Illegal Israeli squatters seize over half a square kilometer of Palestinian land in Jordan Valley

PressTV

A number of Israeli settlers escorted by troops have confiscated a large area of Palestinian land in northern Jordan Valley in the West Bank despite the international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime's land expropriation policies in the occupied territories.

Local Palestinian media reports said on Monday that the group placed barbed wire and electric fence around more than 600 dunams (0.6 square kilometers) of Palestinian-owned land in Khillet al-Oqda and al-Sweideh areas of the valley, which comprises a third of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli troops have also installed surveillance cameras on the seized land.

The illegal Israeli land grab in the occupied Jordan Valley is a regular occurrence by the extremist settlers and the Israeli military.

The Palestinian territories are seized by the Tel Aviv regime under the contested Absentee Property Law, which paves the way for Israel to take over the property of Palestinians who have been forced from their homeland following the 1948 war. 

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2006 State Department Cable Reveals Plan To Use Terror, Intrigue, Kurds To Destabilize Syria, Weaken Assad

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Despite the bulk of the attempted destruction of Syria having taken place during the Obama administration, the fact is that the agenda began marching years before Obama took office and it is continuing to do so today. Ample evidence has been provided demonstrating that a plan to destroy the Syrian government goes back at least to the Bush Jr. administration and the desire to do so goes even further back than that.

One such piece of evidence is a secret State Department cable obtained by Wikileaks entitled “Influencing the SARG In The End Of 2006” which was distributed from the US embassy in Damascus to requisite officials in the Department of Treasury, National Security Council, White House, Secretary of State, League of Arab States, US Mission To European Union in Brussels, United Nations (NY), US Central Command, and Tel Aviv.

The entire cable was a discussion of a number of available strategies to bring about regime change in Syria and was written during 2006 under the Bush administration.

The cable takes a number of potentially exploitable conditions and expounds upon the realities of the situation, the vulnerabilities of the Syrian government and the “possible action” that can be taken to capitalize on the perceived weaknesses.

The cable begins by stating:

The SARG ends 2006 in a much stronger position domestically and internationally than it did 2005. While there may be additional bilateral or multilateral pressure that can impact Syria, the regime is based on a small clique that is largely immune to such pressure. However, Bashar Asad's growing self-confidence )- and reliance on this small clique -- could lead him to make mistakes and ill-judged policy decisions through trademark emotional reactions to challenges, providing us with new opportunities. For example, Bashar,s reaction to the prospect of Hariri tribunal and to publicity for Khaddam and the National Salvation Front borders on the irrational. Additionally, Bashar,s reported preoccupation with his image and how he is perceived internationally is a potential liability in his decision making process. We believe Bashar,s weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real, such as a the conflict between economic reform steps (however limited) and entrenched, corrupt forces, the Kurdish question, and the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists. This cable summarizes our assessment of these vulnerabilities and suggests that there may be actions, statements, and signals that the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising. These proposals will need to be fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities. Many of our suggestions underline using Public Diplomacy and more indirect means to send messages that influence the inner circle.

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5,000 feminists go on topless 'SlutWalk' in Tel Aviv in spirit of #MeToo

Comment: This is femininity in the 21st Century? Not for most people. And it seems Palestinians suffering under occupation is not as important.

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RT

SlutWalk demonstrators in Israel have taken to the streets to demand freedom from sexual harassment and shaming based on dress and behavior, and also for a justice system that better serves the needs of harassment victims.

"The word 'slut' is not just degrading to women, but it is also used by society and the system to justify rape," said Bracha Barad of the Kulan group, which organized Saturday's SlutWalk through central Tel Aviv, explaining the provocative name and outfits of the participants. "There is no connection whatsoever between sex and sexual violence and there is no connection between the victim's clothing or her sexual past and the attack she has undergone.

The mostly female crowd, estimated at between 2,000 and 5,000 by Israeli media outlets, brandished posters of public figures implicated in sexual assault allegations, such as ex-president Moshe Katsav, and chanted slogans like "No means no", "Silence doesn't mean consent", "Not your toy" and "Polite women don't make history."

The movement began in 2011, after a Toronto police official urged women not to "dress like sluts" in order to lessen the risk of sexual assaults, which many interpreted as victim-blaming, before resolving to reclaim the word 'slut' by making it a centerpiece of their protest.

Since then, dozens of similar walks have taken place all over the world, but the movement has been reinvigorated by the #MeToo scandal, which has once again brought focus not only on stories of abuse, but also how they were subsequently dealt with by those in power.  

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See also: Why I am Uneasy About the #MeToo Movement

#MeToo 'Trivializes And Blurs' Rape With Flirtation – Academic

Israel Is Blocking Access to Its Archives: “Israel Concealing Vital Records to Prevent Darkest Periods in its History from Coming to Light”

Jonathan Cook
Global Research

Israel is concealing vital records to prevent darkest periods in its history from coming to light, academics say 

Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country’s state archives move online.

They claim government officials are concealing vital records needed for historical research, often in violation of Israeli law, in an effort to avoid damaging Israel’s image.

The Israeli army has long claimed to be the “most moral” in the world.

Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks this week the 49th anniversary of the 1967 war, when it seized and occupied Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights.

Many of the records to which access is being denied refer to that war and the first years of Israel’s military rule over Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

Menachem Klein, a politics professor at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, said researchers needed such documents to gain a clearer picture of events half a century ago, the goals of policymakers, and human rights abuses. “We have gradually been able to expose some of what happened in 1948 [the war that established Israel], but there is still very little available to help us understand the 1967 war,” he told Al-Jazeera.

As part of its commemorations this week, the state archives published testimony by military commanders from 1967. However, local media noted that whole pages had been censored on “security grounds”.

Nonetheless, some of the declassified material was revealing. Uzi Narkiss, who headed the army’s central command at the time, suggested that he and other commanders hoped to ethnically cleanse most of the territories under cover of fighting. He told fellow officers: “Within 72 hours we’ll drive out all the Arabs from the West Bank.”

The campaign to open up Israel’s archives is being led by the Akevot Institute, a group of Israeli human rights activists, lawyers and researchers trying to document the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a new report, Point of Access, they note that only 1 percent of 400 million pages of documents have been made public.

Most of the files should have been accessible after 15 years, with the most top-secret documents locked away for up to 70 years. In many cases, Akevot says, the classified status of documents has expired, but they have still not been made public. Reasons for denial of access are rarely given.

In other instances, documents that were already declassified – some of them decades ago – have been re-sealed and are now unavailable.

Despite the mounting secrecy, historic war crimes are still coming to light.

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Israel defense chief quits, warns of "extremist" rise under Netanyahu

Reuters

 

Israel's defense minister resigned on Friday, saying the nation was being taken over by "extremist and dangerous elements" after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved to replace him with a far-right politician in an effort to strengthen his coalition.

Political sources say Netanyahu has offered long-time rival Avigdor Lieberman the defense portfolio, a post crucial for a country on a perennial war footing. The Defence Ministry also runs civil affairs in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians struggling for statehood live in friction with Jewish settlers.

"To my great regret, I have recently found myself in difficult disputes over matters of principle and professionalism with the prime minister, a number of cabinet members and some lawmakers," outgoing Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said, reading, grim-faced, from a statement at his Tel Aviv office.

"The State of Israel is patient and tolerant toward the weak among it and minorities ... But to my great regret extremist and dangerous elements have overrun Israel as well as the Likud party, shaking up our home and threatening harm to those in it," he said, hinting he might quit the ruling party.

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Who is the Enemy?

Thierry Meyssan
Voltairenet.org 

Everyone has an opinion to explain the massacres committed by the State of Israel in Gaza. While in the 70s and 80s, it was seen as a demonstration of Anglo-Saxon imperialism, many interpret it today as a conflict between Jews and Arabs. Reviewing the long period of history - four centuries -, Thierry Meyssan, a consultant to several governments, analyzes the origins of Zionism, its true ambitions and determines who the enemy is.

The war, which has continued uninterrupted for 66 years in Palestine, has taken a new turn with the Israeli operations named "Our Brother’s Keeper," followed by " Steadfast Rock " (translated strangely in the Western press as "Protective Border").

Clearly, Tel Aviv - having chosen to instrumentalize the disappearance of three young Israelis in order to launch these operations and "uproot Hamas" to exploit Gaza gas, according to the plan set out in 2007 by the current Minister of Defence [1] - was overwhelmed by the reaction of the Resistance. Islamic Jihad responded by sending medium range rockets, very difficult to intercept, which are added to those launched by Hamas.

The violence of the events, having already cost the lives of more than 1,500 Palestinians and 62 Israelis (but Israeli figures are subject to military censorship and probably reduced), has raised a wave of protests around the world. In addition to its 15 members, the Security Council, which met on July 22, opened the floor to 40 other states that intended to express their outrage at the behavior of Tel Aviv and its "culture of impunity". The session, instead of lasting the usual 2 hours, lasted 9 [2].

Symbolically, Bolivia declared Israel a "terrorist state" and repealed the agreement on free movement of which it was the object. But in general, statements of protest are not followed by military aid, with the exception of those of Iran and symbolically, Syria. Both support the Palestinian population through Islamic Jihad, the military wing of Hamas (but not its political wing, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood) and the PFLP-GC.

Unlike during precedents (operations "Cast Lead" in 2008 and "Column of Cloud" in 2012), the two states that protect Israel at the Council (the United States and the United Kingdom) have facilitated the development of a statement by the President of the Security Council highlighting Israel’s [3] humanitarian obligations. In fact, beyond the basic question of a conflict that has lasted since 1948, there is a consensus to condemn at least Israel’s disproportionate use of force.

However, this apparent consensus masks very different analyzes: some authors interpret the conflict as a religious war between Jews and Muslims; others see it as rather a political war in a classic colonial pattern. What are we to think?

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Israel Let US in on Plans to Destroy Gaza Economy in 2008 – Wikileaks

RIA

The US embassy in Tel Aviv had access to reliable information about Israel’s intention to keep Gazaeconomy functioning at the lowest possible level, Wikileaks website said on Monday, citing the US diplomatic document.

“Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis,” reads the document as quoted by Wikileaks.

A diplomatic dispatch was sent by the embassy to the US State and Treasury Departments on November 3, 2008.

In order to achieve its goals, Israeli government introduced a tight monetary policy in the Gaza Strip, cutting the financing of the enclave, as it considered Gaza a “hostile entity.”

A new portion of diplomatic leaks was published on the Wikileaks website amid a new round of ongoing confrontation between Israel and Hamas militants.

According to the documents, the United States was aware of Israel’s oppression ofPalestinian people, but took no action.

The Israel Defense Forces launched its Operation Protective Edge, its first military campaign since November 2012, in response to continued rocket attacks carried out by Palestinian militants.

On July 17, following days of fighting, Tel Aviv switched to a ground offensive to find and destroy the network of Hamas tunnels around the border area.

Psychopathic 'Morality': The Truth Behind the Kidnapping and Murder of 3 Israeli Teens

Joe Quinn 
sott.net

While much of the public was being distracted by news reports of the scoreline in the Germany-Brazil World Cup game, another, admittedly less important, high-scoring 'game' was playing out in Israel/Palestine. While Brazil lost 7 to 1 to Germany, so far, Palestinians losses to Israel are running at 100-0, with no end to the carnage in sight.

A week ago I expressed my suspicions about the timing of the kidnapping and murder of the three Israelis teens. Since then, more details have come to light that confirm that the kidnapping was most likely a carefully orchestrated Israeli government propaganda campaign designed to destroy the Fatah/Hamas unity government, demomize the Palestinians as 'terrorists', and, as always, give the psychopaths in Tel Aviv another opportunity to blow Palestinian women and children to pieces.

As clinical studies on the psychopathic mind make clear, psychopaths periodically experience a compelling drive to give vent to their destructive instincts. In the case of psychopaths in positions of power, this usually means some kind of 'war' where innocent civilians (aka 'non-combatants') are targeted for the most brutal suffering. In the specific case of the Israeli psychopathic 'elite', the psychological profile goes something like this:

Netanyahu and his ilk have a deep, almost unconscious desire to obliterate the Palestinians, to 'erase them from the pages of history', because the Palestinians stand in the way of them achieving their goal of a idealized Jewish state where they reign supreme. The Israeli/Zionist ideologues are frequently and privately enraged at the Palestinians because the Palestinians force the Zionists to struggle to find a way to achieve their racist goals without tarnishing their own self-image as 'seeking peace' 'defending the Jewish people' being 'the only Democracy in the Middle East' etc. To the psychopaths in Israel therefore, all Palestinians are 'evil', but there's a problem: the Palestinians are not evil and their cause is just by normal human standards.  

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'Israel under renewed Hamas attack', says the BBC. More balance is needed

The Guardian

"Israel under renewed Hamas attack": this was last night's BBC headline on the escalating bloodshed in Gaza. It is as perverse as Mike Tyson punching a toddler, followed by a headline claiming that the child spat at him. As Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Tel Aviv-based Israeli human rights activist, tweeted: "We are targeted by mostly shitty rockets. Gazans are being shelled with heavy bombs. We have shelters, sirens, Iron Dome. They have 0."

There is no defence for Hamas firing rockets into civilian areas, and as sirens wail in Israel, the fear among ordinary Israelis should not be ignored or belittled. But the media coverage hardly reflects the reality: a military superpower armed with F-15 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache helicopters, Delilah missiles, IAI Heron-1 drones and Jericho II missiles (and nuclear bombs, for that matter), versus what David Cameron describes as a "prison camp" firing almost entirely ineffective missiles. Twenty-seven Palestinians are reported to have died in Gaza - and, mercifully, no Israelis have been killed by Hamas rockets - and yet the BBC opts for the Orwellian "Israel under renewed Hamas attack".

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Massive rally swamps Tel Aviv

RT

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Tel-Aviv and across Israel to protest against economic injustice. The protest’s organizers are demanding that the Knesset rewrite the 2012 budget "taking into account the demands of the people."

The latest rally comes after a wave of social protests swept Israel over the summer and culminated in September, when half a million Israelis came out onto the streets. But since then, the movement has slowly died out as protesters returned to their daily lives. 

Israeli police say more than 30,000 people marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, and thousands more protested in Jerusalem.

As RT’s Paula Slier reports, many protesters are concerned that their story of social protest will be missed by the international community and media, which is now focused on unfolding events in Gaza.

In the past few hours, multiple rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel. Several people have been injured. It came as retaliation after Israeli aircraft struck Palestinian militants in southern Gaza on Saturday, killing five.

Due to the latest exchange of fire, a planned protest in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was canceled.

Paula Slier reports that people on the street say the timing of the Israeli airstrikes against Gaza is very convenient for the government, as it helps distract attention from Israel’s own domestic problems.

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Senior Israeli archaeologist casts doubt on Jewish heritage of Jerusalem

Middle East Monitor via sott.net

A senior archaeologist at Tel Aviv University has cast doubt on the alleged Jewish heritage of Jerusalem. Israel Finkelstein's claims have been made in the face of official Israeli and biblical claims to the occupied city.

Professor Finkelstein, who is known as "the father of biblical archaeology", told the Jerusalem Post that Jewish archaeologists have found no historical or archaeological evidence to back the biblical narrative on the Exodus, the Jews' wandering in Sinai or Joshua's conquest of Canaan. On the alleged Temple of Solomon, Finkelstein said that there is no archaeological evidence to prove it really existed.

According to Finkelstein's university colleague, archaeology lecturer Rafi Greenberg, Israel is supposed to find something if it digs for a period of six weeks. But, Greenberg told the Jerusalem Post, Israelis have been excavating the so-called City of David in the occupied Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan for two years to no avail.

Professor Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist who has worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed with Israel Finkelstein. He said that the right-wing Elad Association has not found anything "saying welcome to David's palace" although that was taken for granted by Elad, as if the group depended on scriptural texts to guide them in their work. [...]

What's Really Going On at the Israeli Institute for Biological Research?

uruknet.info/

Exposing Israel's Most Dangerous Secret

Drivers will only dart a glance at that mammoth structure nestled in the dunes south of Rishon Litsion southeast of Tel Aviv as they speed on their way. It is forbidden to turn off the Tel Aviv-Rishon Litsion highway onto the side road leading up to that building, which is barricaded by cement walls equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance and warning systems developed by Israel's military industries.

That fortress-like structure is the Israeli Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) where Israel develops its biological and chemical weapons and prepares for any eventuality of biological or chemical warfare. It is the most top-secret military installation in Israel. So tightly is it guarded by military censorship that the Israeli press has to turn to Western sources for scraps of information made available to them, very intermittently, by special contacts inside the institute.

Only once has the Israeli press been given leeway to discuss what goes on behind those high security walls. That was last month when Avisha Klein filed a suit against the IIBR administration for harassment and emotional abuse. A long-term employee at the institute, Klein has served in various positions, one of which was as part of a team to develop an ointment to protect the skin from mustard gas. But this is only one of the many details that have come to light in the course of the proceedings, which have shed considerable light on the nature and scope of the institute's work.

The IIBR is staffed by some 300 scientists and technicians employed in one or more of its many departments, each of which specialises in a specific area of chemical or biological research generally aimed at the production of chemical or biological weaponry. One of these departments, for example, is reported to have developed the poison that was used by the notorious Mossad assassination unit, Kidon, in its botched attempt to eliminate Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in 1997. Nevertheless, if there remains some question over the accuracy of this information, which was reported in Haaretz, no one disputes that the first time the institute's products were used in an assassination operation was in late 1977 when then prime minister Menachem Begin ordered Mossad to eliminate Wadie Haddad.

A leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Haddad was accused by Israel of responsibility for several terrorist operations, the last of which was the hijacking of an Israeli passenger plane en route to Entebbe in 1976. According to a recently published book by the Israeli journalist Aharon Klein, Haddad had a great fondness for Belgian chocolates. Mossad obtained some of these special chocolates, coated them with a slow-acting poison, and had them delivered to Haddad, who was then living in Baghdad, by an Iraqi official who was a Mossad agent and who had struck up a friendship with Haddad. Klein relates that the deadly substance was first developed in the IIBR and that its slow-acting and undetectable properties ensured that the agent and the instrument of death would not be discovered.

And indeed, following a gradual but severe deterioration in his health, Haddad was flown to a hospital in East Germany where he was diagnosed with leukaemia and eventually died on 28 March 1978. It was not until 32 years later that the truth came to light: that the real cause of death was a poison produced by IIBR.

It is not unlikely that Mossad conducted many assassination operations in this way, so as not to leave its fingerprints. In other words, the seemingly accidental deaths of many individuals that Israel regarded as a threat may have actually been caused by substances produced by IIBR. Most likely, the poison that Mossad agents injected into Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai in February 2010 came from IIBR.

According to information that has recently come out, the institute contains a department specialising in the production of vaccines against biological weapons. One of the chief focuses of research and development, here, was anthrax, which Israel fears the Arabs and resistance organisations will use against it in a confrontation. The institute also has a department for developing remedies to minimise and counter the effects of chemical weaponry. The whole presents a gruesome picture of a curious chemical and biological race, with the institute virtually competing with itself to produce antidotes to weapons that it, itself, is producing, or that it fears others will use against Israel in an eventual confrontation.

The IIBR works closely and in full coordination with the Israeli army and intelligence, which furnish the institute with their lists of priorities in light of their strategic threat forecasts. For example, information that has come to light during the coverage of Klein's suit reveals that many years ago the Israeli military establishment was concerned that Arab states might use such chemical agents as mustard gas in an potential assault against Israel and, therefore, instructed the institute to develop a chemical substance to minimise the effects of the gas. Not surprisingly, the institute coordinates closely with the Israeli army's medical corps, which receives the antidotes and distributes them to its branches in the military in accordance with demand.

The institute also works closely with Mossad and Shin Bet, the agencies primarily responsible for most of the assassination and liquidation operations against Arab and Muslim targets. Also, since Mossad and the military intelligence unit "Aman" are responsible for gathering enemy intelligence and presumably monitor nonconventional weapons programmes in Arab countries, they would instruct IIBR to develop the necessary biological or chemical responses to these programmes.

However, the IIBR has another purpose on top of developing and producing biological and chemical weapons and antidotes. It is also a major hard currency income-generator. The Hebrew Haaretz website reports: "The institute has received a grant of hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an anthrax vaccine." The grant followed an attack in the US by a home-grown terrorist group that developed a concentrated strain of anthrax spores and delivered them to several individual targets in US; the vaccines that IIBR was commissioned to develop were destined for use in the US.

More importantly, we learn from the website that Israeli soldiers have been used to test the vaccines, causing some permanent physical damage. Reports of the internationally banned use of human guinea pigs raised moral hackles in Israel and sharpened suspicions that the lives of Israeli soldiers had deliberately been put to risk for the sake of financial gain received for promoting the security of another country, namely the US in this case.

The IIBR has a live animals department, where rabbits, pigs, monkeys and other animals are used in experiments. And perhaps human beings as well, judging by the suits soldiers filed against the Israeli Ministry of Defence after they were used in the anthrax experiments. The soldiers demand that they be officially recognised as disabled veterans and receive compensation accordingly. The case remains in the courts, but the IDF, caving into pressure from the families of the soldiers and public opinion, recently announced that it would no longer conduct experiments on soldiers.

It was Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who ordered the construction of the IIBR on the basis of the advice of a number of Jewish scientists. Throughout his rule, from 1948 to 1963 (with the exception of the years 1953-1955 when �Moshe Sharett served as prime minister), Ben-Gurion was directly responsible for the institute and every detail in it. The staff were forbidden to disclose to anyone even the smallest tid-bit of data or information without first obtaining Ben-Gurion's approval. That continued to apply even during that interstice when Sharrit was in power, for when this prime minister visited the institute in 1954 scientists had to apologise for not being able to show him the programmes they were working on at the time.

Although many scientists have taken a turn to direct the IIBR, it is generally believed that the one to have left the greatest imprint is its current director, Avigdor Shafferman. Shafferman, who has been named in Klein's suit, has the reputation of being something of a powerhouse but also being very strict and quick to fire staff members on disciplinary grounds.

Nevertheless, as significant as the details that have come to light in this rare glimpse into the workings of the IIBR may be, little attention has focussed on a larger truth. As the international community hounds a host of countries for pursuing conventional weapons programmes that pale in scale next to Israel's, it refuses to budge an inch to deter Israel, which only encourages Tel Aviv's belligerent and tyrannical behaviour.

Saleh El-Naami writes for Al-Ahram, where this article originally appeared.