secrets,lies and civil liberties

When the Journalists are Gone, the Stories Will Disappear

Over 29 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 7 in Israeli’s genocidal bombing of the Gaza strip.

By Zoe Alexandra and Vijay Prashad / CounterPunch, https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/30/when-the-journalists-are-gone-the-stories-will-disappear/

Every few hours we check the social media timeline of Muhammed Smiry, the Gaza-based Palestinian journalist. He has been walking the ruined streets of Gaza, documenting everyday life amidst Israeli bombs and the impact they have had on Palestinian life. Close to seven thousand Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli barrage, and any one of them could have been Muhammed. “I am still alive,” he wrote on October 10. A few days later, Muhammed wrote, “I am still alive. I can’t tell you how bad the situation is in Gaza.” On Telegram, Muhammed wrote, “Nowhere is safe in Gaza.” His Telegram timeline is horrifying – so many killed here, so many killed there. It is unrelenting.

Journalists in Gaza with whom we are texting tell us that they are charging their phone with repurposed car batteries and with small solar devices. They are covered with dust, some of it – they say – the incinerated bodies of Palestinians blown to bits in their homes.

Since Israel began this unrelenting bombing of Gaza, journalists – many of them Palestinian – have been posting pictures in real time of the airstrikes and their victims, entire families wiped out in a flash. They tell us about the difficulties of survival for those who do not die, people trying desperately to access food, water, and some energy. “I want to die with my family,” says a journalist in a text.

I was just reporting….

Not long after that text is sent, Wael al-Dahdouh, al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, learns that an Israeli airstrike hit the house where he had been living in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. His wife, daughter, and son have been killed immediately. They had left their home in central Gaza and headed southwards, following the instructions of the Israeli military. Dahdouh saw his family’s bodies at al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah. “What happened is clear,” he told al-Jazeera while he rushed to the hospital. “This is a series of targeted attacks on children, women, and civilians. I was just reporting from Yarmouk about such an attack, and the Israeli raids have targeted many areas, including Nuseirat.”

Dahdouh and his team have been central to the coverage of this bombardment. Brave journalists, including those who work for al-Jazeera, have gone from streets to hospitals, covering the screams of parents and the quivering of children. Dust, debris, and blood is the canvas of their stories. There are videos of heroic rescue teams, rushing on foot because the ambulances have no fuel, trying to dig out survivors from the rubble. Text messages from beneath the shattered concrete cry for help. Some of them are dug out, but many die, their bodies buried deep underneath the buildings that have been hit by powerful bombs. Half of the population of Gaza is beneath the age of 18, and half of the dead are young people – children, really, who have no idea about why they are being hit so hard by a government led by a man who says he wants to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. “We are the people of light,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, “and they are the people of darkness.” Underneath the concrete, Netanyahu’s cruel vision comes true.

Dangerous assignment.

Reporters never have an easy time in a war zone, particularly if one of the combatants sees them as part of the enemy in the information war. Walk into al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and the first thing you see are the clothes worn by Tareq Ayoub (age 35). Tareq worked at the network’s Baghdad bureau office – whose coordinates had been given to the United States military as a precaution. On April 8, 2003, Tareq – a Jordanian national – was reporting on the violence in Iraq when the United States bombed the office and killed him, leaving his wife Dima and his one-year-old child Fatima. Tareq was the twelfth journalist killed in Iraq, and he would be followed by many more (one report counts 283 journalists killed in Iraq since the US began its illegal war in 2003).

We remember names of journalists killed in the wars because their deaths were spectacular or we knew them personally, but otherwise they are forgotten, part of the anonymity of the war dead.

The database at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) counts twenty-two journalists killed in the Occupied Territory of Palestine – most of them due to “dangerous assignment.” This is a strange designation. Salam Mema (age 32) was the head of the Women Journalists Committee at the Palestinian Media Assembly. She was at her home in the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip on October 13, 2023, when an Israeli airstrike levelled it. Her “dangerous assignment” was to be Palestinian and to live in Palestine.

The CPJ database now has the name of Duaa Sharaf, a presenter for Al-Aqsa Radio and a facebook friend of one of us. Duaa, like Salam Mema, was at home early in the morning of October 26 with her young daughter in the al-Zawaida area in central Gaza. Israeli fighter jets fired not one missile but many into her home. Duaa was, it seems, on a “dangerous assignment,” waking up with her daughter to make some food and rush off to be on the radio.

Murder.

Al-Jazeera has lost many reporters in the conflicts from Iraq to Libya (Ali Hassan al-Jaber, a cameraman, was killed in Suluq, Libya, on March 13, 2011; one of us knew him in Doha, where he worked for Qatar TV). The most dramatic of the killings of al-Jazeera journalists appears in the CPJ database under “Murder” not “Dramatic Assignment,” and that is the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022, in Jenin, Palestine by the Israeli military. The Israelis argued that Abu Akleh was shot by Palestinian gunmen, in the same way as they argued that the airstrike on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, City on October 17, 2023, was actually a rocket strike by Islamic Jihad.

Despite the numbers of these deaths and the danger of the war zone, more and more reporters go out there – bravely – to tell the stories that need to be told. Thanks to the reporters in Gaza who are uploading pictures and videos on their ordinary phones, and who are writing posts on telegram and facebook, we are able to pierce the ugly multi-billion-dollar hasbara or propaganda machine of the Israeli government. The atrocities depicted and evidenced in their work have in a significant way been responsible for the mass outpouring of support for the Palestinian struggle and the overwhelming condemnation of Israel’s actions.

Say their names.

Each tweet we read, each picture we see, reminds us of the journalists who are putting their lives on the line, some of them being targeted by the Israeli war machine. Say their names, these journalists murdered in a vicious war. Say their names. Say their names:

Mohammed Imad Labad
Roshdi Sarraj
Mohammed Ali
Khalil Abu Aathra
Sameeh Al-Nady
Mohammad Balousha
Issam Bhar
Abdulhadi Habib
Yousef Maher Dawas
Salam Mema
Husam Mubarak
Issam Abdallah
Ahmed Shehab
Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar
Saeed al-Taweel
Mohammed Sobh
Hisham Alnwajha
Assaad Shamlakh
Mohammad Al-Salhi
Mohammad Jarghoun
Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi
Duaa Sharaf

Since this piece was written, the number of journalists killed in the bombing of Gaza has risen. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on October 29, 2023 that this number was at 29. #Israel #Palestine

November 1, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media, MIDDLE EAST, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Media Manufactures Consent for Gaza Genocide

“As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands, the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.”

KIT KLARENBERG, OCT 31, 2023, https://kitklarenberg.substack.com/p/media-manufactures-consent-for-gaza?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=552010&post_id=138432771&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email

Ever since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was initiated on October 7th, the Western media has been monomaniacally focused on events in Israel and Gaza. Remarkably, none of this relentless coverage has provided Western audiences with any information relevant to even vaguely understanding what has been happening, and why. Even more egregiously, the deluge distorts, obfuscates, and even justifies Zionist atrocities against innocent civilians. Sometimes, preemptively.

Given the pace at which events are moving, it is all but impossible to keep up with the sheer volume of misleading or outright false propaganda and whitewashing that has spewed from the mouths and social media accounts of Zionist officials, pundits, and think tank “experts”, duly regurgitated unquestioningly and uncritically by major news outlets and the alleged “journalists” they employ.

Nonetheless, at the core of all this misreporting and malfeasance is a total lack of any context whatsoever. Readers, viewers and social media users are provided no understanding of the causes of the current crisis, or the paths to its resolution. Countless reporters, pundits and editorials in prominent agenda-setting newspapers have claimed that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was completely without provocation, some even implying it was motivated purely by the virulent anti-Semitic hatred of Hamas.

On October 9th, the New York Times boldly declared Hamas had “burst through border fences without warning or any immediate provocation.” In reality, that “border” is a weaponized, lethal fence of an open-air concentration camp, equipped with motion-sensor-activated automatic guns, barbed wire, and cameras usually meaning death for any Palestinian who dares tread nearby. This dishonest sleight of hand is nonetheless not quite as shocking as the obfuscatory insertion of “immediate” before “provocation”.

In August, the UN issued an updated analysis on the plight of Gaza. It ruled that Palestinians “have been living under collective punishment” as a result of Israel’s blockade, which results in 95% of the population lacking access to clean drinking water, among other horrors. UN secretary general António Guterres concludes the measures “contravene international humanitarian law, as they target and impose hardship on the civilian population, effectively penalizing them for acts they have not committed.”

In late September, Israel bombed Gaza for several days, then on October 4th, Zionist settlers attacked Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites. From January 1st this year until that date, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) murdered 234 Palestinians, and made 821 homeless by demolishing their houses.

‘Kill and Kill and Kill’

The closest a mainstream outlet has come to acknowledging a rationale for Hamas’ attack on Israel was the Washington Post in its first editorial on the strike, October 7th. The article parenthetically referenced “legitimate Palestinian grievances,” albeit in the context of Hamas “exploiting” them for its own cynical purposes. Even more egregiously, there was no detail provided on what those “grievances” might be.

No mention of the Nakba. No mention of Palestinians being illegally prevented from returning to their stolen homes and lands stolen, in contravention of UN resolutions. No mention of the peaceful Great March of Return March 2018 – December 2019, during which over 200 unarmed civilians were killed, and 9,200 injured. Many were shot by IOF snipers in their knees, crippling them for life – horrific, wanton mutilation about which the perpetrators openly boasted to Zionist media.

All of these facts are urgently relevant to consider in the context of any modern day Palestinian violence directed towards their Zionist occupiers. So too that systematic, industrial scale slaughter of Palestinians was hardwired into Israel’s plan to blockade Gaza and the West Bank from the outside world, from the very beginning. In 2004, Arnon Sofer of Haifa University laid out detailed proposals for how this genocidal strategy would work directly to Ariel Sharon’s government.

Israeli forces would be withdrawn from the area entirely, and a stringent surveillance and security system constructed to ensure nothing and no one entered or exited without Zionist proviso. Anyone attempting to flee would be murdered. Sofer forecast – and eagerly welcomed – absolutely dire results:

“When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today…The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day…the only thing that concerns me is how to ensure the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.”

‘Evade Detection’

As this journalist revealed on September 21st, declassified files show as far back as the 1960s, British intelligence was well-versed in surreptitiously packaging weaponized information serving specific psychological warfare objectives as innocuous, “unemphasised news items” for broadcast via the BBC, and other “organs of publicity” London’s spies “control or influence.” This way, British spooks recorded, their brazen propaganda campaigns were “far more likely to be believed” by unsuspecting target audiences.

(excerpt here on original)

Such revealing excerpts resonate ominously today, given the British state broadcaster has repeatedly laid justificatory foundations for genocidal Zionist attacks before they happen. In the most egregious example to date, on October 16th the BBC investigated whether Hamas constructs tunnels “under hospitals in schools,” reportedly in response to a question from an “anonymous reader.”

The British state broadcaster declared that Hamas did, contending based on uncorroborated “reports” and a graphic map supplied by the IOF, that “some passages have entrances located on the bottom floors of houses, mosques, schools and other public buildings to allow militants to evade detection,” therefore “effectively using them as human shields.”

On cue, the very next day, Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital, brimming with hundreds of injured patients, and thousands of Palestinians seeking refuge from the inexorable onslaught of Zionist airstrikes, was struck from the sky. The damage was absolutely cataclysmic, and fatality estimates range from 300 – 800.

Even at the lower end of the scale, this represents the largest single loss of life in Gaza since Israel sealed the area off from the outside world almost two decades ago. Before the dust had settled at the hospital, Hananya Naftali, an IOF operative “recently called up from the frontline to another front – the digital war,” took to Twitter to boast about the carnage:

“Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A multiple number [sic] of terrorists are dead. It’s heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospitals, mosques, schools, and using civilians as human shields.”

‘Nakba 2.0’

The echo in these words of the BBC’s “unemphasised news item” from 24 hours earlier is palpable. Conspicuously though, Naftali deleted this within hours. A post on Netanyahu’s official Twitter account, which perversely branded the IOF assault on Gaza “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle” was almost promptly purged. Hurriedly, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a video purporting to show a Palestinian rocket striking the hospital.

Almost instantly though, online sleuths determined the clip to be fraudulent, and it was retracted. Despite such suspicious retractions and falsification being unambiguous signifiers of guilt, mainstream journalists not only persist in refusing to attribute the hospital strike to either “side”, but urge their audiences to avoid jumping to conclusions, and/or blaming Zionist forces. Veteran Sky News editor Adam Boulton went to the extent of declaring, “Israel had nothing to gain from this.”

Yet, the Zionists absolutely did have much to gain from destroying the hospital, just as they do from it wholesale destruction of the Occupied Territories, and all who live there. The current blitz on Gaza is concerned with completing their founding objective of purging Palestine of its entire indigenous population, and leaving what remains a monoethnic state forever. In the wake of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s launch, multiple Israeli lawmakers and officials openly called for a “Nakba 2.0”.

Translated from the Hebrew by Google

“As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands – the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid“

Those horrific proposals remain extant today. So too does a heinous statement from Israeli National Security minister Itamar Ben-Givr, issued not long after the destruction of al-Ahli Arab Hospital:

“As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands, the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.”

Zionists over many, many years have made their genocidal intentions towards the Palestinian people abundantly clear. It is therefore urgently incumbent upon us all to do what Western journalists refuse to do. Namely, take them at their word, and act accordingly. #Israel #Palestine

November 1, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, media, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Israel Cut Off Gaza’s Communications Because Murderers Don’t Like Witnesses

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, OCT 28, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-cut-off-gazas-communications?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138354929&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

Israeli ground forces have ramped up activities in Gaza in what anonymous US officials are reportedly telling the press is a “rolling start” to the long-anticipated ground invasion.

Israel has also concurrently crippled Gaza’s largest telecommunications service, which had been the enclave’s last remaining contact with the outside world after Israel knocked out all the others. Humanitarian organizations and mainstream press outlets now say they have lost communication with their contacts in Gaza in a level of information blackout we’re unaccustomed to seeing in modern times.

“This information blackout risks providing cover for mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations,” Human Rights Watch correctly notes.

And I’m going to go ahead and say that’s probably not just a convenient coincidence for Israel. A genocidal massacre in total darkness works very much to the advantage of those doing the massacring.

As Israeli siege warfare cuts Gazans off from both electricity and communications, we’re seeing the lights go out in Gaza in more ways than one.

The light has been further dimmed by the rampant killing of journalists by the Israeli military. Wikipedia, whose notoriously rigged editing system tends to skew information in the favor of US information interests, still currently lists 17 journalists killed by the IDF in Gaza and another one in southern Lebanon in this current onslaught. NPR lists the numbers a bit higher, while conveniently declining to say who did the killing.

An Al Jazeera reporter named Wael Dahdouh lost his wife, son, daughter and baby grandson to a single Israeli airstrike in Gaza, saying “They’re taking their revenge by killing our children!” on the air while kneeling over the body of his dead son. He had reportedly moved them south of Gaza City following an Israeli evacuation order, believing it would keep them safe.

According to Reuters, the IDF is now telling both the Reuters and AFP news agencies that it cannot guarantee the safety of their reporters if they continue operating in the Gaza Strip. After Israel’s historically unparallelled assault on journalists these past three weeks, this can only be interpreted as a threat.

As we have discussed previously, Israel has been suffering for years from an increasingly worsening PR crisis as the ability to share and circulate raw video footage of its abuses emerged with the arrival of smartphones and widespread social media access.

During a 2021 video appearance for the International Festival of Whistleblowing, Dissent and Accountability, Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook made some remarks that I find myself contemplating frequently as Israel scrambles to shut all the lights off in Gaza. Cook described the changes he’s seen as smartphones and internet access made Palestinians less dependent on the work of sympathetic western activists and gave them the ability to directly share footage of their own abuse.

Here’s a quote:

“Sadly most corporate journalists paid little attention to the work of these activists. In any case, their role was quickly snuffed out. That was partly because Israel learnt that shooting a few of them served as a very effective deterrent, warning others to keep away.

“But it was also because as technology became cheaper and more accessible — eventually ending up in mobile phones that everyone was expected to have — Palestinians could record their own suffering more immediately and without mediation.

“Israel’s dismissal of the early, grainy images of the abuse of Palestinians by soldiers and settlers — as ‘Pallywood’ (Palestinian Hollywood) — became ever less plausible, even to its own supporters. Soon Palestinians were recording their mistreatment in high definition and posting it directly to YouTube.”

Israel is perhaps more acutely aware than any other government on earth of how disadvantageous it is to have your crimes recorded in the light of day and shared with the world. That’s why it shut the lights off in Gaza: because murderers don’t like witnesses. #Israel #Palestine

October 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, media | 1 Comment

Australians Call to End Long Persecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

ROBIN ANDERSEN, 25 Oct 23 https://fair.org/home/australians-call-to-end-long-persecution-of-wikileaks-julian-assange/

As WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange has nearly exhausted his appeals to British courts against a US extradition order, Australia has ramped up its advocacy on his behalf. Six Australian MPs held a press conference outside the US Department of Justice on September 20 to urge the Biden administration to halt its pursuit of Assange (Consortium News, 9/20/23).

They came representing an impressive national consensus: Almost 80% of Australian citizens, and a cross-party coalition in Australia’s Parliament, support the campaign to free Assange (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/12/23). Opposition leader Peter Dutton joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in urging Assange’s release.

The day before, an open letter to the Biden administration signed by 64 Australian parliamentarians appeared as a full-page ad in the Washington Post. It called the prosecution of Assange “a political decision” and warned that, if Assange is extradited, “there will be a sharp and sustained outcry” from Australians.

Given what is at stake for freedom of the press in the Assange case, and the intensified pressure from Australia—a country being wooed to actively enlist in the US campaign against China by spending $368 billion on nuclear submarines and supersonic missiles (Sydney Morning Herald, 8/10/23)—we ought to expect coverage from the Washington Post, New York Times and major broadcast networks. But coverage of the press conference was virtually absent from US corporate media.

Prosecuting publishing

The US has been seeking to extradite Assange from Britain on charges relating to the leaking of hundreds of thousands of documents to international media in 2010 and 2011, many of which detailed US atrocities carried out in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and other human rights violations, such as the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay (Abby Martin, 3/10/23).

In 2019, President Donald Trump’s administration brought Espionage Act charges against Assange for obtaining and publishing leaked documents, a dramatic new attack on press freedom (FAIR.org, 8/13/22). Assange could face 175 years in a supermax prison if convicted under the Espionage Act, “a relic of the First World War” meant for spies (American Constitution Society, 9/10/21), and not intended to criminalize leaks to or publications by the press. The Biden administration has rolled back much of the legal mechanism used by Trump to attack journalists, but President Joe Biden has reaffirmed the call to extradite Assange.

Assange also coordinated with international news outlets to publish other material known as Cablegate about the “inner-workings of bargaining, diplomacy and threat-making around the world” (Intercept, 8/14/23). Indeed, the New York Times (e.g., 11/28/10) published many articles based on the WikiLeaks documents, which had been sent to Assange by US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

US officials have repeatedly justified their case by charging that Assange put lives at risk; to date, no evidence has surfaced that any individuals were harmed by the leaks (BBC, 12/1/10; Chelsea Manning, Readme.txt, 2022). As the Columbia Journalism Review (12/23/20) admonished, don’t let the Justice Department’s

misdirection around “blown informants” fool you—this case is nothing less than the first time in American history that the US government has sought to prosecute the act of publishing state secrets, something that national security reporters do with some regularity.

US officials have repeatedly justified their case by charging that Assange put lives at risk; to date, no evidence has surfaced that any individuals were harmed by the leaks (BBC, 12/1/10; Chelsea Manning, Readme.txt, 2022). As the Columbia Journalism Review (12/23/20) admonished, don’t let the Justice Department’s

misdirection around “blown informants” fool you—this case is nothing less than the first time in American history that the US government has sought to prosecute the act of publishing state secrets, something that national security reporters do with some regularity.

In failing health after suffering a stroke, Assange has been held in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in April 2019. He had sought asylum at the embassy in London in 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden for questioning over sexual assault allegations, because Sweden would not provide assurances it would protect him from extradition to the US. Sweden dropped charges against Assange in November 2019 (BBC, 11/19/19), after he was in British custody.

International condemnation

The Australian diplomatic mission coincided with the convening of the UN General Assembly in New York City, where President Lula da Silva of Brazil condemned the prosecution of Assange, offering yet another opportunity for US corporate media to cover the strong international opposition to Assange’s treatment.

A video (9/19/23) of Lula speaking at the opening of the UN General Assembly was widely circulated on social media. “Preserving press freedom is essential,” Lula declared. “A journalist like Julian Assange cannot be punished for informing society in a transparent and legitimate way.”

Former British ambassador Craig Murray commented about Lula’s reception at the UN (Twitter, 9/17/23):

It is really not normal for the hall at the UN General Assembly to break into this kind of spontaneous applause. The US has been losing the room internationally for a decade. The appalling treatment of Julian is a focus for that.

US media absence

Yet, with a few exceptions (Fox News, 9/20/23; The Hill, 9/21/23; Yahoo News, 9/21/23), none of this made the major US news outlets.

Over a week later, Business Insider (10/1/23) ran a long piece that featured an interview with Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s half-brother. It pointed out that Assange had become an obstacle to US plans to involve Australia in its aggression toward China, quoting the PM. But the piece also hashed through a number of long-debunked claims, including one that reminded readers that Mike Pompeo once called Assange “a fugitive Russian asset” (FAIR.org, 12/03/18; Sheerpost 2/25/23), and another that repeated US assertions that WikiLeaks releases would put the US at risk.

The New York Times has been conspicuously absent from the coverage of Assange. Though the Times signed a joint open letter (11/28/22) with four other international newspapers that had worked with Assange and WikiLeaks, appealing to the DoJ to drop its charges, the paper has remained almost entirely silent on both Assange and the issues raised by his continued prosecution since then.

As FAIR pointed out, during the Assange extradition hearing in London, the Times

published only two bland news articles (9/7/20, 9/16/20)—one of them purely about the technical difficulties in the courtroom—along with a short rehosted AP video (9/7/20).

There were no editorials on what the case meant for journalism. FAIR contributor Alan MacLeod noted that the Times seemed to distance itself from Assange and WikiLeaks, and its own reporting on the Cablegate scandal, coverage that boosted the papers’ international reputation.

Other opportunities for coverage have been missed by the Times. For instance, Rep. Rashida Tlaib wrote a letter (4/11/23), signed by six other members of the Progressive Caucus, calling for the DoJ to drop the charges against Assange. Tlaib cited support from the ACLU, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Defending Rights & Dissent and Human Rights Watch, and many others, stating that his prosecution “could effectively criminalize” many “common journalistic practices.” The letter was covered by The Nation (4/14/23), the Intercept (3/30/23), Fox News (4/1/23), The Hill (4/11/23) and Politico (4/11/23), but the Times and other major newspapers were conspicuously silent.

When Assange lost his most recent appeal against extradition in June, a few outlets reported the news online (e.g., AP, 6/9/23; CNN, 6/9/23), but not a single US newspaper report could be found in the Nexis news database. (Newsweek‘s headline framed the news as a “headache for Biden”—6/8/23—rather than a blow for press freedom.) The Times only vaguely referred to the news (Assange “keeps losing appeals”) two weeks later in a feature (6/18/23) on the late whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who had criticized Biden’s decision not to drop the case against Assange.

The world is watching

A huge collective breath is being held as the world watches to see what will happen to Assange, the most famous publisher on the globe. Will he be returned to his country and his family by Christmas, as the Australian MPs have requested? Or will Britain and the US continue to slowly execute him?

Assange’s case is expected to be discussed during Prime Minister Albanese’s current visit to the US, which includes a state dinner hosted by Biden on October 25. MP Monique Ryan, part of the pro-Assange delegation, told news outlets: “Our prime minister needs to see this as a test case for standing up to the US government. There are concerns among Australians about the AUKUS agreement, and whether we have any agency” (Business Insider, 10/1/23).

As Common Dreams (9/19/23) quoted from the delegation’s letter:

We believe the right and best course of action would be for the United States’ Department of Justice to cease its pursuit and prosecution of Julian Assange…. It is well and truly time for this matter to end, and for Julian Assange to return home.

October 27, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, media | Leave a comment

Why Is Biden Enabling Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza?

by Walt Zlotow October 24, 2023 https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2023/10/24/why-is-biden-enabling-genocidal-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/#more-44443

Over 5,000 dead, mostly civilians, from 2 weeks of relentless Israeli bombing, turning much of the 139 square miles of Gaza into rubble, is a genocidal act of ethnic cleansing. It is designed to diminish, if not eliminate the 2.3 million Gazans. The many who have died from lack of food, water, medicine and electricity, while unknown, may be in the thousands as well. It is a monumental crime against humanity.

Much of the world is repulsed, including many in Israel. Yesterday, dozens from local Chicago Jewish groups, If Not Now, Never Again Action, and Jewish Voice for Peace, held up traffic in the Loop for over an hour during rush hour in their call for immediate ceasefire. Bravo.

But not President Biden who is arming Israel and giving it a virtual blank check for an imminent invasion likely to further kill, degrade and ethnically cleanse those 2.3 million Palestinians. That imminent invasion may unleash blowback that could involve Iran, Lebanon and Syria; a regional conflict that may be uncontainable.

Biden preaches aid for starving, dying Palestinians but what has arrived is a pittance that will make no difference in their ongoing destruction from the worst collective punishment inflicted upon a civilian population in our lifetime. His aid lip service is not soothing…. it is deadly.

Biden’s cruel greenlighting of Gaza’s impending demise is no surprise. He’s simply following US policy for the last 18 years supporting Israel’s blockade of Gaza since they withdrew in 2005. But he has the opportunity. It requires true, humane statesmanship to lead the world in confronting the need for a Palestinian state prevented by Israeli intransigence and enabled by the US for 75 years now. Biden should demand an immediate ceasefire. He should suspend all aid to Israel including the proposed $10 billion in weaponry to conduct their impending invasion.

A more destructive US policy destroying peace and bringing needless death and suffering to millions is hard to imagine. But it is happening, which requires every American to demand Biden, his administration and Congress pivot from supporting relentless war to promoting a lasting peace in Israel and Gaza/West Bank. #Israel #Palestine

October 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

Israeli Attacks on Journalists Stifle Reporting on Gaza Horrors

By Ari Paul / Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), October 23, 2023 https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/23/israeli-attacks-on-journalists-stifle-reporting-on-gaza-horrors/

The ability of reporters to cover Gaza is jeopardized by the alarming number of newspeople Israel has killed since the crisis began.

he Israeli communications minister’s attempt to shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in Jerusalem—on the grounds that the Qatari news outlet is biased in favor of Hamas and is actively endangering Israeli troops (Reuters, 10/15/23)—should inspire some déjà vu. In the last war in Gaza, an Israeli air strike destroyed a Gaza building housing both Al Jazeera and Associated Press offices (AP, 5/15/21). And just months ago, Al Jazeera (5/18/23) reported that “the family of Shireen Abu Akleh,” a Palestinian-American AJ journalist killed by Israeli fire while on assignment, “has rebuked Israel for saying it is ‘sorry’ for the Al Jazeera reporter’s death without providing accountability or even acknowledging that its forces killed her.”

Since the launch of the network’s English service, Americans interested in Middle East news beyond what can be found in US broadcasting have often turned to Al Jazeera, and even more so as the BBC’s foreign service has declined (Guardian, 9/29/22).

But the ability of Al Jazeera and other Arab reporters to cover the assault on Gaza is jeopardized by the alarming number of newspeople Israel has killed since the crisis began. The Committee to Protect Journalists (10/18/23) has counted 13 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza since the crisis began, with two more missing or detained. Three Israeli journalists were also killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack, with another taken prisoner.

While the primary focus of this conflict is Gaza, journalists have wondered if a second northern front would open between Israel and the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, creating a multifaceted regional war (New York Times, 10/17/23; CNN, 10/17/23). Israeli fire in southern Lebanon injured Al Jazeera staffers, along with Agence France-Presse personnel, and killed a Reuters journalist (Reuters, 10/14/23). Lebanon has planned to file a complaint with the United Nations over the incident (TRT World, 10/14/23), calling the attack deliberate (Telegraph, 10/14/23).

Press advocates fear those numbers will rise, and it is all happening as the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsens (UN News, 10/13/23).

The BBC (10/15/23) reported that its own journalists “were assaulted and held at gunpoint after they were stopped by police in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv,” and that they were “dragged from the vehicle—marked ‘TV’ in red tape—searched and pushed against a wall.”

In addition, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said in a statement that the Israeli military caused “severe damage to 48 centers of press institutions,” including “the Palestine and Watan towers, and other buildings that include media institutions,” including the AFP office. It said that the army had also “completely or partially demolished the homes of dozens of journalists.”

‘Terror attack against democracy’

War reporting always carries risk. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented the deaths of media workers in the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. Middle East conflicts have always been dangerous places for journalists; it’s hard to ignore high-profile deaths of journalists like Marie Colvin of London’s Sunday Times in Syria (CNN, 2/1/19), or freelance photographers Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington in Libya (Washington Post, 4/21/11). In that sense, the war in Gaza and a possible war in southern Lebanon are no exceptions.

But as FAIR (5/19/21) documented during the previous Israeli military operation against Gaza, Israel has a long history of targeting Palestinian journalists, as well as harassing foreign journalists and human rights activists entering the country. Over the summer, the International Federation of Journalists (7/4/23) reported that “several journalists have been directly targeted by Israeli snipers as they were reporting on Israel’s large-scale military operation in Jenin.”

Inside Israel, the situation for journalists is relatively safer, but the far-right government has—like authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary—attacked journalists and the ability to critically cover institutions in power. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2019 accused the owners of Israel’s Channel 12 of committing a “terror attack against democracy” for reporting on the corruption charges against him (Times of Israel, 9/1/19).

In 2020, Netanyahu (Ha’aretz, 6/11/20) indicated that “Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker should be arrested and jailed” for airing “recordings of Netanyahu crony Shaul Elovich and his wife, which demonstrated how they sought to tilt news coverage in the prime minister’s favor.”

Galit Distel-Atbaryan, who recently resigned from her role as public diplomacy minister (Jerusalem Post, 10/14/23), reportedly said this summer that she wanted the “authority to deny press credentials to foreign journalists critical of Israel” (Ha’aretz, 8/30/23).

‘You better be saying good things’

The threat to journalism has only become more explicit as Israel’s assault on Gaza escalates. An Israeli security officer interrupted a live report by Ahmed Darawsha, correspondent for Qatar-based Al-Araby news (Arab News, 10/15/23):

The officer then shouted at the camera: “Detestable! We’ll turn Gaza to dust. Dust, dust, dust.”

Israel’s siege of Gaza becomes more nightmarish as the days go on, and as that happens, the ability of journalists to document the horror becomes next to impossible. Palestinian journalist Sami Abu Salem told the International Federation of Journalists (10/12/23) about working in Gaza: “We have no internet service, there is a lack of electricity, no transportation, and even the streets are damaged. That’s why we cannot tell lots of stories—thousands of stories.”

Because audiences in the US and the Anglosphere depend on Al Jazeera, as well as local journalists in Israel and the Occupied Territories, to receive news from the region, these attacks do act as filters through which the truth is diluted. In many ways, Americans can see in real time how the powers that be attempt to control information coming out of the region. #Israel #Palestine

October 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Israel, media | Leave a comment

A wall of silence: atom bosses remain tight-lipped over Fukushima whistleblower claims

collaboration between the IAEA and the Japanese Government over the Fukushima radioactive water releases was imperative as the continuation of sea dumping regardless of the adverse impact to the marine environment represents a ‘make or break issue’ for the nuclear industry.

Over seven weeks have passed without an acknowledgement or reply to a letter the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities co-signed which was sent to the UN International Atomic Energy Authority calling for transparency over claims that the organisation collaborated with the Japanese Government to ‘manage the message’ over the ocean dumping of 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear disaster site.

On 28 June, an anonymous whistleblower posted a document, seemingly issued by the Department of Nuclear Safety at the IAEA, to the website/blogsite dunrenard[1]. If genuine, the document, titled ‘IAEA REVISION PROPOSAL FOR THE FINAL REPORT OF HANDLING ALPS TREATED WATER AT TEPCO’S FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER STATION’, appears to indicate that the international agency has actively sought to downplay the dangers associated with discharging millions of barrels of water which remain contaminated with highly toxic tritium.

The NFLA’s first covered this story and our disquiet at the revelations in a media release dated 3 July:
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/cover-up-did-atom-bosses-collude-to-manage-message-of-japanese-plan-to-poison-pacific/

One of the recipients of the leaked document was Mr Tim Deere-Jones, a graduate in Marine Studies from Cardiff University. Tim, an independent marine pollution researcher and consultant since 1983, is highly regarded by the many international organisations who have engaged him in their campaigns against the damage caused to our oceans and inland waterways by radioactive and other contaminants.

Tim was incensed that the Japanese Government was quick to condemn the claim that Japan had pressurised the IAEA to remove ‘negative information’ about the environmental impact that would result from the radioactive waste discharges from the final report, but also noted that on the claims themselves the IAEA made no comment.
Keen to seek clarification and action on the veracity of the whistleblower’s claims, Tim went right to the top of the IAEA and penned a letter to the head of the management office for the Deputy Director General. Here he explains why:
“To date there has been no detectable independent action to investigate and test the veracity of the whistleblower’s claims against the claim of non-interference made by the Government of Japan.

“I fear that if this is scenario is allowed to continue the whistleblower’s action and disclosure will be historically characterised by the Government of Japan statement, sink into obscurity and be forgotten and the whistleblower’s heroic action will have been wasted, while he/she is still under threat of investigation, identification, and penalty.
“My disclosure request to the IAEA is intended to elicit a direct response from the agency to the claims made by the whistleblower as to date my online media searches have yet to reveal any related statement made by the organisation.

“This creates the impression that the Government of Japan has been acting as the IAEAs mouthpiece in respect of the whistleblower disclosure and that the IAEA would prefer NOT to be associated in anyway with the issue, to the extent that it has not made any public statement”.

Tim’s request for disclosure, submitted by registered post to the IAEA’s Vienna office and by email to the official account on 1 September, was backed by five British anti-nuclear groups and individuals from Europe and the Pacific Ocean, representing commercial fishers, other marine stakeholders, and coastal zone and Pacific Island communities.

Although the registered letter was tracked as received at the Vienna office on 9 September, Tim has yet to receive any response from the agency, and on 16 October sent a reminder:
“I have concluded that the absence of a receipt or response is a clear indication of the IAEA’s resistance to any discussion of the issues raised.
“My reading critique of the IAEAs final report to TEPCO re the issue of the ALPs treated water release certainly supports the drift of the whistleblower statement”.

Amongst the co-signatories to the letter, which is reproduced at the end of this press release, were the NFLAs, which have objected in letters to Japanese Ministers, senior officials at TEPCO (the nuclear operator), and the United Nations to the discharge of radioactive water from Fukushima, and signed a partnership agreement with its counterparts, Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan, to collaborate in opposing the plan.

Though disappointed at the continued wall of silence, Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill is unsurprised that the IAEA remains tight-lipped:

“Sadly, the duties of disclosure required of public bodies in the UK through the Freedom of Information Act do not apply to an international agency based in Vienna and the IAEA’s statutes appear to contain no provisions for transparency or external accountability, despite the agency being funded by the member states, and so the taxpayers, of the United Nations.

“Although the organization claims to want to become more open, the lack of a response, or even an acknowledgement, to our legitimate request for information belies the fact that, on controversial issues, a culture of secrecy still prevails.”
Tim believes that collaboration between the IAEA and the Japanese Government over the Fukushima radioactive water releases was imperative as the continuation of sea dumping regardless of the adverse impact to the marine environment represents a ‘make or break issue’ for the nuclear industry. He has produced a short paper explaining his reasoning, which also appears at the end of this media release.

For further information about this media release please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk or telephone 07583097793

1. https://dunrenard.wordpress.com/2023/06/28/will-this-whistleblower-be-heard-by-anyone/

Notes to Editors:

The reminder sent to Ms Margaret Doane, Head, Department of Management Office of the Deputy Director General, IAEA, 16 October 2023

#nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

October 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Rolls-Royce facing £350m class action lawsuit from investors

Rolls-Royce, the FTSE 100 engineering giant, is facing a potential legal
claim from investors worth at least £350m after a bribery and corruption
scandal wiped millions of pounds from the company’s value. City lawyers
are working with a group of investors seeking compensation from Rolls-Royce
after the bribery allegations rocked the aircraft engine maker in 2017.

Shareholders are to claim that the company made misrepresentations to the
market about the bribery scandal. Rolls-Royce previously agreed to a £497m
settlement with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in a bid to draw a line
under the wrongdoing. The SFO’s agreement with Rolls-Royce in 2017
covered “12 counts of conspiracy to corrupt, false accounting and failure
to prevent bribery” across its aerospace and energy divisions.

Telegraph 22nd Oct 2023

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/22/rolls-royce-face-350m-lawsuit-investors/

#nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

October 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Amnesty Probe Finds ‘Damning Evidence of War Crimes’ by Israel in Gaza

“Our entire family has been destroyed,” said one survivor of an Israeli bombing in the besieged Palestinian territory.

SCHEERPOST, By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams 21 Oct 23

As Israel’s assault on Gaza continued Friday with 4,100 Palestinians—including over 1,600 children—killed and at least 13,000 others wounded by relentless bombardment that’s destroyed or damaged nearly a third of the besieged strip’s homes, Amnesty International shared “damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families.”

Amnesty interviewed survivors and eyewitnesses, analyzed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate the Israeli aerial bombardments of Gaza, documenting “unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.”

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said in a statement: “In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel, and electricity.”

“Testimonies from eyewitnesses and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” she added.

Amnesty’s report focused on five specific incidents the group said amount to war crimes, including the October 7 bombing of a three-story residential building in the al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City that killed 15 members of the al-Dos family, including seven children.

“Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it,” said Mohammad al-Dos, whose 5-year-old son Rakan was killed in the attack. “My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa Hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed.”

The report also details an airstrike on the Gaza City home of the Hijazi family that killed 12 relatives, including three children, as well as four neighbors. Amnesty found no evidence of any military targets in the area at the time of the attack.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 50 entire families have been removed from the civil registry after most or all of their members were killed in Israeli attacks.

“The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza,” Callamard said. “For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison—the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard.”………..

Other possible war crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces not specifically covered in the Amnesty report include but are not limited to collective punishment; an order to evacuate more than 1.1 million people from northern Gaza ahead of an expected ground invasion; Israel’s stated focus on “damage and not accuracy” in its war on Hamas; bombing a civilian convoy heeding the evacuation order that killed around 70 people on a route Israeli authorities said was “safe”; use of white phosphorus munitions in a densely populated area; bombing schools and civilian shelters; and deadly attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers on West Bank Palestinians.

Amnesty also said that Hamas and other Palestinian militants have committed war crimes including the deliberate killing of 1,400 Israelis—most of them civilians—during last week’s surprise attack on Israel, the taking of around 200 Israeli and international hostages during the incursion, and the indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian targets.

“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets,” said Callamard. “There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances.”

The Amnesty analysis came amid reports of possible fresh Israeli war crimes, including an airstrike on the Church of Saint Porphyrius, an 873-year-old Christian Orthodox house of worship crowded with people seeking shelter from the bombing. Officials said at least 18 people were killed in the attack, including numerous children………………………………………………………………………………..

Earlier this week, lawyers with the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights warned that the Biden administration is rendering itself complicitin possible genocide against Palestinians by providing weapons, political support, and diplomatic cover for Israel’s war.

On Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza and calling for “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to enter the enclave. https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/21/amnesty-probe-finds-damning-evidence-of-war-crimes-by-israel-in-gaza/ #Israel #Palestine

October 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

Nuclear Reactors Restarting: Holtec’s Secret Plans Again Reveal Why New Mexicans Cannot Believe What the Corporation Says

https://nuclearactive.org/ 20 Oct 23

Holtec International, a corporation with a license for a consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico for 173,600 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel from atomic power plants, submitted a secret application to the Department of Energy seeking at least $2 billion dollars to restart Palisades, a closed nuclear reactor in Michigan. Holtec’s request also includes plans to build small nuclear modular reactors, or SMRs, with electric generation capacity of 160 Megawatts, on site.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) made by Beyond Nuclear the public learned that Holtec also plans to restart the reactors not only at Palisades, but other shutdown nuclear power plants at Oyster Creek in New Jersey; Pilgrim in Massachusetts; Indian Point in New York, and another shutdown reactor in Michigan at Big Rock Point. Holtec acquired the shutdown reactors under the false pretense to decommission them using ratepayer money, while at the same time submitting applications to DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy for taxpayer funding. https://beyondnuclear.org/5775-2/

Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear based in Takoma Park, Maryland, and a member of the Don’t Waste Michigan board of directors, filed the FOIA with the State of Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. The 967-page response included Holtec’s application to DOE. #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

October 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Israeli Politician Says “Children of Gaza Have Brought This Upon Themselves”

When children are explicitly framed as “not innocent,” all-out genocidal warfare is possible.

TruthOut, By Jonathan Ofir , MONDOWEISS, October 18, 2023

t really is hard to imagine a more malicious statement than “the children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves” when children in Gaza are now being massacred by the hundreds. But this was actually said in a recent Knesset session. And it wasn’t someone considered an extreme right-winger, but a liberal centrist – Meirav Ben-Ari from Yair Lapid’s opposition party Yesh Atid.

The full, over-three-hour session from Monday can be seen here. Ben-Ari is evidently getting worked up as Palestinian lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman (around two hours into the session) bemoans the loss of civilian lives “both in the area surrounding Gaza and in Gaza,” imploring to make an effort to release hostages and to “get the civilians out of the circle of blood.” “Jews as well as Arabs, Israelis as well as Palestinians.” “A child is a child,” Touma-Sliman reminds everyone, pointing out that at that point, over 900 children had been killed from Israel’s bombing of Gaza (a day later, that number swelled to well over a thousand).

All this humanity was just too much for Ben-Ari. She started shouting and heckling Touma-Sliman, saying, “There is not symmetry, there is no symmetry!”

“Between children there is symmetry,” she said.

Ben Ari went livid: “There is no symmetry!!”

Touma-Sliman emphasized: “A child is a child is a child.”

Twenty-five minutes after this unbearable episode, Ben-Ari came up to speak, admittedly unplanned. This is precisely 2.5 hours into the session video:

“I did not plan to speak, of course, but I have to say one thing that should be clear: There is no symmetry. There is no symmetry. Me, my friends, ok, were on the way to the synagogue on the day of Simchat Torah, and they were shot at, only because they were Jews in this state. That’s it. And friends of mine – their children went to the party, to celebrate – seculars, religious, doesn’t matter who, only because they were Jewish, they were murdered. So there is no symmetry! And the children in Gaza – the children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves! We are a peace-seeking nation, a life-loving nation. There is no symmetry – our children are kidnapped over there!” (My emphasis)……………………………………………………………………..

Ben-Ari’s genocidal rhetoric was actually echoing a comment just made by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who is also known as a liberal, even from further left. At a recent press conference on October 13, Herzog answered a question by Rageh Omar from ITV, who asked him what Israel can do to alleviate the impact on the over two million civilians in Gaza, many of whom have nothing to do with Hamas. Herzog answered:

“We are working, operating militarily in terms according to rules of international law, period. Unequivocally. It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. …………………………………..

This is really unmistakable – Herzog is really implying that an “entire nation is responsible,” and the implication is that they are legitimate targets. However, he later denied that this is what he meant.

This rhetoric has a long history among Israeli politicians. In 2018, when Avigdor Lieberman was Defense Minister, he declared that “there are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip” because “everyone has a connection to Hamas.” This was in April 2018, when Israel was beginning to turkey-shoot unarmed Palestinian protesters in the Great March of Return. When a video filmed by Israeli snipers, where they celebrate their shooting of a motionless, unarmed Palestinian, surfaced on social media around that same time, Lieberman commented that they deserved a medal for their shots. I could just as well mention that Lieberman has advocateddecapitating “disloyal” Palestinian citizens with an axe and the drowning of Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea. Lieberman is now regarded as a Netanyahu critic who is considering joining the “unity government” so as to “join the war cabinet in order to bring about the fastest possible victory.”

You may say this is just rhetoric, but these words also lead to actions. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant’s comments referred to Palestinians as “human animals” as Israel closed all the water taps to Gaza, making the already unlivable living conditions there a genocidal nightmare. The relationship between words to actions is obvious. ……. more https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-politician-says-children-of-gaza-have-brought-this-upon-themselves/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=431d0bc2ba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-431d0bc2ba-650192793&mc_cid=431d0bc2ba&mc_eid=73e1cd43d0 #Israel #Palestine

October 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Zelensky orders reporters to keep silent about corruption – Ukrainian media.

https://www.rt.com/russia/584929-ukraine-gags-media-corruption/ 16 Oct 23

The Ukrainian president reportedly told journalists not to mention the issue until the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict

President Vladimir Zelensky has allegedly ordered Ukrainian journalists to avoid reporting on corruption, the editor-in-chief of the Zerkalo Nedeli (‘Mirror of the Week’) news outlet has claimed.

The Ukrainian president told journalists not to mention the issue until the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to a leading Kievb outlet.

Speaking at the National Media Talk 2023, Yulia Mostovaya said that she had learned of Zelensky’s demand from colleagues who had attended an off-the-record meeting with him.

The president reportedly made the request after the Ukrainian press published reports about inflated food prices paid by the country’s armed forces.

According to Ukrainian media reports, including Zerkalo Nedeli, the Defense Ministry had been buying food and clothing for its service members at prices two to three times higher than the market price. For example, the ministry paid up to 17 hryvnia ($0.47) for a single egg and 22 hryvnia ($0.60) for a kilogram of potatoes, while the average prices for those goods at stores in Kiev at the time were about seven hryvnia ($0.19) and eight hryvnia ($0.22), respectively.

Mostovaya stated that Zelensky’s request to avoid the topic of corruption in media publications was something the Ukrainian press may have considered if Zelensky had presented it in a “balanced manner” and explained that reporting on such issues could affect Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities.

“We would accept these conditions if the president had said: ‘Here is a person. Here’s his phone number. If you have substantiated facts, please provide them to this person, he will immediately pick up the phone. And give us a week to respond. If there is no reaction within a week, send it to print.’”

However, no such proposal was put forward by Zelensky, Mostovaya claimed, noting that instead the president told reporters to “remain silent until victory.”

“If we remain silent, there will be no victory,” the editor-in-chief said.

The issue of corruption in Ukraine has repeatedly been brought up by journalists and officials, both within the country and in the West.

Last week, the former president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, stated that Ukraine will likely be unable to join the EU anytime soon because it is “corrupt at all levels of society.” He also urged Brussels not to make any “false promises” to the Ukrainian people who are already “up to their neck in suffering.”

Ukraine has for years been seen as among the most corrupt countries in Europe and was ranked 116th out of 180 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for 2022. #Ukraine

October 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

This Way for the Genocide, Ladies and Gentlemen

This is not a war. It is the obliteration of civilians trapped for 16 years in the world’s largest concentration camp. Gaza is being leveled, flattened, destroyed, reduced to rubble. Hundreds of thousands of its impoverished residents will be killed, wounded or left homeless without food, fuel, water and medical help. Nearly 600 children are already dead.

Israel, as it has in the past, will block the dissemination of independent reporting and images once some 360,000 soldiers launch a ground assault. It cut internet service in Gaza on Saturday. The brief glimpses of Israeli atrocities that make it out will be dismissed by Israeli leaders as anomalies or blamed on Hamas.

By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost, October 15, 2023 https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/15/this-way-for-the-genocide-ladies-and-gentlemen/

Washington and European governments are cheerleading Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. The failure to intervene to halt the carnage threatens to ignite violence throughout the region.

I have been in urban warfare in El Salvador, Iraq, Gaza, Bosnia and Kosovo. Once you fight street by street, apartment block by apartment block, there is only one rule — kill anything that moves. The talk of safe zones, the reassurances of protecting civilians, the promises of “surgical” and “targeted” air strikes, the establishment of “safe” evacuation routes, the fatuous explanation that civilian dead were “caught in the crossfire,” the claim that the homes and apartment buildings bombed into rubble were the abode of terrorists or that errant Hamas rockets were responsible for the destruction of schools and medical clinics, is part of the rhetorical cover to carry out indiscriminate slaughter.

Gaza is such a small area — 25 miles in length and about 5 miles wide — and so densely populated that the only outcome of an Israeli ground and air assault is the mass death of those Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant calls “human animals” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls “human beasts.” Israeli Knesset member Tally Gotliv suggested dropping “doomsday weapons” on Gaza, widely seen as a call for a nuclear strike. Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Friday dismissed calls to protect Palestinian civilians. “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible … this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true,” Herzog said. “They could’ve risen up, they could’ve fought against that evil regime that took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.” He added, “We will break their backbone.”

The demand by Israel that 1.1 million Palestinians — nearly half of Gaza’s population — evacuate northern Gaza, which will become a free fire zone, within 24 hours, ignores the fact that given the overcrowding and sealed borders there is no place for the displaced to go. The north includes Gaza City, the most densely populated part of the strip, with 750,000 residents. It also includes Gaza’s main hospital and the Jabalia and al-Shati refugee camps.

Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion military aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” This is not a war. It is the obliteration of civilians trapped for 16 years in the world’s largest concentration camp. Gaza is being leveled, flattened, destroyed, reduced to rubble. Hundreds of thousands of its impoverished residents will be killed, wounded or left homeless without food, fuel, water and medical help. Nearly 600 children are already dead.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been forced to close 14 food distribution centers leaving half a million people without food relief. Gaza’s only power plant has run out of fuel. The United Nations says 12 of its staff have been killed by Israeli air strikes, 21 out of 22 UNRWA health facilities in Gaza have been damaged and hospitals lack basic medicines and supplies.

The West refuses to intervene, as 2.3 million people, including 1 million children, are deprived of food, fuel, electricity and water, see their schools and hospitals bombed and are butchered and rendered homeless by one of the most advanced military machines on the planet.

The gruesome images of Israelis gunned down by Hamas is the currency of death. It trades carnage for carnage, a macabre dance that Israel initiated with the massacres and ethnic cleansing that allowed for the creation of the Jewish state, followed by decades of dispossession and violence meted out to the Palestinians. The Israeli army, before the current assault, had killed 7,779 Palestinians in Gaza since 2000 including 1,741 children and 572 women, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. This figure does not include Gazans who died due to drinking contaminated water or being denied access to medical treatment. Nor does it include the rising number of Gazan youth who, having lost all hope and struggling with deep depression, have committed suicide.

I spent seven years reporting on the conflict, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief of The New York Times. I stood over the bodies of Israeli victims of bus bombings in Jerusalem by Palestinian suicide-bombers. I saw rows of corpses, including children, in the corridors in Dar Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. I watched Israeli soldiers taunt small boys who in response threw rocks and were then callously shot in the Khan Younis refugee camp. I sheltered from bombs dropped by Israeli warplanes. I climbed over the rubble of demolished Palestinian homes and apartment blocks along the border with Egypt. I interviewed the bloodied and dazed survivors. I heard the soul crushing wails of mothers keening over the corpses of their children.

I arrived in Jerusalem in 1988. Israel was busy discrediting and marginalizing the secular, aristocratic Palestinian leadership of Faisel al-Husseini and driving Jordanian administrators from the occupied West Bank. This secular and moderate leadership was replaced by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Yasser Arafat. But Arafat, very likely poisoned by Israel, and the PLO were also ruthlessly pushed aside by Israel. The PLO was replaced by Hamas, which Israel openly fostered as a counterweight to the PLO.

The escalating savagery of Israel against the Palestinians is reflected in the escalating savagery of the Palestinians. The resistance groups are Israel’s doppelgängers. Israel believes that with the eradication of Hamas the Palestinians will become docile. But history has shown that once one Palestinian resistance movement is destroyed, a more virulent and radical one takes its place.

The killers feed off each other. I saw this in the ethnic wars in Bosnia. When religion and nationalism are used to sanctify murder there are no rules. It is a battle between light and dark, good and evil, God and Satan. Rational discourse is banished.

“The sleep of reason,” as Francisco Goya said, “brings forth monsters.”

The Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists and religious bigots in the current Israeli government need Hamas. Revenge is the psychological engine of war. Those targeted for slaughter are rendered inhuman. They are not worthy of empathy or justice. Pity and grief are felt exclusively for one’s own. Israel vows to eradicate a dehumanized mass that embodies absolute evil. The maimed and dead in Gaza, and the maimed and dead in Israeli towns and kibbutzim, are victims of the same dark lusts.

“From violence only violence is born,” Primo Levi writes, “following a pendular action that, as time goes by, rather than dying down, becomes more frenzied.”

The Biden administration has promised unconditional Israeli support and weapons shipments.

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group has been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea to “deter any actor” who might widen the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The carrier group includes the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford; its eight squadrons of attack and support aircraft; the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Normandy; and the Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney and USS Roosevelt, according to a Pentagon statement.

The U.S., as in the past, ignores the far greater death and destruction, as well as the illegal occupation, meted out by Israel to the Palestinians or the periodic military campaigns — this is the fifth major military assault by Israel on Gaza in 15 years — against civilians.

Israel says it recovered 1,500 bodies of Hamas fighters after the incursion. This is a number greater than the 1,300 Israeli victims. Nearly all the dead Hamas fighters, I suspect, were young men born inside the Gaza concentration camp who had never seen the outside of the open-air prison until they burst through the security barriers erected by Israel. If Hamas fighters possessed Israel’s technological arsenal of death, they would be able to do their killing more efficiently. But they do not. Their tactics are cruder versions of those Israel has used against them for decades.

I know this disease, the exaltation of race, religion and nation, the deification of the warrior, the martyr and violence, the celebration of victimhood. Holy warriors believe they alone possess virtue and courage, while their enemy is perfidious, cowardly and evil. They believe they alone have the right to revenge. Pain for pain. Blood for blood. Horror for horror. There is a fearsome symmetry to the madness, the abandonment of what it means to be humane and just.

T.E. Lawrence calls this cycle of violence “the rings of sorrow.”

Once these fires are lit they can easily become a conflagration.

Israeli tanks and soldiers, to thwart an attack by Hezbollah in support of the Palestinians, have been deployed to the border with Lebanon. The Israeli forces killed fighters from Hezbollah, as well as a Reuters journalist, which saw Hezbollah fire a salvo of rockets in retaliation. Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir announced he would distribute 10,000 assault rifles to Israeli settlers, who have carried out murderous rampages in Palestinian villages in the West Bank. Israel has killed at least 51 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since Hamas launched its attack on October 7.

Psychologist Rollo May writes:

At the outset of every war…we hastily transform our enemy into the image of the daimonic; and then, since it is the devil we are fighting, we can shift onto a war footing without asking ourselves all the troublesome and spiritual questions that the war arouses. We no longer have to face the realization that those we are killing are persons like ourselves.

The killing and torture, the more they endure, contaminate the perpetrators and the society that condones their actions. They sever the professional inquisitors and killers from the capacity to feel. They feed the death instinct. They expand the moral injury of war.

Israel taught the Palestinians to communicate in the primitive howl of hatred, war, death and annihilation. But it is not Israel’s assault on Gaza I fear most. It is the complicity of an international community that licenses Israel’s genocidal slaughter and accelerates a cycle of violence it may not be able to control. #Israel #Palestine

October 17, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Humanity Must Prevail’ in Gaza, Says UN Official as Refugee Shelters Become IDF Targets

“Wars have rules,” said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. “Civilians, hospitals, schools, clinics, and UN premises cannot be a target.”

By Julia Conley / Common Dreams SCHEERPOST, October 15, 2023

The emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations on Saturday said that “humanity is failing” as officials in the United States and other powerful Western countries refused to hear the calls of a growing number of humanitarian groups, progressive lawmakers, and governments for a cease-fire in Gaza—allowing Israel to forge ahead with what will likely be an imminent ground assault on the blockaded enclave.

“The past week has been a test for humanity,” said Martin Griffiths one week after Hamas unleashed a brutal surprise attack on Israel, killing at least 1,300 people and taking scores of people hostage. As Israel’s response has targeted Gaza—home to two million people, about half of whom are children—repeated airstrikes have bombarded “homes, schools, shelters, health centers, and places of worship,” Griffith said, leaving at least 2,215 Palestinians dead, including more than 600 children.

“Entire residential neighborhoods have been razed to the ground,” added Griffiths, who serves as under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs at the United Nations. “Aid workers have been killed. The humanitarian situation in Gaza, already critical, is fast becoming untenable.”

Griffith’s comments came as the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reported that the indiscriminate bombing campaign has placed its own shelters in “unprecedented” danger, making it impossible for workers to ensure the safety of some 270,000 peoplewho have been displaced and sought shelter at 102 schools run by the agency.

“Wars have rules. Civilians, hospitals, schools, clinics, and UN premises cannot be a target,” said the UNWRA said in a statement. “We are sparing no effort to advocate with parties to the conflicts to meet their obligations under international law to protect civilians including those seeking refuge in UNRWA shelters.”……………………………………………………………………………….. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/15/humanity-must-prevail-in-gaza-says-un-official-as-refugee-shelters-become-idf-targets/ #Israel #Palestine

October 17, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Legal, MIDDLE EAST, politics international | Leave a comment