
United States will punish ICC
Well, as usual, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has finally received authorization to proceed with the investigation of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel-Palestine, to include both the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and also Hamas in Gaza....
Read MoreThe revelation that a leftwing journalist, Nathan J Robinson, has been sacked as a Guardian US columnist for criticising Israel on Twitter – and that he was pressured to keep quiet about it by Guardian editors – should come as no surprise. He is only the latest in a long line of journalists, myself included,...
Read MoreSocialist writer Nathan J. Robinson, a fixture in the Bernie Sanders movement, has been fired from his job at the "progressive" newspaper The Guardian after authoring tweets criticizing Congress for prioritizing military aid to Israel over COVID relief for struggling Americans. The Guardian prides itself as one of the most left-wing mainstream media outlets in...
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The malignant toad is dead
Casino magnate and Israeli patriot multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of the world’s richest men, died in Las Vegas on January 11th at age 87. He had been suffering from cancer and has been buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Israel. When his body arrived in Israel it was met by Prime Minister Benjamin...
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The new US Senator from Georgia, a 33-year-old who received the most campaign donations for a Senate candidate in US history, began his political career in 2006 helping to defeat Georgia’s first Black woman to be elected to Congress. She had been targeted for removal by the Israel lobby… Jon Ossoff, the 33-year-old Democrat who...
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The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has run a fascinating long report this week offering a disturbing snapshot of the political climate rapidly emerging across Europe on the issue of antisemitism. The article documents a kind of cultural, political and intellectual reign of terror in Germany since the parliament passed a resolution last year equating support for...
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Netanyahu's every wish is granted
President Donald Trump’s gifts to Israel in the last few weeks of his administration are, quite frankly, incomprehensible based on any consideration that U.S. foreign policy should be reflective of American national and international interests. On the contrary, the nearly worldwide assessment of the United States as a completely rogue nation headed by someone who...
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Every village has its idiot, but in Sidon, they're all idiots, Ali informed me as we drove, again, through this gorgeous and mellow city. And they're cowards too, Ali added, chuckling. "They do not like to fight." "Maybe they're like that because this city is so beautiful." I wanted to say soft, but when speaking...
Read MoreI first met Robert in Belfast in 1972 at the height of the Troubles when he was the correspondent for The Times and I was writing a PhD on Irish history at Queen’s University. I was also taking my first tentative steps as a journalist, while he was swiftly establishing a reputation as a meticulous...
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"America is willing to sacrifice its young soldiers and national interests and even its economy for Israel," Gilad Atzmon, who was born in a Jewish family in Israel and grew up in Jerusalem al-Quds, tells the Tehran Times. * Atzmon, who now lives in Britain, also says, "Israeli pressure groups seem to believe that they...
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Much ado about nothing, but Act 2 is coming up
It is odd that the White House is gloating over its claimed peace agreement in the Middle East at the same time as one of the signatories is bombing Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. It all suggests that peace in the region will exclude designated enemies and the friends of those enemies, since the ties among...
Read MoreThe Trump administration, desperate for some good news, just manufactured its own news by confecting a ‘peace’ deal between Israel and a bunch of pipsqueak Arab monarchies - just in time for November US elections. The Gulf monarchies – the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain - that signed this agreement are so frightened of neighboring...
Read MoreHaving presided over the recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, President Donald Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize amid talk of peace breaking out across the region. Assuredly, this is a major diplomatic breakthrough, and Nancy's Pelosi's sour-grapes dismissal of the deal as a "distraction" testifies to that...
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Joe is a Zionist and Kamala panders to Jewish donors
Those of us who have longed for an end to America’s military engagement in the Middle East have hoped for a candidate who was not tied hand and foot to Israel, which is the root cause of the badly-broken and essentially pointless U.S. foreign policy in the region. But the real tragedy is that in...
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Another attack on free speech by the Jewish State
Israel’s defenders both in the political realm and in the media have long used every weapon available to stifle any criticism of Israeli racism and its oppression of the Palestinians. In particular, the use of “anti-Semitism” as something like a tactical discussion stopper in deliberations about the Middle East has long been a staple of...
Read MoreWhen the Palestinian actor Mohammed Bakri made a documentary about Jenin in 2002 – filming immediately after the Israeli army had completed rampaging through the West Bank city, leaving death and destruction in its wake – he chose an unusual narrator for the opening scene: a mute Palestinian youth. Jenin had been sealed off from...
Read MoreGreat for Trump but More Bad News for the Middle East
The decision made this week by the United Arab Emirates and Israel to establish full diplomatic relations as part of a commitment to normalize the interaction between the two countries was characteristically announced by President Donald Trump because he is, undoubtedly, the main beneficiary. With less than three months to go until the U.S. national...
Read MorePresident Donald Trump is cock-a-hoop over the United Arab Emirates becoming the first Arab Gulf state to normalise its relations with Israel. He needs all the good news he can get in the months before the US presidential election. “HUGE breakthrough today! Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends, Israel and the United Arab...
Read MoreDemonstrations have yet to draw a connection between Netanyahu’s personal abuses of office and the systemic corruption...
Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging. For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister,...
Read MoreThe Jewish National Fund, established more than 100 years ago, is perhaps the most venerable of the international Zionist organisations. Its recent honorary patrons have included prime ministers, and it advises UN forums on forestry and conservation issues. It is also recognised as a charity in dozens of western states. Generations of Jewish families, and...
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Violent demonstrations have broken out in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Thousands marched, dozens were arrested, but more citizens continued to arrive and join the protests. The people of the only Jewish state are upset and unhappy. They expected a better outcome from their fight with corona. Israel was the first state to implement a full...
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As the combined impact of the corona virus and the wholesale destruction of America’s history and culture, or at least the part of it that is white, continues, it is nice to see that other nations are getting into the game that will lead to the de facto elimination of western civilization. No one is...
Read MoreAn Anti-Defamation League memo obtained by Jewish Currents exposes an elaborate plot by the Zionist organization to enable Israel's coming illegal annexation of the West Bank. The main agenda is to snuff the opposition by controlling it. The ADL's public position on the annexation is to affirm support for a two-state solution and oppose the...
Read MoreAn Israeli diplomat filed a complaint last week with police after he was pulled to the ground in Jerusalem by four security guards, who knelt on his neck for five minutes as he cried out: “I can’t breathe.” There are obvious echoes of the treatment of George Floyd, an African-American killed by police in Minneapolis...
Read MoreIn the near-two decades since the International Criminal Court was set up to try the worst violations of international human rights law, it has faced harsh criticism for its highly selective approach to the question of who should be put on trial. Created in 2002, the court, it was imagined, would act as a deterrent...
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There is apparently no limit to what the United States and Israel can get away with without any consequences. The United States has been waging devastating economic warfare against Iran and Venezuela while also blaming China for a global health crisis that it is unwilling to help address due to its withdrawal from the World...
Read MorePalestinians worldwide have an annual day of remembrance called Nakba Day. Nakba comes from the Arabic al-Nakbah and means “disaster” or “catastrophe.” It takes place on May 15th, the day after the Gregorian calendar date for Israeli independence in 1948. It is an opportunity for a people who live largely in exile to recall what...
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Ambassador predicts a “deepening connection”
As the Beatles once put it, “I read the news today, oh boy…” One might argue that the “oh boy” has been part and parcel of one’s morning media review ever since 9/11, but depending on one’s own inclinations, the daily content might well be considered particularly depressing over the past several years. As regular...
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Israel will become much bigger
Rahm Emanuel, up until recently the mayor of Chicago and before that a top advisor to the president in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses and still earlier a volunteer in the Israeli Army, famously once commented that a good crisis should never be allowed to go to waste. He meant, of course,...
Read MoreLast month it was reported that scientists at the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) in Ness Ziona had developed a vaccine for COVID-19, though it still required clinical trials. Whatever the merits of this claim are, there are striking ethical, historic and public health reasons to reject any "cure" coming from the IIBR. The...
Read MoreThe Palestinians of Gaza know all about lockdowns. For the past 13 years, some two million of them have endured a closure by Israel more extreme than anything experienced by almost any other society – including even now, as the world hunkers down to try to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Israel has been carrying out...
Read MoreAyman Mohyeldin was an Egyptian reporter for al-Jazeera English who had covered dozens of major events in the Middle East for many American and other networks. His reputation was enormous, and his reporting on the Israeli assault on Gaza was such a stellar journalistic performance that NBC “aggressively pursued him to leave Al Jazeera, paying...
Read MoreTEL AVIV — Since the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it would investigate war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank last December, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been attempting to rally Israel’s allies in a multilateral effort to stop the ICC’s probe. Those efforts have now left Netanyahu...
Read MoreAfter lengthy delays, the United Nations finally published a database last week of businesses that have been profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement activity in the West Bank. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, announced that 112 major companies had been identified as operating in Israeli settlements in ways that violate human rights....
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No one is ever held accountable
One of the principal functions of a United States Embassy overseas is to provide citizen services, which includes coming to the assistance of Americans who are treated badly by the local government. It is a responsibility that most embassies take seriously, with the exception of the facility currently located in Jerusalem. One has to understand...
Read MoreNew allegations have surfaced claiming that Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet or Shabak, is engaged in the brutal torture of Palestinian detainees, despite the practice being against both Israeli and international law. The new accusations, deemed “very credible” by both Israeli and Palestinian rights groups, come amid a recorded spike in the use of...
Read MoreMaybe something good will come out of the Trump plan, after all. By pushing the Middle East peace process to its logical conclusion, Donald Trump has made crystal clear something that was supposed to have been obscured: that no US administration has ever really seen peace as the objective of its “peacemaking”. The current White...
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Palestinians lose again
Many interested parties have already weighed in on President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century.” Even though it sounds like a phrase that a used car dealer would use, the “Deal” is dead serious in that it effectively denies to the Palestinians in perpetuum any political entity that has attributes of genuine sovereignty. Israel, which...
Read MoreIn 1916, as World War I raged on, a British diplomat, Mark Sykes, met with his French counterpart from the Quai d’Orsay, Monsieur Picot, and signed an agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire once victory was achieved. The heart of the Mideast – Palestine, Syria and Iraq – was divided between Britain and France. Italy...
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Lies, damn lies and statistics Turns out that Trump and the Pentagon were lying. Again. This time about the true impact of the Iranian counter-strike on US forces in Syria. First they claimed that there were no injured U.S. personnel, only to eventually have to fess up that 34 soldiers had suffered traumatic brain injury...
Read MoreMuch of Donald Trump’s long-trailed “deal of the century” came as no surprise. Over the past 18 months, Israeli officials had leaked many of its details. The so-called “Vision for Peace” unveiled on Tuesday simply confirmed that the US government has publicly adopted the long-running consensus in Israel: that it is entitled to keep permanently...
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Senior BBC news reporter Orla Guerin has found herself in hot water of an increasingly familiar kind. During a report on preparations for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, she made a brief reference to Israel and an even briefer reference to the Palestinians. Her reporting coincided with...
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Everyone is doing it
One might think that 2019 was the year war was declared against anti-Semitism judging from the pronouncements of politicians in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin. To be sure, Israel and its diaspora friends have continued to play the “anti-Semitism” card whenever their behavior is challenged but the international passion to extirpate the “new anti-Semitism” to...
Read MoreThe year ended with two terrible setbacks for those seeking justice for the Palestinian people. One was the defeat in the British election of Jeremy Corbyn – a European leader with a unique record of solidarity with Palestinians. He had suffered four years of constant media abuse, recasting his activism as evidence of antisemitism. The...
Read MoreReports from Israeli press outlets this weekend show that the Jewish State fears the ICC’s (International Criminal Court) decision to move forward with an investigation into whether Israel committed war crimes in the Palestinian territories. Such a probe may expose current and former government officials and military personnel to prosecution on the global stage. The...
Read MoreIn Israel’s treatment of Occupied Palestine, Israel has been violating international law for decades. Under international law, an occupying power is not permitted to incorporate the occupied land into its own domain. However, Israel has persistently done so, evicting Palestinians from their homes, villages, and farm lands in order to build apartments for Jewish immigrants....
Read MoreIn his Farewell Address, of 1796 America’s first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that “…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one...
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Chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has not only misrepresented the known facts about Labour and its supposed antisemitism crisis. He has not only interfered in an overtly, politically partisan manner in the December 12 election campaign by suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn – against all evidence – is an antisemite. By speaking out as the voice of...
Read MoreThe decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on three separate criminal counts pushes the country’s already unprecedented electoral stalemate into the entirely uncharted territory of a constitutional crisis. There is no legal precedent for a sitting prime minister facing a trial – in Netanyahu’s case, for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Former...
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The Trump Administration again demonstrates its subservience to Israel
A story has been circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020. This is good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able to talk...
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