows more and more radically anti-Palestinian – Day 306
[email protected] August 9, 2024 AIPAC, ceasefire, Cori Bush, ethnic cleansing, humanitarian aid gaza, kamala harris on palestine, polio in gaza, rape of palestinian prisoners, sanctions, tim walz on palestine, torture of Palestinian prisoners
A Palestinian girl clings to her mother in Gaza City, June 2 [Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu] (photo)
In Gaza, airstrikes continue, food rations drop, polio threat grows; in Israel, calls to punish not the rapists, but the one who filmed them, to make rape of Palestinian prisoners official policy, to make Nablus in West Bank “look like Rafah,” to legalize Israeli settlement in Gaza, to end US sanctions on violent settlers; Biden administration ok’s more war after prisoner swap (risking ceasefire deal), condemns not AIPAC’s purchase of congressional candidates, but Cori Bush’s warnings against AIPAC; Kamala Harris indicates no tolerance for pro-Palestinian protesters or their message; Tim Walz’s track record on Palestine is not nearly as moral as Dems painted it; more.

By IAK staff, from reports.

At least 15 killed in Israeli bombing of two Gaza schools

The New Arab reports: An Israeli attack on two schools in Gaza City left at least 15 people killed and dozens injured in the Tuffah district of the besieged enclave.

The schools targeted, Abdel Fattah Hamoud and al-Zahraa, were destroyed with many Palestinians still missing and trapped under the rubble, according to local civil defence teams who were still working to pull people out.

Displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the schools, which were reportedly targeted without any prior warning.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing at least five Palestinians in a house in the heart of Gaza City.

Another airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, according to medics.

NOTE: Every single day, Gaza’s population endures many airstrikes, tank shells, and snipers’ bullets – too many to report on here. And every day, more Palestinians are lost under the rubble of bombed-out buildings. We acknowledge that these are important stories, even if we are unable to cover them all.

A view of the destruction after an Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Tuesday [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu]
A view of the destruction after an Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Tuesday [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu] (photo)
World Food Program forced to reduce rations in Gaza

Al Jazeera reports: The deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, Farhan Haq, explained that the World Food Program has been forced to reduce rations for Palestinians in Gaza because of the continuing war on the enclave.

“WFP urgently needs fuel deliveries, increased flow of blood supplies and greater capacity to deliver hot meals, particularly in Gaza City and north Gaza,” Haq said.

“WFP warns that it will be unable to bring in the quantity of food required this month unless more border crossing points into Gaza open and aid workers are able to bring in half the quantity of food needed in July and in the West Bank.”


Without ceasefire for vaccines, polio could spread throughout region: WHO specialist

Al Jazeera reports: The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a ceasefire in Gaza to administer a mass polio vaccination campaign, including to 600,000 children under the age of eight, after samples of the disease were detected in the enclave’s wastewater.

Hamid Jafari, a polio specialist with the WHO, says that if such a ceasefire is not implemented and if healthcare workers are not granted enough freedom of movement to distribute all the vaccines, the risk of a polio outbreak both within Gaza and regionally is “very high”.

“This can spread very fast internationally and most importantly, it is a direct threat to the children of Gaza,” Jafari told Al Jazeera. “This can start paralysing children very very rapidly.”

He added: “If it [polio] spreads into Israel or the West Bank, it becomes a public health emergency there. Lebanon is at risk. Egypt is at risk. Jordan is at risk. And other countries of the region are at risk.

After Israel destroyed Gaza's water and sewage systems, filthy water runs or stands stagnant all over the enclave, carrying polio and other diseases.
After Israel destroyed Gaza’s water and sewage systems, filthy water runs or stands stagnant all over the enclave, carrying polio and other diseases. (collage)
Friendly Fire: Israeli Man Dies After Being Wounded by Malfunctioning Iron Dome Interceptor

Ha’aretz reports: The Israeli military said a preliminary investigation showed Samara was mistakenly struck by a malfunctioning interceptor rocket that was launched at a drone launched from Lebanon. The investigation showed that the rocket had fallen after failing to explode in the air as designed, it added.

Two others were wounded besides Samara: a woman who was hit by shrapnel from the explosion and a cyclist who was hit by a car during the alarm.

The hospital in the area said 19 people were admitted for treatment, including six soldiers – most of them requesting help for headaches, ringing in the ears and anxiety.

Israel bans imam Ekrima Sabri from Al-Aqsa Mosque for 6 more months

Al Jazeera reports: Israel has extended its ban on Al-Aqsa Mosque’s speaker Ekrima Sabri, restricting his access to the mosque and its courtyards for six more months, his lawyer tells Al Jazeera.

Sabri was detained on August 2 on suspicion of inciting “terrorism” after he mourned assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at the mosque.

Sabri, 85, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and current head of its Supreme Islamic Council, called Haniyeh a “martyr” at the mosque in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, his lawyer Hamzeh Qutteineh said at the time.

At the time, he was also banned from entering the mosque until August 8.

Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images] (photo)
Smotrich demands punishment for person who filmed Sde Teiman rape video

Middle East Eye reports: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for an investigation to find out who took the video that shows Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian in the Sde Teiman detention centre.

In a post on X, he demanded “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.

NOTE: On Monday, Smotrich said that letting two million people in Gaza die from hunger is “justified and moral”.

Israeli journalist urges rape to become state policy for Palestinian prisoners

Andalou Agency reports: An Israeli journalist advocated rape Thursday as an official policy by the state for Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails.

“The only thing that is a problem for me here is that it is not a regulated policy of the state to abuse the (Palestinian) detainees,” journalist Yehuda Schlesinger said on a television program on Channel 12 when asked if raping prisoners is acceptable.

He justified his comments by claiming, “Because first of all, they deserve it, and it is great revenge that we need to give them.”

“And secondly, maybe it will also serve us a little more as a deterrent,” he said. “It is just a shame that we don’t do it in an institutionalized way as a part of regulations for torture of prisoners.”

The comments follow reports by media outlets that showed a video of Israeli soldier raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman Prison in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

A leaked video showing Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza has emerged. (Photo: video grab)
A leaked video showing Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza has emerged. (Photo: video grab) (photo)
Israeli lawmaker says ‘Nablus should look like Rafah’

Middle East Eye reports: Israeli member of parliament Zvi Sukkot, a member of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, said Israel should act in the occupied West Bank the same way it is acting in the Gaza Strip.

“We still see processions of armed men,” he said. “Maybe we are waiting for them to try to shoot someone? This is a disturbing event, an unacceptable reality. Nablus should look like Rafah as long as it exports terror, Tulkarm like Khan Younis, Jenin like Jabalia.”

Israeli forces have killed at least 620 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war on Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.




Israeli lawmakers, settler leaders unite to legalize Gaza settlements: Report

The Cradle reports: Israel’s Channel 12 reported on 8 August that lawmakers from the Likud and Religious Zionism parties have formed a “civilian parliamentary working group” alongside settler leaders that seeks to legitimize the resettlement of Gaza by repealing the 2005 disengagement law.

The working group reportedly expects to present the draft bill at the opening of the next Knesset session.

Approved in 2005, the Gaza Disengagement Law led to the dismantling of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the strip and four Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank. For several years preceding the current war, religious Zionist settlers in Israel called for a war to conquer Gaza, reverse the disengagement, and rebuild Gush Katif.


Israeli army responds to announcement of World Central Kitchen of Israel’s killing of staff

The US-based World Central Kitchen aid group had announced the killing of a Palestinian staff member, Nadi Sallout, near Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.

The Times of Israel newspaper reports that the Israeli military said it conducted a preliminary examination and held a conversation with the WCK about the reported killing.

It claimed that “there is no known incident of harm to an employee of the organization while working in the last few days,” adding, “The [army] examines each unusual incident individually.”

In early April, Israel killed seven people working with the United States-based NGO in an attack on the Gaza Strip.

NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators. Israeli sources, including the government itself, have a long track record of lying (for example, this and this and this.)


US To Let Israel Restart Military Operations in Gaza After First Phase of Ceasefire Deal

As Ha’aretz reports ceasefire negotiations are nearly completed, AntiWar reports: The US is ready to guarantee that it would allow Israel to restart the genocidal war in Gaza after the first phase of any hostage and ceasefire deal that might be reached with Hamas, according to Israeli media reports.

The Israeli condition could make Hamas less likely to agree to a deal since one of its main demands has been a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

According to The Times of Israel, a proposal that’s been discussed would involve three phases where Israel would halt its military operations and Hamas would release hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a guarantee that he’ll be able to restart military operations after the first phase, which is when negotiations will be held on implementing the next two phases.

The US has not yet provided a written agreement that it would allow Israel to restart operations but has expressed its approval of the idea. Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the US wouldn’t give the guarantee in writing until an agreement is reached with Hamas.


Israel ‘working to block’ sanctions on violent settlers: Netanyahu

Israeli government press release: The Israeli prime minister held a meeting Thursday in Tel Aviv with council heads from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank to discuss their concerns about the effects of the Western sanctions imposed on a limited number of violent settlers and organizations.

Regarding the sanctions against the settlers and the organizations, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted that he views this with utmost gravity and said: “We are working to block this. It is an issue for the entire State of Israel, not just Judea and Samaria.”

RECOMMENDED READING: Israel revokes diplomatic status of Norwegian envoys

Netanyahu: Israel should have waged war against Hamas sooner

In an exclusive interview given to the US’s Time Magazine, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he made a mistake not launching a full-scale war against the Palestinian group in the years leading up to its October 7 attacks on Israel.

He blamed the Israeli security establishment for its hesitation, and himself for acceding to their reluctance.

“October 7 showed that those who said that Hamas was deterred were wrong,” he said to Time during his interview. “If anything, I didn’t challenge enough the assumption that was common to all the security agencies.”

[In reality, Israel had frequently waged war on Gaza.]




White House denounces Cori Bush’s ‘inflammatory’ words to AIPAC after primary loss

The Hill reports: Asked for President Biden’s thoughts on Bush’s vow to challenge AIPAC, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president condemns that kind of “divisive” and “inflammatory” rhetoric.

Earlier this week, Cori Bush told supporters, “They’re about to see this other Cori, this other side…All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid,” and, “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”

The White House press secretary said of this comment, “Look, the president has always been very clear — and very recently, after the assassination attempt of the last president — about lowering rhetoric, right? Lowering political rhetoric and the importance of doing that,” Jean-Pierre said Wednesday at the daily press briefing.

“It is important — important that we be very mindful of what we say. This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful.”

“We’re going to continue to condemn any type of political rhetoric in that way, in that vein,” she continued. “And so, it is important to be mindful in what we say and how we say it. But we cannot have this type of inflammatory, divisive language in our political discourse.”

NOTE: In what some analysts have called an attack on the democratic process, AIPAC spent over $17 million to topple Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., in June, and around $26 million to defeat Cori Bush. The administration’s position toward Bush’s comment indicates it is more worried about challenges to Israel’s primacy in US politics than the fact that Congressional seats are for sale.



Kamala’s husband, the US Second Gentleman, claims ‘We’re witnessing the worst wave of Jew-hatred since World War II’

Ha’aretz reports: Talking to the media while visiting Paris, U.S. Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff said that “There is a ferocious surge of antisemitism occurring around the world, including here in France. It is a crisis.”

We are witnessing the worst wave of Jew-hatred the globe has experienced since World War II,” he added.

According to the second gentleman, “When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or identity, and when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism.”

NOTE: A large portion of alleged antisemitism is opposition to Zionism, a racist ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations. The so-called “demonization” of Israel is in most cases a legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies of occupation, apartheid, and genocide, and other illegal practices.

Activists in Minnesota: ‘Governor Walz has refused to meet Palestinian families’

Middle East Eye reports: It’s been 10 months since Israel’s war on Gaza began, and Governor Tim Walz, the newly appointed vice-presidential nominee on Kamala Harris’ ticket, has yet to meet with Palestinian families from his home state of Minnesota, anti-war activists have told Middle East Eye.

The accusations are in stark contrast to the public image being conjured up by the Democratic Party establishment to present Walz, along with presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, as more sympathetic and empathetic towards the carnage suffered by Palestinians over the past 10 months.

But according to several activists in Minnesota, not only has the governor refused to meet with Palestinian families who have lost relatives in Israel’s war on Gaza, he has barely acknowledged their concerns and and demands.

Sana Wazwaz, spokesperson for the group, said the Palestinian community had been trying for months to arrange a meeting with the governor to talk about the devastating losses in Gaza and their demands for an arms embargo on Israel.

When they did manage to arrange a meeting with the governor for early July, it was abruptly cancelled when they explained to the governor’s staff that they had come to discuss “material solutions” with the governor and not merely to narrate “sob stories” about the loss of their loved ones.

When asked why the meeting had been cancelled, they were told that the governor “was prepared to listen to you tell your stories, but we weren’t prepared to talk about divestment”.

“Walz wanted us for the PR stunt and not for actual, genuine conversation about political change. He just wanted to check it off the list that he met with another marginalized group that he’s been ignoring for months upon months,” Wazwaz explained.

“We have been trying for months to arrange a meeting. Phone calls have been made, but Governor Walz has refused to show up for any of the Palestinian families; has refused to sit down and meet with them, has refused to, you know, visit a single mosque or a single Palestinian institution to check in on our families,” Wazwaz said.

Activists also point out that Walz’s nomination has also garnered praise from liberal pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US. J Street described the Harris-Walz team as “pro-Israel”; Mark Mellman, chair of Democratic Majority for Israel described Walz as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat with a strong record of supporting the US-Israel relationship”.

COUNTERPUNCH ADDS: Harris has offered sympathetic words on Gaza: “The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety – sometimes displaced for a second, third, or fourth time – we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”

Eman Abdelhadi of the University of Chicago finds such sentiments from Harris parch dry, arguing that a lack of “an actual commitment to stop killing the children of Gaza” invalidates any claims to empathy. “To be empathetic to someone that you’re shooting in the head is not exactly laudable. We don’t need empathy from these people. We need to stop providing the weapons and the money that is actively killing the people that they’re supposedly empathising with.”

[Also see Glenn Greenwald’s commentary.]


MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

The Intercept: The Outrageous Case of an NY Journalist Charged With a Hate Crime for Recording a Gaza Protest Action

Caitlin Johnson: US Policy: Let Israel Escalate Against Iran, Then Tell Iran Not To Escalate Back

Middle East Monitor: In Gaza, keeping the internet on can cost lives but also save them


STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 8:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 8: at least 40,315* (39,699 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 616 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 8: at least 97,142 (including at least 91,722 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 8: ~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)
Western media continue to withhold the truth about Israel and Gaza – 4 stories
“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/gazans-starve-israeli-rhetoric-more-radically-anti-palestinian-day-306/

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

Israeli massacres, evacuation orders, torture continue unabated – Day 302
[email protected] August 5, 2024 ceasefire, evacuation orders, freedom flotilla, Gaza education, humanitarian aid, israeli mass surveillance, israeli settler violence, massacre, palestinian prisoner torture, pope francis
An aerial view of the makeshift tents set up in the coastal area as Palestinians, who left their homes due to Israeli attacks, try to survive under difficult conditions in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on May 16, 2024. (photo)
Bombs without warning, Gazans on the move again; more reports of prisoner torture; Gaza’s kids have lost one full school year; Israeli settlers storm Al Aqsa mosque; Israel adds new conditions to ceasefire proposal; Amazon provides storage for Israeli military mass surveillance; US military build-up in Middle East – “for peace”; VP contenders Shapiro & Pritzker are Israel partisans; more.

By IAK staff, from reports.

At least 19 killed when Israel bombs several camps in besieged Gaza Strip


Middle East Monitor reports: At least 19 Palestinians were reportedly killed and several others injured on Sunday in an Israeli attack targeting various areas of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Separately, Israeli army vehicles stationed on the eastern border of the central governorate fired intensively at eastern areas of the Bureij and Maghazi camps.

Children among 30 killed after Israel bombs two schools in Gaza without warning

Al Jazeera reports: At least 30 people have been killed and many others injured in Israeli strikes on two United Nations-run schools in the west of Gaza City.

The latest death toll was reported to Al Jazeera by Dr Marwan al-Hams, the director of hospitals in the Gaza Ministry of Health.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, 80 percent of those killed and injured in the strikes on Sunday on the Hassan Salama and al-Nasr schools were children.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said that the schools, which have been used as shelters by displaced Palestinians, have been severely damaged.

“This is the same exact scenario that we’ve seen in the past few days. What we know for a fact right now is that there is [a] concentration of attacks on evacuation centers. What’s really concerning about that is … that the Israeli military is not giving any prior warning to people inside these evacuation centers,” Mahmoud said.

The correspondent noted that most of the buildings used as shelters for the displaced in Gaza are schools, as they are the only large spaces available now to house a significant number of people.

“This is happening in an unpredictable way, causing severe casualties and increasing the trauma of a population already displaced in some cases up to five, six or seven times across the northern part of the Gaza Strip,” Mahmoud said.

Sunday’s attacks followed the bombing of a school on Saturday by the Israeli army. Following Sunday’s attacks, at least 15 people were killed in Israeli air raids on the Hamama school in the Sheikh Radwan neighbohood in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced Palestinians.



Israel orders Palestinians to leave from southern, southeastern parts of Khan Younis

Al Jazeera reports: The Israeli military has issued a new order for Palestinians to leave the southern and southeastern parts of Khan Younis in Gaza, according to Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary in Deir el-Balah.

The residents of these areas were warned that “any presence of civilians in these areas is dangerous and of high risk”, she said.

It was not clear where people were expected to flee, as there is no safe place left in the enclave.

Earlier this month, the United Nations said more than 86 percent of Gaza was already affected by Israel’s so-called evacuation orders, with most people asked to live in small “safe zones” that repeatedly come under Israeli attacks.

Palestinian detainees describe torture in Israel’s Ofer Prison

Al Jazeera reports: Three Palestinians from Gaza who are being held in Israel’s Ofer Prison have recounted abuse and mistreatment, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Mohammed Jamous, 44; Fadi Ayad, 39; and Fadi Howaydi, 38, told the commission’s lawyer who visited them last week that they were stripped of their clothes, beaten, tortured, bound and blindfolded.

The detainees described Israeli soldiers as “rabid beasts” who took pleasure in their suffering.

“We were turned into prey to these monsters, who enjoyed our hunger, thirst, screams and illnesses. We still do not believe that we are still alive,” a prisoner was quoted as saying.

The abuse, according to the detainees, began immediately upon their detention in Gaza and continued through transportation in military vehicles where they faced insults, degradation and torture.

“Today, we are all sick,” a detainee said, according to the commission. “Our bodies are exhausted, and we have become prey to illness and injury. No medical treatment or medication is provided. Despite these dire conditions, we cling to the hope of returning to our families alive.”

Israel extends detention of 5 soldiers accused of sexually assaulting Gaza prisoner


Middle East Monitor reports: An Israeli military court yesterday extended the detention of five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner from Gaza in the Sde Teiman detention facility, according to local media.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that the military court ruled that the men could be held until tomorrow. They are accused of sexually and physically assaulting a Palestinian prisoner from the Gaza Strip.

The newspaper quoted Judge Lt. Col. Toby Hart as saying that there is a reasonable and solid basis to assume that the detainee was harmed, and that there is reasonable suspicion that the five harmed the detainee together.

RECOMMENDED READING: Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment.



A year of silence in Gaza’s classrooms: the urgent need for educational revival

ReliefWeb reports: Children in Gaza have lost one year of education. As of 30 July 2024, all the 625,000 enrolled students in Gaza have lost one full scholastic year.

39,000 students missed the Tawjihi (12th grade official exams) for the first time in decades. This means none of them can transition to higher education, and the majority of them may never return to school again.

In place of being full of children eager to learn, school buildings are housing displaced families desperately seeking safety, when they are not being damaged. Mattresses and blankets fill classrooms and hallways; desks are repurposed as walls and wardrobes, and playgrounds are filled with tents and tarpaulins.

This places a massive strain on the limited WASH facilities. At the same time, overcrowding contributes to an unhygienic environment and rapid spread of disease, increased protection risks due to lack of privacy, and damage to furniture and equipment.

These conditions have had a significant negative impact on the mental health and psychosocial well-being of children, teachers, and caregivers, as well as severely harming the ability of children in Gaza to exercise their right to learn.

As of 30 July, according to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) – State of Palestine, 9,211 students and 397 educational staff members have been killed by the Israeli forces, while more than 14,237 students and 2,246 teachers have been injured since 7 October in the Gaza Strip.

The educational infrastructure in Gaza has also been significantly affected with 92.9% of schools sustained some level of damage to their buildings, including Direct hit, Damaged, and Likely damaged.

At least 84.6% of schools require full reconstruction or significant rehabilitation before resuming schooling. One-third of directly hit or heavily damaged schools are UN-run schools under UNRWA’s jurisdiction.

The Israeli military claims its attacks are targeting ‘terrorists’, but most victims have been Gaza’s children
The Israeli military claims its attacks are targeting ‘terrorists’, but most victims have been Gaza’s children (photo)
At least 10,000 Israeli soldiers killed, injured in Gaza war: Report

Andalou Agency reports: At least 10,000 Israeli soldiers have been killed and injured since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict last Oct. 7, according to Israeli media on Sunday.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said some 1,000 soldiers are transferred every month to the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department due to injuries sustained in the Gaza war.

“The army is suffering from a shortage of at least 10,000 soldiers killed or wounded during the long months of fighting in the Gaza Strip,” the daily said.

The newspaper criticized the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) for going on summer break from July 22 until mid-October without passing legislation to extend mandatory military service.

According to the newspaper, female soldiers serving in Israel-occupied Syrian Golan Heights were unexpectedly informed of an additional four-month extension of their service.

Illegal Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque amid rise in tensions

Andalou Agency reports: Under Israeli police protection, a mob of illegal Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday.

Israeli forces and illegal settlers entered the flashpoint mosque performing religious rituals while Israeli police established checkpoints around the Old City of East Jerusalem, restricting Palestinian access to the mosque, according to official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Separately, the Palestinian Awqaf and Religious Affairs Ministry released a monthly report detailing increased violations at Al-Aqsa Mosque and Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, reporting that Israel conducted 23 raids on Al-Aqsa Mosques this July.

The report also highlighted that Israeli forces had obstructed the call to prayer at Ibrahimi Mosque 43 times last month and prevented Palestinians from entering the mosque.

The illegal settler incursion came amid rising tensions across the occupied West Bank as Israel continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 40,000 people since last October following a Hamas attack.

Embed from Getty Images

Israel blocking and letting aid rot ‘first phase of its genocide,’: Turkish FM

Al Jazeera reports: Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says Israel’s practice of blocking aid, killing aid workers, blocking evacuations, and allowing humanitarian supplies to rot are crimes against humanity and the “first phase of the genocide”.

His remarks came after a visit to Egypt’s El Arish port and the Rafah border.

Fidan urged the global community not to remain silent on “Israel’s oppression” and called for “greater efforts” to ensure that aid reaches Gaza without being obstructed or interrupted.

Tel Aviv: Two Israelis Killed, Three Injured, Perpetrator Killed

IMEMC reports: Two Israelis were killed and three others were injured, on Sunday morning, in the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv in central Israel, while the perpetrator of the attack, a Palestinian man, was killed by occupation police.

Media sources said that a Palestinian man carried out a stabbing attack in the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, killing two Israelis and injuring three others, two seriously.

Sources added that an Israeli police officer shot the Palestinian perpetrator, critically injuring him; he later died.

Media sources identified the perpetrator as 35-year-old Ammar Rizq Kamel Odeh, from the central West Bank city of Salfit, while police later arrested a Palestinian man accused of assisting the perpetrator in the attack.

After the attack, Israeli forces closed the northern entrance to the city of Salfit with an iron gate, and prevented Palestinian citizens from entering or leaving the city.

Later, the army invaded the city of Salfit, and stormed the family home of the slain perpetrator, detained and interrogated his family members, and prevented press crews from the area.

Ben-Gvir renews call for more Israeli civilians to take up arms

Al Jazeera reports: In the context of the recent stabbing, Israeli national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir said that he’s calling for more civilians to take up arms and use them. This has been quite a controversial policy that he’s had throughout this war.

He has essentially expedited the way that a regular, average person can obtain a weapon in Israel, and it’s been something that has caused a lot of backlash.

He’s even distributed weapons to people in the occupied West Bank, including settlers.

Israel adds new conditions to Gaza ceasefire proposal


Middle East Monitor reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added a new condition to the proposed prisoner exchange deal, including the deportation of about 150 Palestinian prisoners, according to Israeli media.

Israel’s Channel 13 quoted unnamed informed sources as saying that Netanyahu added several new conditions to the prisoner exchange deal proposal, including the deportation of several Palestinian prisoners who will be released from prisons in Israel under the terms of the deal.

The sources told the Israeli channel that these 150 prisoners are accused of killing Israelis.

They noted that Netanyahu proposes deporting them to countries such as Turkiye or Qatar and banning them from ever returning to the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank.

Israel seizes $26m tax funds meant for Palestinian Authority

Al Jazeera reports: Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered the seizure of about 100 million shekels ($26m) of tax funds meant to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

He says the money will be given to the families of Israeli victims of “terror” inflicted by Palestinians.

“The fight against terrorism is not only a military fight but a combined fight that includes a war against the wild incitement of the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist funds which it directs from its budget to the families of terrorists,” Smotrich wrote in a post on X.

“We will continue to protect the security of the citizens of Israel and fight with all the tools at our disposal against terrorism and its supporters.”

‘Order from Amazon’: How tech giants are storing mass data for Israel’s war

+972 Magazine reports: A new investigation by +972 and Local Call can reveal that the Israeli army has in fact stored some intelligence information collected via the mass surveillance of Gaza’s population on servers managed by Amazon’s AWS. The investigation can also reveal that certain cloud providers supplied a wealth of AI capabilities and services to Israeli army units since the start of the Gaza war.

Military sources emphasized to +972 and Local Call that the scope of intelligence collected from the surveillance of all Palestinian residents of Gaza is so large that it cannot be stored on military servers alone.

Three sources who took part in Israeli army attacks said that it was used in a number of cases to provide “supplementary information” ahead of airstrikes against suspected military operatives, some of which killed many civilians.

In particular, according to intelligence sources, much more extensive storage capabilities and processing power were needed to keep billions of audio files (as opposed to just textual information or metadata), which compelled the army to turn to the cloud services offered by tech companies.

As +972 and Local Call revealed in a previous investigation, the Israeli army authorized the killing of “hundreds of civilians” in attacks against senior Hamas commanders at the level of brigade commander and sometimes even battalion commander. In some of these cases, security sources explained, Amazon’s cloud was operationalized.

Sources said that the AWS-based system is particularly useful for Israeli intelligence because it can hold information “on everyone,” with no storage limitations.

(Read the full article here.)

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Turkiye blocks Freedom Flotilla setting sail for Gaza


Middle East Monitor reports: Turkish authorities have blocked the new Freedom Flotilla, carrying urgent and lifesaving aid to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s siege on the Strip, from departing Istanbul, organisers reported.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, comprising multiple humanitarian and pro-Palestinian groups, issued a statement on Saturday announcing that they had been awaiting approval from the Istanbul port authority to set sail.

“It has now become clear that the Turkish government will not grant permission,” the statement said.

The coalition added that the government did not offer “any explanation” for preventing the flotilla to sail, but placed the blame on “intense pressure from the United States, the United Kingdom, and perhaps other NATO countries that are strongly allied with Israel.”

In May 2010, the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla I was intercepted by the Israeli navy, with Israeli commandos boarding the Turkish lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, opening fire and killing nine activists.

Pope Francis says assassinations ‘never a solution’

Al Jazeera reports: Pope Francis has once again appealed to all sides to resume negotiations to achieve an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza and on all fronts”.

The pope also denounced “attacks, even targeted ones, and killings” in an address to thousands of pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square.

Such attacks “can never be a solution”, he said, adding that they “do not help us walk in the path of justice, the path of peace, but generate even more hatred and revenge”.

Embed from Getty Images

US says military moves in Middle East aimed at de-escalating tensions


Reuters reports: The US is deploying additional military might in the Middle East as a defensive measure with a goal of de-escalating tensions in the region, a White House official said on Sunday.

US President, Joe Biden, will convene his national security team in the situation room on Monday to discuss developments in the Middle East, the White House said, adding that he would speak with Jordan’s King Abdullah as well.

US news service, Axios, reported that US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, told his counterpart from G7 countries that Iran and Hezbollah could start attacking Israel as early as Monday, citing three sources briefed on the call. But Blinken, according to Axios, said it was unclear how Iran and Hezbollah would attack and did not know the exact timing.

“The overall goal is to turn the temperature down in the region, deter and defend against those attacks, and avoid regional conflict,” Jonathan Finer, the White House’s deputy National Security Adviser, said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation” program.

VP contenders Shapiro & Pritzker are Israel partisans


Governor Josh Shapiro takes stand in support of Israel. “Israel is a special place – it’s a place where some of us have made friends and spent meaningful time.” – October 18, 2023. By that time, Israeli forces had killed 5,791 people in Gaza since Oct. 7 (including at least 2,055 children (800 more missing) and 1,119 women, and at least 95 in the West Bank); 17,636 injured (15,898 in Gaza – 70% of them women and children – and over 1,738 in the West Bank). About 1.4 million people had been displaced. (screenshot)
Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro “has made his Jewish identity central to his career…. ‘Israel not only has a right to defend itself, it has a responsibility to combat Hamas,’ he said recently.”

Ha’aretz continues: “His presence on the ticket would bolster its already historic Jewish presence – Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff is the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president in American history.”

“Upon graduating from Georgetown University Law Center, Shapiro worked on Capitol Hill for Jewish lawmakers like Michigan Sen. Carl Levin and Florida Rep. Peter Deutsch, who moved to the Israeli city Ra’anana after failing in his 2004 Senate bid.”

“He has also bucked growing Democratic criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza in recent months, insisting to the Jewish Democratic Council of America that “Israel not only has a right to defend itself, I think Israel has a responsibility to combat Hamas head-on and to defeat Hamas.”

Jewish Insider reports: In The New York Times, pollster and former Clinton adviser Mark Penn endorses Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, writing that he “would be the highest-ranking Jewish official in U.S. history. He has supported Israel and has been strongly critical of the campus protests.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports He volunteered in the IDF.

Salon reports: “On the contentious issue of Israel’s relentless war against civilians in Gaza, Shapiro sounds much less bothered by the lethal violence than by U.S. activists for Palestinian lives, many of whom he has demonized.”

The New york Times reports that Shapiro “has been unapologetic in his love for Israel; he has visited often and even proposed to his wife there.”


J.B. Pritzker speaks at Israeli Solidarity Gathering on Oct. 10. (screenshot)
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also has a long history of support for Israel.

On Oct 10, he spoke at a Jewish United Fund sponsored Israeli Solidarity Gathering, saying: “We need to stand with Israel.”

The Capital News report on the event noted: “Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 800 and wounded more than 4,000 Palestinians in the days following the initial attack.

“Pritzker’s address included a message of support for the Israeli military.

“We pray today for the strength and safety of the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces as they embark on this most difficult and important mission,” the governor said. “Each step of the way they should know, and the people of Israel should know, that America and Illinois unequivocally stands with them in their battle to end the ongoing Hamas attacks. We stand with Israel.”

By then, Israeli forces had killed 900 in Gaza (over 18 in West Bank), injured 4,500 in Gaza (100 in West Bank), killed 260 children and 230 women; and displaced: 200,000. A large part of Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood was reduced to rubble after hours of airstrikes. Residents found buildings torn in half or demolished to mounds of concrete and rebar. Cars were flattened and trees burned out on residential streets transformed into moonscapes.” Israel had impsed a ‘total’ blockade on Gaza, including ban on admission of food, electricity and fuel.

On Oct 17 Pritzker announced tax relief for individuals and businesses affected by the attacks that took place in Israel.

In January he opposed a Chicago resolution backing a cease-fire.

The Times of Israel reports: “J.B. Pritzker is the scion of a wealthy Jewish hotelier family long involved in Democratic politics. His sister Penny, a major donor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.”

The Pritzker family (net worth: $32.5B) is one of the wealthiest families in the U.S. It is known for being pro-Israel. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1985: “The Pritzker family buys $500,000 worth of Israel bonds each year and, besides their other philanthropies, also makes donations to universities and institutions in Israel.

JTA reports that J.B. Pritzker “has served on the board of AIPAC.” [Also see this.] He is “the scion of the Hyatt hotel family with deep Jewish community ties.” [His net worth is $3.5B]

Pritzker emceed a fundraiser for Friends of the IDF in 2013.

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

Middle East Monitor: Shin Bet prepares underground bunker to protect Netanyahu, senior officials from possible Iran attack

Middle East Monitor: Could the US-China rivalry save the peace process in the Middle East?

The New Arab: Palestine Authority presents Gaza day-after plan, while US truce draft allows Israel to continue war

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 4:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 4: at least 40,186* (39,623 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 604 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 4: at least 96,818 (including at least 91,469 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 4: ~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)
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/israeli-massacres-evacuation-orders-torture-continue-unabated-day-302/

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let It Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

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***

First published more than nine months ago on October 17, 2023 at the outset of Israel’s act of genocide against Palestine. Revised April 2024

Introduction.

Was it a False Flag?


Military operations are invariably planned well in advance. Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack” ? Or Was it “A False Flag”.

In the words of Philip Giraldi:

“As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.”

A Tissue of Lies

“A Tissue of Lies” has served to justify the killing in the Gaza Strip of more than 35,000 civilians, of which 70% are women and children coupled with total destruction and an endless string of atrocities.

The Cat is out of the bag. Netanyahu has tacitly acknowledged that it was “A False Flag” which was intent upon justifying a carefully planned genocidal attack against Palestine:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this candid statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians?

On that same day of October 7, 2023 Netanyahu launched a carefully planned military operation against the Gaza Strip entitled “State of Readiness For War”.

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance.

Had “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” been a “surprise attack” as parroted by the media, Netanyahu’s “State of Readiness For War” could not have been carried out (at short notice) on that same day, namely October 7, 2023.

South Africa’s Legal Procedure against The State of Israel

On January 11, 2024, The Republic of South Africa presented to The Hague World Court, a carefully formulated Legal Procedure against the State of Israel predicated on The Genocide Convention.

This legal procedure, however, has not contributed to repealing the ongoing genocide and saving the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.

I should mention that the False Flag issue –which constitutes a crime against humanity– was casually ignored by the ICJ.

Our suggestion is that an investigation followed by a legal procedure pertaining to the “False Flag” should be undertaken.

The heads of State and heads of government who have endorsed Israel’s Genocidal Acts are from a legal standpoint complicit.

The ICJ Judgement was contradictory. The Presiding Judge (former legal advisor to Hillary Clinton) was in conflict of interest:

The ICJ Judgment of January 26, 2024 assigns the Netanyahu government representing the State of Israel –accused by the Republic of South Africa of genocide against the People of Palestine– with a mandate to “take all measures within its power” to “prevent and punish” those responsible for having committed “Genocidal Acts”. (under Article IV of the Genocide Convention)

Sounds contradictory? What the ICJ judgment intimates –from a twisted legal standpoint– is that Netanyahu’s Cabinet which was “appointed” to implement the “prevent and punish” mandate cannot be accused of having committed “Genocidal Acts”.

See

“Fake Justice” at The Hague: The ICJ “Appoints” Netanyahu to “Prevent” and “Punish” Those Responsible for “Genocidal Acts”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 24, 2024

Our intent is to provide a broad and detailed understanding of the false flag issue:

The titles of the videos, articles and texts presented below:

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?, by Dr. Philip Giraldi.
Video: ICJ Hearings in The Hague,
Text of Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum. Planning the Forcible Exclusion of Palestinians from Their Homeland
Video: “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”, Interview. Michel Chossudovsky with Caroline Mailloux
“False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”, by Michel Chossudovsky
Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor? But Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”, by Philip Giraldi
In solidarity with the People of Palestine.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 11, 2024, April 25, 2024

Part I

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”?

They Let it Happen?

Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

by Dr. Philip Giraldi

October 8, 2023

Am I the only one who read about a speech given by Netanyahu or someone in his cabinet about a week ago in which he/they in passing referred to a “developing security situation” which rather suggests (to me) that they might have known about developments in Gaza and chose to let it happen so they can wipe Gaza off the map in retaliation and, possibly relying on the US pledge to have Israel’s “back,” then implicating Iran and attacking that country.

I cannot find a link to it, but have a fairly strong recollection of what I read as I thought at the time it would serve as a pretext for another massacre of Palestinians.

As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.

And as is also ALWAYS the case Joe Biden is preparing to send some billions of dollars to poor little Israel to pay for “defending” itself.

Part II

VIDEO. ICJ Hearings in The Hague

January 2024

ICJ Hearings

1. January 11, 2024. Click Here to View the ICJ Hearings,

2. January 12, 2024. Israel’s Legal Team’s response to South Africa, ICJ The Hague at 10 am. Video in Real Time



3. Video: South Africa’s Closing Argument against Israel for Genocide. January 11 Hearing at the World Court





Part III

Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum

Planning the Forcible Exclusion of Palestinians from Their Homeland

by Michel Chossudovsky

October 2023

An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence “is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations as well as consultations with the U.S.

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972.

See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)



For further details and analysis see:

“Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Israel’s “Secret” Intelligence Memorandum “Option C” by Michel Chossudovsky

Part IV

Video: “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”

Interview: Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux

October 17, 2023

To comment or access Rumble

Part V

“False Flag”. Wiping Gaza Off the Map

by

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

October 12, 2023

.

Introduction

.

Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” led by Hamas’ Military Chief Mohammed Deif. On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War”.

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance (See Netanyahu’s January 2023 statement below). Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack” ?

U.S. intelligence say they weren’t aware of an impending Hamas attack.

“One would have to be almost hopelessly naïve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion was an Israeli “intelligence failure”. Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet.”

Did Netanyahu and his vast military and intelligence apparatus (Mossad et al) have foreknowledge of the Hamas attack which has resulted in countless deaths of Israelis and Palestinians.

Was a carefully formulated Israeli plan to wage an all out war against Palestinians envisaged prior to the launching by Hamas of “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”? This was not a failure of Israeli Intelligence, as conveyed by the media. Quite the opposite.

Evidence and testimonies suggest that the Netanyahu government had foreknowledge of the actions of Hamas which have resulted in hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian deaths. And “They Let it Happen”:

“Hamas fired between 2-5 thousand rockets at Israel and hundreds of Israeli are dead, while dozens of Israelis were captured as prisoners of war. In the ensuing air response by Israel, hundreds of Palestinians were killed in Gaza.” (Stephen Sahiounie)

Following the Al Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7, Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing of the Gaza Strip home of 2.3 million Palestinians…” (Middle East Eye). A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 Million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide.

It is worth noting, that Netanyahu’s military actions are not targeting HAMAS, quite the opposite: he is targeting 2.3 million innocent Palestinian civilians, in blatant violation of the Four Basic Principles of The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC):

“….respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects [schools, hospitals and residential areas], the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]

Ironically, according to Scott Ritter, Hamas’ has acquired U.S. weapons in Ukraine.

.

This was Not a “Surprise Attack”

Was the Hamas Attack a “False Flag”?

“I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming.

A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??

What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?

How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

To me this suprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts.

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.

It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be.

(Statement by Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence, October 7, 2023, emphasis added)

Ironically, the media (NBC) is now contending that the “Hamas attack bears hallmarks of Iranian involvement”

History: The Relationship between Mossad and Hamas

What is the relationship between Mossad and Hamas? Is Hamas an “intelligence asset”? There is a long history.

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. It was supported at the outset by Israeli intelligence as a means to weaken the Palestinian Authority:

“Thanks to Mossad, (Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”), Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. (L’Humanité, translated from French)

The links of Hamas to Mossad and US intelligence have been acknowledged by Rep. Ron Paul in a statement to the U.S Congress: “Hamas Was Started by Israel”?

“You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat… (Rep. Ron Paul, 2011)

What this statement entails is that Hamas is and remains “an intelligence asset”, namely “an “asset” to intelligence agencies”

See also the WSJ (January 24, 2009) “How Israel helped to Spawn Hamas”.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. (WSJ, emphasis added)





“The Hamas Partnership” is confirmed by Netanyahu



“The Cat is Out of the Bag”

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians?

“Support” and “Money” for Hamas.

“Transferring Money to Hamas” on behalf of Netanyahu is confirmed by a Times of Israel October 8, 2023 Report:

“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (emphasis added)

.

The Dangers of Military Escalation?

Let us be under no illusions, this “false flag” operation is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon and NATO.

In turn, this action against Palestine is already conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of Middle East.

Israel is a de facto member NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.

Military cooperation with both the Pentagon and NATO is viewed by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.”

The premise of NATO-Israel military cooperation is that “Israel is under attack”. Does Israel’s agreement with the Atlantic Alliance “obligate” NATO “to come to the rescue of Israel” under the doctrine of “collective security” (Article 5 of the Washington treaty)?

In recent developments, U.S. military deployments in the Middle East are ongoing allegedly to avoid escalation.

According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:

There is always the risk that nations and/or organisations hostile to Israel will take try to take advantage. And that includes, for instance, organisations like Hezbollah or a country like Iran. So this is a message to countries and organisations hostile to Israel that they should not try to utilise the situation. And the United States have deployed, or has deployed more military forces in the region, not least to deter any escalation or prevent any escalation of the situation. (NATO Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023, emphasis added)

Netanyahu’s “New Stage”

“The Long War” against Palestine

Netanyahu’s stated objective, which constitutes a new stage in the 75 year old war (since Nakba, 1948) against the people of Palestine is no longer predicated on “Apartheid” or “Separation”. This new stage –which is also directed against Israelis who want peace— consists in “total appropriation” as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland:

“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me [Netanyahu]: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” (Netanyahu January 2023. emphasis added)

We bring to the attention of our readers the incisive analysis of Dr. Philip Giraldi pointing to the likelihood of a “False Flag’”.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 8, 2023, Above text updated on October 12, 2023

.



Part VI

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor?

But Who Actually Did What to Whom?

“This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

by

Dr Philip Giraldi

October 16, 2023

.

“As a former on-the-ground intelligence officer, I am somewhat convinced that this was likely more like a false flag operation rather than a case of institutional failure on the part of the Israelis.”

It’s amazing how America’s thought-controlled media is able to come up with a suitable narrative almost immediately whenever there is an international incident that might be subject to multiple interpretations.

***

Since 1948 Israel has expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes,

has occupied nearly all of the historic Palestine, has empowered its army to kill thousands of local people, and

has more recently established an apartheid regime that even denies that Palestinian Arabs are human in the same sense that Jews are.

Netanyahu-allied government minister Ayelet Shaked memorably has called for Israel not only to exterminate all Palestinian children, whom she has described as “little snakes,” but also to kill their mothers who gave birth to them.

But when the Arabs strike back against the hatred that confronts them with their limited resources it is Israel that is described as the victimand the Palestinians who are dehumanized and portrayed as the “terrorists.”

Media in the US and Europe were quick to label the Hamas offensive breaching the formidable Israeli border defenses as “Israel’s 9/11” or even “Israel’s Pearl Harbor” to establish the context that the Israelis have been on the receiving end of an “unprovoked” attack by a cruel and heartless enemy.

Israel has responded to the attack with a heavy bombardment of Gaza that has destroyed infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, while also cutting off food supplies, water and electricity.

It has demanded that residents of north Gaza, all 1.1 million of them, evacuate to make way for a possible ground offensive but there is nowhere to go as all the borders are closed, and the United Nations is calling it a demand with “devastating humanitarian consequences.” Journalist Peter Beinart has commented “This is a monstrous crime. It’s happening in plain view, with US support.”

And the United States government is indeed typically on the same page as Israel. President Joe Biden, citing fabricated stories about dead Jewish babies, speaks of how Israel has a “duty” to defend itself, while the Palestinians somehow have no right to protect themselves at all, much less to rise up against their persecutors in a struggle for freedom.

And Washington has also unhesitatingly chosen to directly involve itself in the conflict, completely on the side of the Jewish state, asserting repeatedly that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and telling the Israelis that “we have your back” while also dispatching two aircraft carrier groups to the scene of the fighting as well as the 101st Airborne to Jordan and increasing the readiness of Marines stationed in Kuwait.

The White House could have taken more aggressive steps to encourage a ceasefire and talks but has chosen instead to issue essentially toothless calls to let the trapped civilians escape while also backing a devastating Israeli military response.



US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X

Israel is also hosting the worthless and brain dead Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who will be providing advice along the lines of his insightful comment that Hamas is “evil” and “worse than ISIS.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken is already in Jerusalem, announcing that the US is there to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity government “as long as America exists” after first saying “I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.”

Blinken’s explicit association of his personal religion with his official role as a representative of the US government makes clear that a key element in why he is there is because he is “a Jew.” Perhaps he should recuse himself from policy making involving Israel as being “a Jew” would not appear to be a United States national interest and is likely to produce irrational responses to developing situations.

If all of this sounds a lot like Ukraine it should, except that in Ukraine the US and NATO are fighting against Russia, which is being demonized for occupying what is claimed Ukrainian territory, whereas in Palestine they are supporting the occupier of actual Palestinian territory, Israel.

Funny thing that, and the word “hypocrisy” comes immediately to mind. As it turns out, however, I am somewhat on the same page as much of the media, agreeing that the Hamas incursion is something like 9/11, though I am sure that my take would not be found acceptable to the CNN Jake Tappers of this world.

My thinking is that Israel knew in advance about 9/11 in the United States due to its extensive spying network and chose not to share the information because it was to their advantage not to do so.

Indeed, a pleased Netanyahu even stated several years later that “9/11 was a good thing because it made the United States join us in our fight.”

That the attacks killed 3,000 Americans did not bother the Israeli government as Israel has a long history of killing Americans when it can benefit from so doing, starting with the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 which killed 34 sailors.

So too in this case in Gaza, Netanyahu may have decided to encourage an unexpected development, making it like 9/11, that would enable him to escalate and “mow the grass” as the Israelis put it, in the remainder of Arab Palestine.

And bear in mind that the actual incident that triggered the uprising was a rampage involving at least 800 Israeli settlers in and around the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, beating pilgrims and destroying Palestinian shops, all without any interference from the nearby Israeli security forces. The rioting was clearly allowed and even encouraged by the government.

Drawing on my experience as a former on-the-ground intelligence officer, I am somewhat convinced that this was likely more like a false flag operation rather than a case of institutional failure on the part of the Israelis.

Israel had an extensive electronic and physical wall backed by soldiers and weaponry that completely surrounded Gaza on the landward side, so effective that it was claimed that not even a mouse could get in.

The Mediterranean side of Gaza was also tightly controlled by the Israeli Navy and boats to and from Gaza were completely blocked.

Egypt tightly controlled the southern part of Gaza bordering on the Sinai. So Gaza was under 24/7 complete surveillance and control at all times. Israeli military intelligence also certainly had a network of recruited informants inside Gaza who would report on any training or movements, easy enough to do when you can approach people who are starving and make them an offer they cannot refuse just for providing information on what they see and hear.

And then there was a warning from the Egyptian government to Israel ten days before the Hamas attack, with Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally calling Netanyahu and sharing intelligence suggesting that the Gazans were likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation.” Other media accounts reveal how Hamas trained and practiced their maneuvers publicly. There were also assessments made by US intelligence, which were shared with Israel, suggesting that something was afoot. So, given all of the evidence, there likely was no intelligence failure to anticipate and counter the Hamas attack but rather a political decision made by the Israeli government that knew what might be coming and chose to let it proceed to provide a casus belli to destroy Gaza, vowing that “Every member of Hamas is a dead man,” and then go on from there. And “from there” might well include Lebanon, Syria and Iran, possibly with the assistance of the United States to do the heavy lifting. Iran in particular is already being blamed by the usual suspects as a party involved in the Hamas attack, so far without any evidence whatsoever, which is typical of how these stories evolve.

Image: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visits Al-Aqsa, 3 January (Social Media)



And Israel has moved far to the right politically to such an extent that it might appreciate a little ethnic cleansing to demonstrate its seriousness. Netanyahu and other senior government officials in his cabinet have recently been making passing references to a “developing security situation” in the country to justify the intensifying of the raids by the army against Palestinian towns and refugee camps. The new government in Israel has also placed police under the control of ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party head Itamar Ben-Gvir as National Security Minister. He has been exploiting his position to call in particular for a war to destroy Hamas in Gaza, which is precisely what is happening. Gaza might be of particular interest to Ben-Gvir and others as it uniquely shelters an armed and organized resistance in the form of Hamas, which, oddly, was founded with the support of Israel to split the Palestinian political resistance with Fatah controlling the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.

There is another issue relating to the recent fighting that one would like to know the answer to, namely how did Hamas get its weapons in the first place?

Some were clearly manufactured from parts and scrap but others were sophisticated and, as Gaza is blockaded on all sides, smuggling them in becomes problematical. One argument is that they were supplied by Iran and others to be brought in by tunnels, but the tunnels on two sides would end up in Israel and on the third side in Egypt. The fourth side is the Mediterranean Sea. So how did they arrive? Is there a possible triple or even quadruple cross taking place with different parties lying to each other? And should there be concerns that after the American armada arrives off the coast of Gaza there just might be some kind of false flag incident engineered by Netanyahu that will involve Washington directly in the fighting?

And there is what amounts to a related issue that should be of concern to everyone in the US and generically speaking the “Western world” where human rights are at least nominally respected. The message from almost all Western governments is that Israel has a carte blanche to do whatever it likes even when it involves war crimes to include mass forced displacement or genocide. In this case, the coordinated government-media response which is intended to protect Israel from any criticism almost immediately began circulating fabricated tales of atrocities while also delivering a hit on freedom of speech and association. President Biden, who should be trying to defuse the crisis, is instead adding fuel to the flames, saying of Hamas that “Pure, unadulterated evil has been unleashed on the earth!”

In Florida the arch Zionist stooge Governor Ron Desantis met with Jewish leaders in a synagogue to announce draconian measures against Iran to include sanctions on companies that are in any way linked to that country. One might point out that those businesses have done nothing wrong and Desantis also called for “eradication of Hamas from the earth.” His intellectual depth was at the same time revealed when he said the US should not take in any Gazan refugees because they are “antisemites.”

And in South Carolina, America’s favorite he/she Senator Lindsey Graham is calling for a US attack on Iran as well as declaring the war against Hamas to be “a religious war” and urging the Israeli army to invade Gaza and do “Whatever the hell you have to do to” to “level the place.”

And the Europeans are equally spineless in their deference to Israel. The Israeli president declared the that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, and not long after that top European Union representatives met with him to offer their unqualified support. Meanwhile in France, the spineless and feckless government of Emmanuel Macron has sought to outlaw any gathering that expresses support for Palestinian rights.

And in the UK, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman has proposed criminalizing any protest against Israeli actions or anything in support of Palestine to include banning any public display of the Palestinian national flag, which she regards as a “criminal offense toward the Jewish community in Britain.”

She has also said that “I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.” Berlin’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has also classified the use of the expression as a “criminal offense.” The manner in which most Western political elites are lining up unquestionably and even enthusiastically behind Israel and its craven leaders’ desire for bloody vengeance is truly shocking but comes as no surprise.

Beyond the issue of Gaza itself, some in Israel are arguing that Netanyahu has personally benefitted from the unrest through the creation of the national unity government which has ended for the time being the huge demonstrations protesting his judicial reform proposals. If all of this comes together politically as it might in the next several weeks, we could be seeing the initial steps in what will develop into the complete ethnic cleansing of what was once Palestine, in line with Netanyahu’s assertion that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel.” So all of the former Palestine is now a land to be defined by its Jewishness where Jews are in full control and are free to do whatever they want without any objection, referred to by the Israeli government as “an exclusive right to self-determination.” And it has all possibly been brought to fruition by the enablement provided by the current developments in Gaza.

The original source of Dr. Giraldi’s October 16, 2023 article.

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

By Philip Giraldi, October 16, 2023

***

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/is-the-gaza-israel-fighting-a-false-flag-they-let-it-happen-their-objective-is-to-wipe-gaza-off-the-map/5835310

https://donshafi911iamthefaceoftruth.blogspot.com/2024/08/is-gaza-israel-fighting-false-flag-they.html

Update – Iran: “HAMAS’ LEADER MURDERED with US APPROVAL”. Killing just after Mossad-CIA Summit…
Fabio G. C. CarisioAugust 4, 2024

Screenshot
VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel

$ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.

In the cover image, CIA Director William Burns, Mossad Chief Davide Barnea and Iranian Intelligence Minister Ismail Khatib

by Carlo Domenico Cristofori

VERSIONE IN ITALIANO

«Iran’s intelligence minister says the Israeli regime’s assassination of senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran was carried out with Washington’s approval. Ismail Khatib made the remarks on Friday in a message of condolence that he issued on the occasion of Haniyeh’s martyrdom». This is reported by the website of the Iranian television PRESS TV.

The assassination claimed the lives of Haniyeh, the Palestinian resistance movement’s Political Bureau chief, and one of his bodyguards in the Iranian capital on Wednesday. The resistance leader was in the city to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran: “Gaza School MASSACRE latest outcome of US Unconditional SUPPORT for Israel”

The Summit between Mossad and CIA in Rome before the Attack

The attack was apparently planned for some time with a device placed “about two months ago” in a sort of fortress managed by the Pasdaran (the Islamic Revolutionary Guards). The revelation comes from the New York Times based on several testimonies from Iranian officials and members of the American intelligence, obviously all covered by anonymity.

But an informed source dismissed a report by The New York Times on the details of assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Speaking to Tasnim on Saturday, the informed source said the story run by The New York Times on August 1, which claimed that Haniyeh has been assassinated by an explosive device covertly smuggled into his residence in Tehran, is “riddled with lies”, another episode of the “psychological operation” by the Zionists, and void of news values.


Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas political leader killed
Indeed, in a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC reported that the attack involved the use of a short-range projectile armed with a warhead weighing approximately seven kilograms, which subsequently caused a massive explosion.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Hamas resistance movement, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Iranian capital Tehran, was designed and executed by Israel, with support from the US administration.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pointed out that the US was not “informed” or “involved” in the assassination. But now he is being denied by an important representative of the Iranian government.

HAMAS VIOLENCE vs ISRAELI WAR CRIMES. Partisan-Terrorists Loved by Gaza, Zionists Shielded by Hague ICC & US

The accusation – which has yet to be proven – takes on extremely weighty relevance in light of the summit of American and Israeli intelligence held in Rome on Sunday 28 July which should have served to negotiate a truce but, after the killing of the political leader of Hamas and that of the alleged one of military leader Mohamed Dief (denied by the Palestinians), every margin of agreement fell through according to a strategy adopted several times by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose sole objective is to exterminate the population of the Gaza Strip to wipe Palestine off the face of the earth.

PARIS 2024: First Olympic Games to Celebrate a GENOCIDE. Israeli Athletes protected from Attacks, Russian ones Banned from the Parade

It would not be the first time that secret agents of the Mossad and those of the Central Intelligence Agency of Langley (Virginia) have made secret agreements before destabilizing military actions, as happened for the release of the caliph founder of ISIS Al Baghdadi, considered by the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi), a 007 at the service of the Zionist regime and the USA.

It should also be remembered that the failure of Tel Aviv’s intelligence was the subject of a legal action undertaken by 42 survivors of the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, repeatedly announced by official Egyptian sources.

Update – INTEL DROP by CIA ex Agent: Hamas-Israel Fighting, likelihood “False Flag” to Wipe Gaza Off the Map. Warnings by Egypt Ignored

The summit held in the Italian capital ended on Sunday evening and around the table sat the head of the Mossad David Barnea, the director of the CIA William Burns, the Prime Minister of Qatar Mohammed Al-Thani and the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamal. The topic at the center of the discussion is the development in the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza, after Israel on Saturday presented the United States with its “updated” proposal for a truce and hostage release deal.

Zionists’ Kids-Genocide as Never in the Wars! Jew US Senator: “Is not Antisemitism to Point out the Racist Netanyahu Govt Killings’

The proposal contained the conditions raised by Netanyahu, including, Axios writes, a foreign mechanism to monitor and prevent the movement of Palestinian weapons and militants from southern Gaza to the north, without specifying how it would work or who would be responsible, maintaining Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border, and changes to where IDF forces will redeploy in the Strip in the first phase of the deal, which will remain in the Philadelphia Corridor.

The Israeli prime minister’s office, after the meeting, said that “the parties discussed the clarifying document submitted by Israel regarding the proposed agreement. Negotiations on the main issues will continue in the coming days.”

ANGER ALSO IN EGYPT FOR ISRAELI GENOCIDE IN GAZA. Exclusive Interview with an Egyptian Journalist

Iran: “The assassination once again put the Zionist regime’s bestial nature”

But the attack on the political leader of Hamas has thwarted any dialogue.

“Martyr Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination took place at the hands of the usurping Zionists with the United States’ greenlight. The assassination once again put the Zionist regime’s bestial nature on display” Iran’s intelligence minister Ismail Khatib added.

«Throughout decades, Washington has unexceptionally defended the regime against punitive international measures, served as its biggest arms purveyor, and provided it with close intelligence cooperation toward both protecting it and facilitating its desired atrocities», pointed out PRESS TV.

US Exploited ‘Loophole’ to Sell Weapons to Israel – Report

Former Lebanese MP: “Attacks decided by Netanyahu”

A former Lebanese lawmaker says Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to the US featured coordination between Tel Aviv and Washington concerning assassination operations against senior resistance figures.

HEZBOLLAH ANNUNCIA GUERRA CONTRO ISRAELE, CASCHI BLU ITALIANI IN PERICOLO IN LIBANO. Analisi dell’ex Militare Reduce da 2 Missioni a Beirut

Naser Kandeel made the remarks in a post on X on Wednesday, referring to last week’s visit to Washington by the Israeli prime minister, followed shortly thereafter in Beirut by the Israeli army’s assassination of Fuad Shukr, a high-ranking commander of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

“The outcome of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington: Coordinating the assassination operations of leaders between American and Israeli intelligence,” Kandeel wrote.

MAIN SOURCES

PRESS TV

PRESS TV

42 Survivors of the Nova Rave Massacre sue Israeli Defense Establishment for Negligence

AL BAGHDADI: ISIS CALIPH AND MOSSAD-CIA AGENT HIDDEN BY US

ISIS claims for Terrorist Bombings in Iran. The Shadow of Usual MOSSAD-CIA Plot in favor of the Warlords

Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal.

His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…

Most popolar investigation on VT is:

Rumsfeld Shady Heritage in Pandemic: GILEAD’s Intrigues with WHO & Wuhan Lab. Bio-Weapons’ Tests with CIA & Pentagon

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.

For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.

With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.

In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.

In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates

His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others

He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.

VETERANS TODAY OLD POSTS

www.gospanews.net/

ATTENTION READERS

We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed
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https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/08/iran-hamas-leader-assasinated-with-us-approval-killing-just-after-mossad-cia-summit/

Surveillance Capitalism and PsyWar
Explanation of the central business model of Google, Facebook, and most social media

Robert W Malone MD, MS

Surveillance capitalism is a novel economic system that has emerged in the digital era. It is characterized by the unilateral claim of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. In this version of capitalism, predicting and influencing behavior (political and economic) rather than producing goods and services is the primary product. This economic logic prioritizes extracting, processing, and trading personal data to predict and influence human behavior by exploiting those predictions for various economic (marketing) and political objectives.

In many cases, surveillance capitalism merges with PsyWar tools and technologies to power the modern surveillance state, giving rise to a new form of Fascism (public-private partnerships) known as techno-totalitarianism. Leading corporations employing the surveillance capitalism business model include Google, Amazon and Facebook. Surveillance capitalism has now fused with the science and theory of psychology, marketing, and algorithmic manipulation of online information to give rise to propaganda and censorship capabilities that go far beyond those imagined by the twentieth-century predictions of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.

Key Features of Surveillance Capitalism

One-way mirror operations: Surveillance capitalists engineer operations to operate in secrecy, hiding their methods and intentions from users, who are unaware of the extent of data collection and analysis.

Instrumentation power: Surveillance capitalists wield power by designing systems that cultivate “radical indifference,” rendering users oblivious to their observations and manipulations.

Behavioral futures markets: The extracted data is traded in new markets, enabling companies to bet on users’ future behavior, generating immense wealth for surveillance capitalists.

Collaboration with the state: Surveillance capitalism often involves partnerships with governments, leveraging favorable laws, policing, and information sharing to further entrench its power.

Historical Development

Surveillance capitalism has its roots in the early days of the internet, when companies like Google and Facebook exploited the “ungoverned spaces” of the digital realm. The dot-com bust, the success of Apple’s consumer-centric approach, and the surveillance-friendly environment created by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA’s investments in the “war on terror” all contributed to the rise of surveillance capitalism.

Consequences

Loss of autonomy: Surveillance capitalism erodes individual autonomy as users are manipulated and influenced by algorithms designed to predict and shape their behavior.

Threat to democracy: The concentration of power in the hands of surveillance capitalists undermines democratic processes, as they use their influence to shape public opinion and policy.

Economic inequality: The wealth generated by surveillance capitalism exacerbates economic inequality, as those who own and control the data and algorithms reap the benefits while users are exploited as free commodities.

Resistance and Reform

To counter surveillance capitalism, it is essential to:

Promote transparency and accountability: Demand greater openness about data collection and processing practices and mechanisms for users to exercise control over their data.

Regulate surveillance capitalism: Establish robust regulations to limit the power of surveillance capitalists, protect user rights, and promote fair competition.

Foster alternative economic models: Encourage the development of alternative economic systems that prioritize human well-being, autonomy, and democracy over profit and surveillance.


Shoshana Zuboff

“Surveillance Capitalism unilaterally claims our private human experience as a free source of raw material for its own production processes. It translates our experience into behavioral data. Those behavioral data are then combined with its advanced computation capabilities, what people today refer to as AI machine intelligence. Out of that black box come predictions about our behavior, what we will do now, soon and later. Turns out there are a lot of businesses that want to know what we will do in the future, and so these have constituted a new kind of marketplace, a marketplace that trades exclusively in behavioral futures, in our behavioral futures. That's where surveillance capitalists make their money. That's where the big pioneers of this economic logic, like Google and Facebook have become so wealthy by selling predictions of our behavior first to online targeted advertisers, and now of course, these business customers range across the entire economy, no longer confined to that original context of online targeted advertising.

All of this is conducted in secret. All of this is conducted through the social relations of the One-Way mirror. Ergo surveillance, the vast amounts of capital that have been accumulated here are trained to create these systems in a way that keeps us ignorant. Specifically the data scientists write about their methods in a way that brags about the fact that these systems bypass our awareness so that they bypass our rights to say yes or no. I want to participate, or I don't want to participate. I want to contest, or I don't want to contest. I want to fight, or I don't want to fight. All of that is bypassed. We are robbed of the right to combat because we are engineered into ignorance. We saw these same methods being used by Cambridge Analytica with those revelations a year ago with only a tiny difference. All they did was take these same every day routine methods of surveillance, capitalism, pivot them just a couple of degrees toward political outcomes rather than commercial outcomes, showing that they could use our data to intervene and influence our behavior, our real world behavior, and our real world thinking and feeling in order to change political outcomes.”



Publication scheduled for end of September 2024. Pre-purchase link here.


Per Wikipedia

Surveillance capitalism is a concept in political economics which denotes the widespread collection and commodification of personal data by corporations. This phenomenon is distinct from government surveillance, although the two can be mutually reinforcing. The concept of surveillance capitalism, as described by Shoshana Zuboff, is driven by a profit-making incentive, and arose as advertising companies, led by Google's AdWords, saw the possibilities of using personal data to target consumers more precisely.[1]

Increased data collection may have various benefits for individuals and society, such as self-optimization (the quantified self),[2] societal optimizations (e.g., by smart cities) and optimized services (including various web applications). However, as capitalism focuses on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and data processing,[2] this can have significant implications for vulnerability and control of society, as well as for privacy.

The economic pressures of capitalism are driving the intensification of online connection and monitoring, with spaces of social life opening up to saturation by corporate actors, directed at making profits and/or regulating behavior. Therefore, personal data points increased in value after the possibilities of targeted advertising were known.[3] As a result, the increasing price of data has limited access to the purchase of personal data points to the richest in society.[4]

Shoshana Zuboff writes that "analyzing massive data sets began as a way to reduce uncertainty by discovering the probabilities of future patterns in the behavior of people and systems.[5] In 2014, Vincent Mosco referred to marketing information about customers and subscribers to advertisers as surveillance capitalism and made note of the surveillance state alongside it.[6] Christian Fuchs found that the surveillance state fuses with surveillance capitalism.[7]

Similarly, Zuboff informs that the issue is further complicated by highly invisible collaborative arrangements with state security apparatuses. According to Trebor Scholz, companies recruit people as informants for this type of capitalism.[8] Zuboff contrasts the mass production of industrial capitalism with surveillance capitalism, where the former is interdependent with its populations, who are its consumers and employees, and the latter preys on dependent populations, who are neither its consumers nor its employees and largely ignorant of its procedures.[9]

Their research shows that the capitalist addition to the analysis of massive amounts of data has taken its original purpose in an unexpected direction.[1] Surveillance has been changing power structures in the information economy, potentially shifting the balance of power further from nation-states and towards large corporations employing the surveillance capitalist logic.[10]

Zuboff notes that surveillance capitalism extends beyond the conventional institutional terrain of the private firm, accumulating not only surveillance assets and capital but also rights, and operating without meaningful mechanisms of consent.[9] In other words, analyzing massive data sets was at some point executed not only by the state apparatuses but also by companies. Zuboff claims that both Google and Facebook have invented surveillance capitalism and translated it into "a new logic of accumulation".[1][11][12]

This mutation resulted in both companies collecting many data points about their users, with the core purpose of making a profit. Selling these data points to external users (particularly advertisers) has become an economic mechanism. The combination of the analysis of massive data sets and the use of these data sets as a market mechanism has shaped the concept of surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism has been heralded as the successor to neoliberalism.[13][14]

Oliver Stone, creator of the film Snowden, pointed to the location-based game Pokémon Go as the "latest sign of the emerging phenomenon and demonstration of surveillance capitalism". Stone criticized that the location of its users was used not only for game purposes, but also to retrieve more information about its players. By tracking users' locations, the game collected far more information than just users' names and locations: "it can access the contents of your USB storage, your accounts, photographs, network connections, and phone activities, and can even activate your phone, when it is in standby mode". This data can then be analyzed and commodified by companies such as Google (which significantly invested in the game's development) to improve the effectiveness of the targeted advertisements.[15][16]

Another aspect of surveillance capitalism is its influence on political campaigning. Personal data retrieved by data miners can enable various companies (most notoriously Cambridge Analytica) to improve the targeting of political advertising, a step beyond the commercial aims of previous surveillance capitalist operations. In this way, it is possible that political parties will be able to produce far more targeted political advertising to maximize its impact on voters. However, Cory Doctorow writes that the misuse of these data sets "will lead us towards totalitarianism".[17]This may resemble a corporatocracy, and Joseph Turow writes that "the centrality of corporate power is a direct reality at the very heart of the digital age".[2][18]: 17 

The terminology "surveillance capitalism" was popularized by Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff.[19]: 107  In Zuboff's theory, surveillance capitalism is a novel market form and a specific logic of capitalist accumulation. In her 2014 essay A Digital Declaration: Big Data as Surveillance Capitalism, she characterized it as a "radically disembedded and extractive variant of information capitalism" based on commodifying "reality" and transforming it into behavioral data for analysis and sales.[20][21][22][23]

In a subsequent article in 2015, Zuboff analyzed the societal implications of this mutation of capitalism. She distinguished between "surveillance assets", "surveillance capital", and "surveillance capitalism" and their dependence on a global architecture of computer mediation that she calls "Big Other", a distributed and largely uncontested new expression of power that constitutes hidden mechanisms of extraction, commodification, and control that threatens core values such as freedom, democracy, and privacy.[24][2]

According to Zuboff, surveillance capitalism was pioneered by Google and later Facebook, just as mass-production and managerial capitalism were pioneered by Ford and General Motors a century earlier, and has now become the dominant form of information capitalism.[9] Zuboff emphasizes that behavioral changes enabled by artificial intelligence have become aligned with the financial goals of American internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon.[19]: 107 

In her Oxford University lecture published in 2016, Zuboff identified the mechanisms and practices of surveillance capitalism, including producing "prediction products" for sale in new "behavioral futures markets." She introduced the concept of "dispossession by surveillance", arguing that it challenges the psychological and political bases of self-determination by concentrating rights in the surveillance regime. This is described as a "coup from above."[25]

Zuboff's book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism[26] is a detailed examination of the unprecedented power of surveillance capitalism and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control human behavior.[26] Zuboff identifies four key features in the logic of surveillance capitalism and explicitly follows the four key features identified by Google's chief economist, Hal Varian:[27]

The drive toward more and more data extraction and analysis.

The development of new contractual forms using computer-monitoring and automation.

The desire to personalize and customize the services offered to users of digital platforms.

The use of the technological infrastructure to carry out continual experiments on its users and consumers.

Zuboff compares demanding privacy from surveillance capitalists or lobbying for an end to commercial surveillance on the Internet to asking Henry Ford to make each Model T by hand and states that such demands are existential threats that violate the basic mechanisms of the entity's survival.[9]

Zuboff warns that principles of self-determination might be forfeited due to "ignorance, learned helplessness, inattention, inconvenience, habituation, or drift" and states that "we tend to rely on mental models, vocabularies, and tools distilled from past catastrophes," referring to the twentieth century's totalitarian nightmares or the monopolistic predations of Gilded Age capitalism, with countermeasures that have been developed to fight those earlier threats not being sufficient or even appropriate to meet the novel challenges.[9]

She also poses the question: "will we be the masters of information, or will we be its slaves?" and states that "if the digital future is to be our home, then it is we who must make it so".[28]

Zuboff discusses the differences between industrial capitalism and surveillance capitalism in her book. Zuboff writes that as industrial capitalism exploits nature, surveillance capitalism exploits human nature.[29]

Zuboff, Shoshana (January 2019). "Surveillance Capitalism and the Challenge of Collective Action". New Labor Forum. 28 (1): 10–29. doi:10.1177/1095796018819461. ISSN 1095-7960. S2CID 159380755.

^ Jump up to:a b c d Couldry, Nick (23 September 2016). "The price of connection: 'surveillance capitalism'". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 20 May 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1 June 2018), Data analytics and big data: chapter 5: Data analytics process:there's great work behind the scenes, pp. 77–99, doi:10.1002/9781119528043.ch5, ISBN 978-1-119-52804-3, S2CID 243896249

^ Jump up to:a b Cadwalladr, Carole (20 June 2019). "The Great Hack". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2020.

^ Zuboff, Shoshana; Möllers, Norma; Murakami Wood, David; Lyon, David (31 March 2019). "Surveillance Capitalism: An Interview with Shoshana Zuboff". Surveillance & Society. 17 (1/2): 257–266. doi:10.24908/ss.v17i1/2.13238. ISSN 1477-7487.

^ Mosco, Vincent (17 November 2015). To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World. Routledge. ISBN 9781317250388. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ Fuchs, Christian (20 February 2017). Social Media: A Critical Introduction. SAGE. ISBN 9781473987494. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ Scholz, Trebor (27 December 2016). Uberworked and Underpaid: How Workers Are Disrupting the Digital Economy. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781509508181. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ Jump up to:a b c d e Zuboff, Shoshana (5 March 2016). "Google as a Fortune Teller: The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism". Faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ Galič, Maša; Timan, Tjerk; Koops, Bert-Jaap (13 May 2016). "Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation". Philosophy & Technology. 30: 9–37. doi:10.1007/s13347-016-0219-1.

^ Zuboff, Shoshana. "Shoshana Zuboff: A Digital Declaration". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2020.

^ "Shoshana Zuboff On surveillance capitalism". Contagious. Archived from the original on 6 February 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2020.

^ Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. p. 504-505, 519.

^ Sandberg, Roy (May 2020). "Surveillance capitalism in the context of futurology : an inquiry to the implications of surveillance capitalism on the future of humanity". Helsinki University Library. pp. 33, 39, 87. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2023.

^ "Comic-Con 2016: Marvel turns focus away from the Avengers, 'Game of Thrones' cosplay proposals, and more". Los Angeles Times. 24 July 2016. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ "Oliver Stone Calls Pokémon Go "Totalitarian"". Fortune. 23 July 2016. Archived from the original on 14 February 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ Doctorow, Cory (5 May 2017). "Unchecked Surveillance Technology Is Leading Us Towards Totalitarianism | Opinion". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2020.

^ Turow, Joseph (10 January 2012). The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth. Yale University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0300165012. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ Jump up to:a b Roach, Stephen (2022). Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives. Yale University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2z0vv2v. ISBN 978-0-300-26901-7. JSTOR j.ctv2z0vv2v. S2CID 252800309.

^ Zuboff, Shoshana (15 September 2014). "A Digital Declaration: Big Data as Surveillance Capitalism". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2018.

^ Powles, Julia (2 May 2016). "Google and Microsoft have made a pact to protect surveillance capitalism". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 May 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

Sterling, Bruce (March 2016). "Shoshanna Zuboff condemning Google "surveillance capitalism"". WIRED. Archived from the original on 14 January 2019. Retrieved 9 February 2017.

^ "The Unlikely Activists Who Took On Silicon Valley — and Won". New York Times. 14 August 2018. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2018.

^ Zuboff, Shoshana (4 April 2015). "Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization". Journal of Information Technology. 30 (1): 75–89. doi:10.1057/jit.2015.5. ISSN 0268-3962. S2CID 15329793. SSRN 2594754.

^ Zuboff, Shoshana (5 March 2016). "Google as a Fortune Teller: The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 28 August 2018.

^ Jump up to:a b Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610395694. OCLC 1049577294.

^ Varian, Hal (May 2010). "Computer Mediated Transactions". American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings. 100 (2): 1–10. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.216.691. doi:10.1257/aer.100.2.1.


For further information about the theory, practice, and implications of Surveillance Capitalism, I recommend reading the following book:



https://www.malone.news/p/surveillance-capitalism-and-psywar

How Big Tech Spawned Surveillance Capitalism
Robert Malone
Surveillance capitalism is a novel economic system that has emerged in the digital era. It is characterized by the unilateral claim of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. In this version of capitalism, predicting and influencing behavior (political and economic) rather than producing goods and services is the primary product. This economic logic prioritizes extracting, processing, and trading personal data to predict and influence human behavior by exploiting those predictions for various economic (marketing) and political objectives.

In many cases, surveillance capitalism merges with PsyWar tools and technologies to power the modern surveillance state, giving rise to a new form of Fascism (public-private partnerships) known as techno-totalitarianism. Leading corporations employing the surveillance capitalism business model include Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Surveillance capitalism has now fused with the science and theory of psychology, marketing, and algorithmic manipulation of online information to give rise to propaganda and censorship capabilities that go far beyond those imagined by the 20th-century predictions of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.

Key Features of Surveillance Capitalism

One-way mirror operations: Surveillance capitalists engineer operations to operate in secrecy, hiding their methods and intentions from users, who are unaware of the extent of data collection and analysis.
Instrumentation power: Surveillance capitalists wield power by designing systems that cultivate “radical indifference,” rendering users oblivious to their observations and manipulations.
Behavioral futures markets: The extracted data is traded in new markets, enabling companies to bet on users’ future behavior, generating immense wealth for surveillance capitalists.
Collaboration with the state: Surveillance capitalism often involves partnerships with governments, leveraging favorable laws, policing, and information sharing to further entrench its power.
Historical Development

Surveillance capitalism has its roots in the early days of the internet, when companies like Google and Facebook exploited the “ungoverned spaces” of the digital realm. The dot-com bust, the success of Apple’s consumer-centric approach, and the surveillance-friendly environment created by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA’s investments in the “war on terror” all contributed to the rise of surveillance capitalism.

Consequences

Loss of autonomy: Surveillance capitalism erodes individual autonomy as users are manipulated and influenced by algorithms designed to predict and shape their behavior.
Threat to democracy: The concentration of power in the hands of surveillance capitalists undermines democratic processes, as they use their influence to shape public opinion and policy.
Economic inequality: The wealth generated by surveillance capitalism exacerbates economic inequality, as those who own and control the data and algorithms reap the benefits while users are exploited as free commodities.
Resistance and Reform

To counter surveillance capitalism, it is essential to:

Promote transparency and accountability: Demand greater openness about data collection and processing practices and mechanisms for users to exercise control over their data.
Regulate surveillance capitalism: Establish robust regulations to limit the power of surveillance capitalists, protect user rights, and promote fair competition.
Foster alternative economic models: Encourage the development of alternative economic systems that prioritize human well-being, autonomy, and democracy over profit and surveillance.
Surveillance Capitalism unilaterally claims our private human experience as a free source of raw material for its own production processes. It translates our experience into behavioral data. Those behavioral data are then combined with its advanced computation capabilities, what people today refer to as AI machine intelligence. Out of that black box come predictions about our behavior, what we will do now, soon, and later. Turns out there are a lot of businesses that want to know what we will do in the future, and so these have constituted a new kind of marketplace, a marketplace that trades exclusively in behavioral futures, in our behavioral futures. That’s where surveillance capitalists make their money. That’s where the big pioneers of this economic logic, like Google and Facebook have become so wealthy by selling predictions of our behavior first to online targeted advertisers, and now of course, these business customers range across the entire economy, no longer confined to that original context of online targeted advertising.

All of this is conducted in secret. All of this is conducted through the social relations of the One-Way mirror. Ergo surveillance, the vast amounts of capital that have been accumulated here are trained to create these systems in a way that keeps us ignorant. Specifically the data scientists write about their methods in a way that brags about the fact that these systems bypass our awareness so that they bypass our rights to say yes or no. I want to participate, or I don’t want to participate. I want to contest, or I don’t want to contest. I want to fight, or I don’t want to fight. All of that is bypassed. We are robbed of the right to combat because we are engineered into ignorance. We saw these same methods being used by Cambridge Analytica with those revelations a year ago with only a tiny difference. All they did was take these same every day routine methods of surveillance capitalism, pivot them just a couple of degrees toward political outcomes rather than commercial outcomes, showing that they could use our data to intervene and influence our behavior, our real world behavior, and our real world thinking and feeling in order to change political outcomes.

Shoshana Zuboff

Per Wikipedia

Surveillance capitalism is a concept in political economics which denotes the widespread collection and commodification of personal data by corporations. This phenomenon is distinct from government surveillance, although the two can be mutually reinforcing. The concept of surveillance capitalism, as described by Shoshana Zuboff, is driven by a profit-making incentive, and arose as advertising companies, led by Google’s AdWords, saw the possibilities of using personal data to target consumers more precisely.[1]

Increased data collection may have various benefits for individuals and society, such as self-optimization (the quantified self),[2] societal optimizations (e.g., by smart cities), and optimized services (including various web applications). However, as capitalism focuses on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and data processing,[2] this can have significant implications for vulnerability and control of society, as well as for privacy.

The economic pressures of capitalism are driving the intensification of online connection and monitoring, with spaces of social life opening up to saturation by corporate actors, directed at making profits and/or regulating behavior. Therefore, personal data points increased in value after the possibilities of targeted advertising were known.[3] As a result, the increasing price of data has limited access to the purchase of personal data points to the richest in society.[4]

Shoshana Zuboff writes that “analyzing massive data sets began as a way to reduce uncertainty by discovering the probabilities of future patterns in the behavior of people and systems.[5] In 2014, Vincent Mosco referred to marketing information about customers and subscribers to advertisers as surveillance capitalism and made note of the surveillance state alongside it.[6] Christian Fuchs found that the surveillance state fuses with surveillance capitalism.[7]

Similarly, Zuboff informs that the issue is further complicated by highly invisible collaborative arrangements with state security apparatuses. According to Trebor Scholz, companies recruit people as informants for this type of capitalism.[8] Zuboff contrasts the mass production of industrial capitalism with surveillance capitalism, where the former is interdependent with its populations, who are its consumers and employees, and the latter preys on dependent populations, who are neither its consumers nor its employees and largely ignorant of its procedures.[9]

Their research shows that the capitalist addition to the analysis of massive amounts of data has taken its original purpose in an unexpected direction.[1] Surveillance has been changing power structures in the information economy, potentially shifting the balance of power further from nation-states and towards large corporations employing the surveillance capitalist logic.[10]

Zuboff notes that surveillance capitalism extends beyond the conventional institutional terrain of the private firm, accumulating not only surveillance assets and capital but also rights, and operating without meaningful mechanisms of consent.[9] In other words, analyzing massive data sets was at some point executed not only by the state apparatuses but also by companies. Zuboff claims that both Google and Facebook have invented surveillance capitalism and translated it into “a new logic of accumulation.”[1][11][12]

This mutation resulted in both companies collecting many data points about their users, with the core purpose of making a profit. Selling these data points to external users (particularly advertisers) has become an economic mechanism. The combination of the analysis of massive data sets and the use of these data sets as a market mechanism has shaped the concept of surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism has been heralded as the successor to neoliberalism.[13][14]

Oliver Stone, creator of the film Snowden, pointed to the location-based game Pokémon Go as the “latest sign of the emerging phenomenon and demonstration of surveillance capitalism.” Stone criticized that the location of its users was used not only for game purposes but also to retrieve more information about its players. By tracking users’ locations, the game collected far more information than just users’ names and locations: “It can access the contents of your USB storage, your accounts, photographs, network connections, and phone activities, and can even activate your phone, when it is in standby mode.” This data can then be analyzed and commodified by companies such as Google (which significantly invested in the game’s development) to improve the effectiveness of the targeted advertisements.[15][16]

Another aspect of surveillance capitalism is its influence on political campaigning. Personal data retrieved by data miners can enable various companies (most notoriously Cambridge Analytica) to improve the targeting of political advertising, a step beyond the commercial aims of previous surveillance capitalist operations. In this way, it is possible that political parties will be able to produce far more targeted political advertising to maximize its impact on voters. However, Cory Doctorow writes that the misuse of these data sets “will lead us towards totalitarianism.”[17] This may resemble a corporatocracy, and Joseph Turow writes that “the centrality of corporate power is a direct reality at the very heart of the digital age.”[2][18]: 17 

The terminology “surveillance capitalism” was popularized by Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff.[19]: 107  In Zuboff’s theory, surveillance capitalism is a novel market form and a specific logic of capitalist accumulation. In her 2014 essay A Digital Declaration: Big Data as Surveillance Capitalism, she characterized it as a “radically disembedded and extractive variant of information capitalism” based on commodifying “reality” and transforming it into behavioral data for analysis and sales.[20][21][22][23]

In a subsequent article in 2015, Zuboff analyzed the societal implications of this mutation of capitalism. She distinguished between “surveillance assets,” “surveillance capital,” and “surveillance capitalism” and their dependence on a global architecture of computer mediation that she calls “Big Other,” a distributed and largely uncontested new expression of power that constitutes hidden mechanisms of extraction, commodification, and control that threatens core values such as freedom, democracy, and privacy.[24][2]

According to Zuboff, surveillance capitalism was pioneered by Google and later Facebook, just as mass-production and managerial capitalism were pioneered by Ford and General Motors a century earlier, and has now become the dominant form of information capitalism.[9] Zuboff emphasizes that behavioral changes enabled by artificial intelligence have become aligned with the financial goals of American internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon.[19]: 107 

In her Oxford University lecture published in 2016, Zuboff identified the mechanisms and practices of surveillance capitalism, including producing “prediction products” for sale in new “behavioral futures markets.” She introduced the concept of “dispossession by surveillance,” arguing that it challenges the psychological and political bases of self-determination by concentrating rights in the surveillance regime. This is described as a “coup from above.”[25]

Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism[26] is a detailed examination of the unprecedented power of surveillance capitalism and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control human behavior.[26] Zuboff identifies four key features in the logic of surveillance capitalism and explicitly follows the four key features identified by Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian:[27]

The drive toward more and more data extraction and analysis.
The development of new contractual forms using computer-monitoring and automation.
The desire to personalize and customize the services offered to users of digital platforms.
The use of the technological infrastructure to carry out continual experiments on its users and consumers.
Zuboff compares demanding privacy from surveillance capitalists or lobbying for an end to commercial surveillance on the Internet to asking Henry Ford to make each Model T by hand and states that such demands are existential threats that violate the basic mechanisms of the entity’s survival.[9]

Zuboff warns that principles of self-determination might be forfeited due to “ignorance, learned helplessness, inattention, inconvenience, habituation, or drift” and states that “we tend to rely on mental models, vocabularies, and tools distilled from past catastrophes,” referring to the 20th century’s totalitarian nightmares or the monopolistic predations of Gilded Age capitalism, with countermeasures that have been developed to fight those earlier threats not being sufficient or even appropriate to meet the novel challenges.[9]

She also poses the question: “Will we be the masters of information, or will we be its slaves?” and states that “if the digital future is to be our home, then it is we who must make it so.”[28]

Zuboff discusses the differences between industrial capitalism and surveillance capitalism in her book. Zuboff writes that as industrial capitalism exploits nature, surveillance capitalism exploits human nature.[29]

References

Zuboff, Shoshana (January 2019). “Surveillance Capitalism and the Challenge of Collective Action.” New Labor Forum. 28 (1): 10–29. doi:10.1177/1095796018819461. ISSN 1095-7960. S2CID 159380755.
^ Jump up to:a b c d Couldry, Nick (23 September 2016). “The price of connection: ‘surveillance capitalism.'” The Conversation. Archived from the original on 20 May 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1 June 2018), Data analytics and big data: chapter 5: Data analytics process:there’s great work behind the scenes, pp. 77–99, doi:10.1002/9781119528043.ch5, ISBN 978-1-119-52804-3, S2CID 243896249
^ Jump up to:a b Cadwalladr, Carole (20 June 2019). “The Great Hack.” The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
^ Zuboff, Shoshana; Möllers, Norma; Murakami Wood, David; Lyon, David (31 March 2019). “Surveillance Capitalism: An Interview with Shoshana Zuboff.” Surveillance & Society. 17 (1/2): 257–266. doi:10.24908/ss.v17i1/2.13238. ISSN 1477-7487.
^ Mosco, Vincent (17 November 2015). To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World. Routledge. ISBN 9781317250388. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ Fuchs, Christian (20 February 2017). Social Media: A Critical Introduction. SAGE. ISBN 9781473987494. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ Scholz, Trebor (27 December 2016). Uberworked and Underpaid: How Workers Are Disrupting the Digital Economy. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781509508181. Archivedfrom the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ Jump up to:a b c d e Zuboff, Shoshana (5 March 2016). “Google as a Fortune Teller: The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism.” Faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ Galič, Maša; Timan, Tjerk; Koops, Bert-Jaap (13 May 2016). “Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation.” Philosophy & Technology. 30: 9–37. doi:10.1007/s13347-016-0219-1.
^ Zuboff, Shoshana. “Shoshana Zuboff: A Digital Declaration.” FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
^ “Shoshana Zuboff On surveillance capitalism.” Contagious. Archived from the original on 6 February 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
^ Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. p. 504-505, 519.
^ Sandberg, Roy (May 2020). “Surveillance capitalism in the context of futurology : an inquiry to the implications of surveillance capitalism on the future of humanity.” Helsinki University Library. pp. 33, 39, 87. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
^ “Comic-Con 2016: Marvel turns focus away from the Avengers, ‘Game of Thrones’ cosplay proposals, and more.” Los Angeles Times. 24 July 2016. Archivedfrom the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ “Oliver Stone Calls Pokémon Go “Totalitarian.” Fortune. 23 July 2016. Archived from the original on 14 February 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ Doctorow, Cory (5 May 2017). “Unchecked Surveillance Technology Is Leading Us Towards Totalitarianism | Opinion.” International Business Times. Archivedfrom the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
^ Turow, Joseph (10 January 2012). The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth. Yale University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0300165012. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ Jump up to:a b Roach, Stephen (2022). Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives. Yale University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2z0vv2v. ISBN 978-0-300-26901-7. JSTOR j.ctv2z0vv2v. S2CID 252800309.
^ Zuboff, Shoshana (15 September 2014). “A Digital Declaration: Big Data as Surveillance Capitalism.” FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
^ Powles, Julia (2 May 2016). “Google and Microsoft have made a pact to protect surveillance capitalism.” The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 May 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
Sterling, Bruce (March 2016). “Shoshanna Zuboff condemning Google “surveillance capitalism.” WIRED. Archived from the original on 14 January 2019. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
^ “The Unlikely Activists Who Took On Silicon Valley — and Won.” New York Times. 14 August 2018. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
^ Zuboff, Shoshana (4 April 2015). “Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization.” Journal of Information Technology. 30 (1): 75–89. doi:10.1057/jit.2015.5. ISSN 0268-3962. S2CID 15329793. SSRN 2594754.
^ Zuboff, Shoshana (5 March 2016). “Google as a Fortune Teller: The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism.” FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
^ Jump up to:a b Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610395694. OCLC 1049577294.
^ Varian, Hal (May 2010). “Computer Mediated Transactions.” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings. 100 (2): 1–10. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.216.691. doi:10.1257/aer.100.2.1.
Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

Robert W. Malone is a physician and biochemist. His work focuses on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research. You can find him at Substack and Gettr

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https://brownstone.org/articles/how-big-tech-spawned-surveillance-capitalism/