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How a Secluded 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Unprecedented Influence Over US Media

Buoyed by its success, the operation soon expanded to include school and university students worldwide, training them to act as vigorous advocates for Israel in classrooms and on campuses. Graduates of these Israeli-funded programs frequently enter influential fields, including journalism, where they continue to promote Hasbara narratives and defend Israel’s actions. The impact on Western media coverage of Palestine has been profound.

Mint Press News, November 11, 2024

As Israel’s October 1 invasion of Lebanon unfolds, the media’s complicity in shaping public perception raises urgent questions, particularly when viewed through the lens of a controversial 1984 conference where influential advertising and media figures gathered to refine Israel’s narrative strategies. This conference laid the groundwork for a sophisticated propaganda campaign—Hasbara—that sought to sanitize Israel’s actions and cast its military operations in a favorable light. Today, as Western journalists whitewash, distort, and conceal Israel’s the realities of Israel’s deadly campaign of violence, the enduring legacy of this meeting becomes alarmingly clear, revealing how narratives crafted decades ago continue to shape the coverage of a conflict that claims countless lives.

…………………………………………………………………………… The mainstream media’s systematic use of distancing and evasive language, omission and other duplicitous chicanery to downplay or outright justify Israel’s murder of innocent civilians while simultaneously dehumanizing their victims and delegitimizing Palestinian resistance against brutal, illegal IDF occupation is as unconscionable as it is well-documented. Amazingly though, ‘twasn’t ever thus. Once upon a time, mainstream news networks exposed Israel’s war crimes without qualification, and anchors and pundits openly condemned these actions on live TV to audiences of millions.

The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.

‘Neighborhood Bully’

On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. The effort was ostensibly intended to drive Palestinian Liberation Organization freedom fighters away from their positions on Israel’s northern border. But, as the IDF savagely pushed ever-deeper into the country, including Beirut, it became clear that ethnic cleansing, massacres, and land theft were – as in Palestine – the true goal. Throughout the Lebanese capital, news crews from major networks and reporters from the West’s biggest newspapers were waiting.

Israel’s rapacious bloodlust and casual contempt for Arab lives had hitherto been, by and large, successfully concealed from the outside world. Suddenly, though, scenes of deliberate IDF airstrikes on residential housing blocks, Tel Aviv’s trigger-happy soldiers running amok in Beirut’s streets, and hospitals overflowing with civilians suffering from grave injuries, including chemical burns due to Israel’s use of phosphorus shells, were broadcast the world over, to nigh-universal outcry. As veteran NBC news anchor John Chancellor contemporarily explained to Western viewers:

What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is we are now dealing with an imperial Israel, which is solving its problems in someone else’s country, world opinion be damned.”

Global shock and repulsion at Israel’s conduct would only ratchet during the IDF’s resultant illegal military occupation of swaths of Lebanon. …………………………………………………………..

To say the least, Israel had an international PR disaster of historic proportions on its blood-soaked hands…………………………………………………..

So it was that in the summer of 1984, the American Jewish Congress – a major Zionist lobby organization – convened a conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s Public Image: Problems and Remedies. It was chaired by U.S. advertising supremo Carl Spielgovel, who a decade earlier provided pro bono advice to the Israeli government on strategies for publicly communicating why Tel Aviv refused to adhere to the terms of the Henry Kissinger-brokered 1973 Sinai Accords. Spielgovel later recalled:

It occurred to me then that the Israelis were doing a good job at training their military people, and they were doing a relatively good job at training their diplomatic corps. But they weren’t spending any time training information officers, people who could present Israel’s case to embassies and TV anchormen around the world. Over the years, I made this a personal cause celebre.”

The 1984 Jerusalem conference offered Spielgovel and a welter of Western advertising and public relations executives, media specialists, editors, journalists, and leaders of major Zionist advocacy groups an opportunity to achieve that malign objective. Together, they hammered out a dedicated strategy for ensuring the “crisis” caused by news reporting on the invasion of Lebanon two years earlier would never be repeated. Their antidote? Ceaseless, methodical, and wide-ranging “Hasbara” – Hebrew for propaganda – for “changing people’s minds [and] making them think differently.”

‘Big Scoop’

The AJC subsequently published records of the conference. They offer extraordinarily candid insight into how multiple Hasbara strategies, which have been in perpetual operation ever since were birthed. …………………………………………………………

There was extensive discussion of how to present “unpalatable policies” to Western populations…….. ” The necessity of training the Jewish diaspora in countering criticism of Israel was considered paramount.

………………….. media framing on Israel’s actions needed to be determined in advance…………………

It was also suggested that on an individual and organizational level, Zionist activists serve as a rapid reaction force, deluging news outlets with complaints en masse should their coverage of Israel be at all critical. One attendee boasted of their personal success in this regard:

“One day CBS News Radio reported that an American soldier had been hurt by stepping on an Israeli cluster bomb at the Beirut airport. I called CBS to point out that no one had established the bomb was an Israeli one. One hour later CBS reported that an American soldier had stepped on a bomb; this time the report omitted any reference to Israel.”

‘Frequent Violations’

Another significant recommendation came from Carl Spielgovel: creating a “training program” to bring carefully selected Israeli information specialists into U.S. advertising, PR agencies, and major news outlets. The initiative aimed to equip them with industry insights, ensure Hasbara efforts were maximized, and establish close relationships between Israeli officials and the organizations to which they were assigned.

These “specialists” would operate under the guidance of a U.S.-Israeli council described as “wise persons who can project different scenarios and how to cope with them” on complex issues like “annexation and Jerusalem.”

……………………………………………………………….. Since then, a dedicated Hasbara program aimed at cultivating skilled Zionist advocates in the U.S. has operated continuously.

To a significant degree, the portrayal of Tel Aviv as “the gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds” has been firmly reestablished. Despite the ongoing crisis in Gaza, mainstream outlets seldom provide context for Palestinian resistance to Israel’s policies of annexation, occupation, and military actions. Coverage nearly always frames Israel’s actions as “self-defense” against “terrorist” threats, with Western journalists keenly aware of potential repercussions for diverging from this narrative.

The rapid reaction force proposed at the 1984 AJC conference remains highly active. An extensive network of Hasbara-trained individuals and Israel lobby organizations is always on standby, ready to pressure and intimidate news outlets if coverage diverges from favorable framing or casts Israel in a critical light. As a senior BBC producer once confided to veteran media critic Greg Philo:

“We wait in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis. The only issue we face then is how high up it’s come from them. Has it come from a monitoring group? Has it come from the Israeli embassy? And how high has it gone up our organization? Has it reached the editor or director general? I have had journalists on the phone to me before a major news report, asking which words can I use – ‘is it alright I say this’?”

An October exposé by Al Jazeera, citing testimony from BBC and CNN whistleblowers, detailed “pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards, and frequent violations of journalistic principles” at both networks.

Were it not for the persistent investigations by outlets like MintPress News, The Grayzone, and Electronic Intifada, unfounded allegations promoted by Israel since the outset of the Gaza conflict—such as claims of Hamas committing mass rape or beheading infants—might never have been thoroughly debunked and might still shape the “context” for Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Meanwhile, countless concerned citizens have actively challenged Western narratives on the conflict in real-time across social media, a groundswell of critique that may be fueling pushback within some mainstream newsrooms. ……………………………………. https://www.mintpressnews.com/1984-hasbara-conference-israel-influence-us-media/288534/

November 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, media | Leave a comment

Israel Keeps Finding New Ways To Play Victim While Committing Genocide

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 10, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-keeps-finding-new-ways-to?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=151441702&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Israel is really struggling with how difficult its present circumstances make playing the victim. It keeps having to invent new abuses to be victimized by like the imaginary Amsterdam “pogrom” and the fake mass rape narrative that surfaced months after October 7, because it can’t sit comfortably in the role of victimizer while on trial for genocide in international courts.

Playing victim is too deeply ingrained in the narrative control strategies of Israel and its apologists, so they have to keep coming up with new and innovative ways for Israel to be victimized even when it is very clearly the last state on earth who has any business being viewed as such.

We keep seeing the word “pogrom” used to refer to Israeli hooligans getting their asses kicked for obnoxious behavior in Amsterdam even as Israeli settlers keep committing textbook pogroms in the occupied West Bank.

Just a week ago armed Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage torching Palestinian people’s houses, vehicles and olive trees in order to terrorize them and drive them away. This is the exact type of behavior that the word “pogrom” has historically been used to describe, but you never hear that word used in the mass media to describe Israeli thuggishness. Instead we’re seeing it used to describe Israeli soccer hooligans getting beat up after they tore down Palestinian flags and sang chants about murdering children in Gaza.

So we’re seeing some good news and some bad news about Donald Trump’s potential cabinet picks when it comes to US warmongering and militarism.

The good news is that Trump has publicly ruled out giving psychopathic war hawks Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo a role in his next administration, explicitly naming them in a post on Truth Social and saying they won’t be invited.

This announcement suggests that Trump is at least trying to win the favor of the more anti-interventionist faction of his base. Pundits like Tucker Carlson have been publicly crusading against both Haley and Pompeo throughout this election cycle, and I mention Carlson specifically because he reportedly has Trump’s ear and was believed to have played a role in talking Trump out of bombing Iran in 2019.

The bad news is that other professional warmongers appear to be working their way into the administration. Reports from both Bloomberg and Fox News say the horrible Mike Rogers is under consideration to be the next secretary of defense. The Ron Paul Institute’s Daniel McAdams has a good thread on Twitter calling Rogers “an utter warhawk neocon” who is “arguably worse than Pompeo and Rubio,” noting that Rogers has promoted insanely hawkish positions on Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Iran, and China.

This news, in addition to Trump’s selection of Iran hawk Brian Hook to help staff the incoming State Department, makes it clear that Trump could still easily wind up with a cabinet packed full of warmongering swamp monsters just like last time. Hopefully he keeps getting pressured not to do so.

In a new article on “the expanding ground occupation of the Gaza Strip by the IDF” about the way Israel has been carving up Gaza and seizing more and more territory, Israel’s Ynet News reports that far right elements within the Israeli government are simply waiting for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas to die so that their deaths can be used to justify continued occupation and the construction of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

It’s like a false flag conspiracy theory, except it’s definitely happening and is being done right out in the open, and is even being announced ahead of time.

Democrats: Oh no the right wing voters we again tried to win over voted Republican again and we lost again.

Leftists: So stop doing that and win over the left instead by promoting immensely popular social policies.

Democrats: No way man, if we do that we’ll lose.

November 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Israel, USA | Leave a comment

‘Horrific Reality’: Nearly 70% of UN-Verified Gaza Deaths Are Women and Children

The United Nations human rights office noted the “unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness, disease, displacement, detention, and destruction” wrought by Israel’s 13-month onslaught.

Brett Wilkins, Nov 08, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/news/how-many-women-and-children-have-died-in-gaza

Nearly 7 in 10 people killed by Israeli forces in Gaza during an earlier six-month period of the ongoing assault on the Palestinian enclave were women and children, the United Nations human rights office said Friday.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified 8,119 of the more than 34,500 Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombs and bullets between November 2023 and April 2024. Among those killed were 3,588 children and 2,036 women ranging in age from newborns to nonagenarians. Minors under the age of 18 made up 44% of the victims in the analysis.

The OHCHR report noted the “unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness, disease, displacement, detention, and destruction” wrought by Israel’s onslaught, as well as the “wanton disregard” by Israeli forces and Hamas of international humanitarian law.

The analysis also highlights “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate, and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”

“If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population… these violations may constitute crimes against humanity,” OHCHR said. “And if committed with intent to destroy—in whole or in part—a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, they may also constitute genocide.”

South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. On Thursday, Ireland became the latest of around 30 countries and regional blocs to announce its intent to intervene in the case on behalf of Palestine.

OHCHR found that 88% of the verified Palestinian fatalities from Israeli attacks on residential buildings were people killed in strikes that claimed at least five lives. In recent weeks, Israel’s renewed offensive in northern Gaza—which some experts believe is an attempt to ethnically cleanse the area by bombing and starving its people before forcibly expelling them to make way for Israeli recolonization—has wiped out a staggering number of civilians, including many women and children, in single strikes on homes, hospitals, and refugee camps.

“The high number of fatalities per attack was due to the IDF’s use of weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas,” the analysis states, adding that some Palestinians may have been killed by errant projectiles launched by Hamas or other Gaza-based militants.

The new report also raises concerns over Isrsel’s forcible transfer of Palestinians, systematic attacks on medical workers, journalists, and reported use of white phosphorus munitions—which are banned in populated areas.

Israel has not yet responded to the OHCHR report but has previously said that it “will continue to act, as it always has done, according to international law.”

Since October 7, 2023, when Israeli forces launched their assault on the densely populated coastal enclave of 2.3 million people in response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the Gaza Ministry of Health and U.N. agencies say that more than 43,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 102,500 others wounded. More than 10,000 others are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the ruins of bombed homes and other structures.

Among those killed, say officials, are more than 18,000 children. Last month, the U.K.-based charity Oxfam International said that Israel’s yearlong assault on Gaza has been the deadliest year of conflict for women and children anywhere in the world over the past two decades.

The relentless death and destruction has caused the “complete psychological destruction” of Gaza’s youth, according to the charity Save the Children. The same has been said of many Gazans of all ages.

Last December, the U.N. Children’s Fund called Gaza “the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.” Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called “List of Shame” of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts.

The ICJ—which is a U.N. body—has issued three provisionsal orders in the ongoing genocide case, including directives for Israel to prevent genocidal acts, stop its assault on Rafah, and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel has been accused of flouting all three orders.

The trends and patterns of violations, and of applicable international law as clarified by the International Court of Justice, must inform the steps to be taken to end the current crisis,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement Friday.

“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid,” he added.

November 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Report Details Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Beit Lahia, Northern Gaza

There is no longer a single house people can live in, and the Israeli military fires artillery rounds to ensure any remaining civilians leave

by Dave DeCamp November 6, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/06/report-details-israels-ethnic-cleansing-campaign-in-beit-lahia-northern-gaza/

A report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published on Wednesday detailed the situation in Beit Lahia, a city in northern Gaza near the Israeli border where Israeli forces are implementing an ethnic cleansing campaign.

At the beginning of October, Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in northern Gaza to head south. Many ignored the order since there was nowhere safe to go, and the Israeli military focused its renewed assault on the north on Beith Lahia and neighboring Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, where it imposed a full siege to starve out civilians.

The Israeli military has said it forcibly expelled 55,000 Palestinians from the Jabalia refugee camp, and it has no intention of allowing them back. According to Haaretz, only a few thousand civilians remain in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun.

“There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes,” IDF spokesman Brig Gen Itzik Cohen told reporters on Tuesday.

The Haaretz reporters traveled to Beit Lahia and al-Atatra, a neighborhood northwest of the city, and described the destruction they saw. “In [al-Atatra] and Beit Lahia, there isn’t a single house that people can return to and live in. The area looks like it was hit by a natural disaster. There are no civilians to be seen among the ruins,” the report says.

As an attempt to remove any remaining civilians, the Israeli military fires artillery into Beit Lahia at night. “Those who want to return can’t do so, because the army prevents it. The bottom line is that it makes no difference what the IDF calls its actions. The army has begun the stage of cleansing the northern Strip while it prepares to hold onto the area for a long time to come,” the report reads.

Israeli media has reported that the Israeli military is carrying out a version of the “general’s plan,” an outline for ethnic cleansing drawn up by retired IDF generals. The plan calls for the complete evacuation of all Palestinian civilians from northern Gaza to below the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the Israeli military. Under the plan, if civilians don’t leave, they are to be treated as combatants and killed either by military action or starvation.

While the Israeli military claims its cleansing campaign is about removing Hamas, the IDF commander in charge of Beit Lahia, Col. Yaniv Barot, acknowledged they found no significant militant infrastructure in the area. “Barot says his mission is to continue to locate and eliminate terror infrastructure and Hamas activists. But he says that in the course of the most recent operation, no underground infrastructure, heavy war materiel or weapons production sites were found,” the report says.

The Haaretz report said the activity on the ground proves that the Israeli military is bisecting northern Gaza, potentially to pave the way for the construction of Jewish settlements, an idea strongly supported by many Israeli ministers and members of the Knesset.

The Biden administration has claimed it opposes any implementation of the “general’s plan” and the advancement of settlements but has continued to provide military aid for the ethnic cleansing campaign.

November 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

What Netanyahu’s firing of Yoav Gallant means for Gaza, Israel’s regional war, and the US-Israel relationship

Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has removed the one minor restraint on expanding Israel’s regional war against Iran and the axis of resistance. International pressure to stop Israel is needed now more than ever.

Mondoweiss, By Mitchell Plitnick November 5, 2024

In a move that has been brewing for many months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He will be replaced as Minister of Defense by Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, who will, in turn, be replaced as Foreign Minister by Gideon Sa’ar.

While Gallant has been on Netanyahu’s “hit list” for a long time, he has been reluctant to replace the Defense Minister while Israel is involved in so many significant military operations. So, why did he do it now?

Domestic considerations

Netanyahu’s decision has nothing to do with military concerns, but with domestic politics. His coalition is currently being rocked by controversy over a bill strongly supported by the United Torah Judaism party that would allow ultra-orthodox (referred to as Haredi) men who refuse to serve in the Israeli military to continue to receive childcare benefits. The underlying purpose of the bill is to get around new laws requiring that Haredim, who have long been exempt from compulsory military service, serve like other citizens.

Katz was transparently appointed so Netanyahu would effectively have full control over the Defense Ministry, while Gallant’s firing was retribution and a very loud warning to anyone from his governing coalition who might consider going against him on crucial legislation. ……………………………………………………………………………………..

What it means in the region

With Gallant out of the picture, and Netanyahu now surrounded by his people, the imperative for major international pressure is even more intense. Gallant, who has no problem slaughtering innocent Palestinians by the tens of thousands, still saw matters through a security lens, albeit a vicious and brutal one.

……………………………………………… Netanyahu will have successfully removed a “renegade” in Gallant and will face even less restraint than he did before, hard as that it is to imagine.

What it means in Washington

Yoav Gallant was the main point of communication between Joe Biden’s administration and the Netanyahu government. …………………………………………………………..

……..With Gallant gone, Netanyahu will be even less concerned about Biden’s feeble words of sympathy

…………………………………………………………………Netanyahu has routinely found ways to resolve issues like this over the past fifteen years. And if he does, it is likely that he will have further insulated himself from any possibility of American pressure to curb his aggression in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/what-netanyahus-firing-of-yoav-gallant-means-for-gaza-israels-regional-war-and-the-us-israel-relationship/

November 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Is Israel using depleted uranium to bomb Lebanon?

Israel’s unprecedented use of a massive number of bunker-buster bombs in Lebanon has raised concerns that it is using depleted uranium in its ongoing bombardment. We need an impartial investigation given the potentially disastrous consequences.

By Anis Germani November 4, 2024, https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/is-israel-using-depleted-uranium-to-bomb-lebanon/?ml_recipient=137165956795335710&ml_link=137165936887072401&fbclid=IwY2xjawGXei9leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHeMNKVpn62nSWqD9WDPP1iK1N2YJzh9qBDM7m78ZRp5LF5KqhzhsYn_ILg_aem_EcuA81vJxztXtRoa8hJsGw

Following Israel’s violent bombing of the southern suburb of Beirut, the Syndicate of Chemists in Lebanon issued a statement on October 5 warning against Israel’s possible use of depleted uranium. The Syndicate cited the extensive urban destruction and the penetrative capacity of Israeli missiles, capable of burrowing through buildings and creating craters tens of meters deep as grounds for suspecting depleted uranium use.

The following day, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health quickly warned against making assumptions without verified evidence, stating no solid proof had been collected so far. The Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission also urged caution, acknowledging the legitimacy of these concerns and planning field radiation surveys with the Lebanese army once security allowed. It was not until October 19 that the Atomic Energy Commission was able to extract two samples from the southern suburb of Beirut, one of them being from the site of the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. Preliminary results were supposed to be announced on October 25, but to this day, no such announcement has been made.

The potential repercussions of depleted uranium (or DU) use for human health and the environment are so severe that any suspicion, however remote, must be thoroughly investigated. DU is typically suspected when bunker-buster or armor-piercing ammunition is deployed. Israel is particularly suspect given its historical record of using prohibited weapons — including during its current war on Lebanon — and its means to use DU. Although only a scientific investigation can conclusively confirm or refute Israel’s use of DU in Lebanon, how likely is it that Israel deployed DU in its recent attacks?

What is depleted uranium, and why is it dangerous?

Uranium is a rare, radioactive element found naturally in the crust of the earth requiring costly extraction. It consists of three isotopes (U-234, U-235, and U-238), only two of which are useful for producing nuclear energy and bombs. The third isotope, U-238, is unsuitable for nuclear fission, but because the former two are rare, raw uranium must be “enriched” by extracting these components, leaving U-238 as waste — uranium that has been depleted, or DU.

In the 1970s, DU properties were found useful for military use. Its high density (1.7 times that of lead) and low cost (since it is a byproduct of uranium enrichment) incentivized its use in tank armor and armor-piercing ammunition. Israel is thought to have tested DU on Egyptian forces during the 1973 October War, and the U.S. added it to its arsenal in 1977. DU rose to prominence in the military as well as public debates during the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent conflicts.

DU poses significant health and environmental risks. While not classified as a nuclear weapon, it emits alpha radiation, which can cause severe cancers, birth defects, and organ failure if ingested, inhaled, or embedded in the body through shrapnel. Radioactive particles from fired munitions disintegrate to dust on impact and contaminate the air, water, soil, and food chain, making radiation difficult to contain.

Small radioactive particles can be carried far from the battlefield. A 2006 study detected radioactive contamination in Europe following the use of DU in Iraq. DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, meaning its radioactivity persists indefinitely, making it a long-term environmental hazard.

Confirming Israel’s definitive use of DU in Lebanon can only be done through sample analysis. However, the likelihood of its use can still be gauged based on the strategies used by the anti-DU movement in the 1990s.

Israel’s arsenal

Assessing the likelihood of DU use starts by identifying the bombs deployed by Israel. This can be done through records of weapon shipments, images of bombs on fighter jets, and bomb patents.

The UN documented Israel’s use of GBU-31, GBU-32, and GBU-39 bunker-buster bombs in Gaza. In December 2023, the U.S. sent 100 BLU-109 warheads to Israel (having also sent DU munitions to Ukraine two months prior). Patents reveal that BLU-109 warheads are a component of GBU-31 bombs and can be made of DU or tungsten, the former being the cheaper option. An analysis of the footage of the F-15 jets that carried out the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah revealed they were carrying GBU-31 bombs.

War correspondent Elijah Magnier argues that Israel does not need to use DU, given its use of advanced cluster and thermobaric bombs, which can cause equivalent destruction. The economic motivations are also not there since the U.S. and other Western countries are supplying it with ample funds and weapons.

During the 2003 Iraq invasion, the U.S. dropped a total of 24 GBU bombs alongside 440-2,200 tons of DU. On the other hand, Israel dropped around 80 GBU bombs in its operation targeting Nasrallah alone. This suggests an inverse relationship: as the use of modern bunker-buster bombs increases, the need for DU bombs to achieve similar outcomes decreases.

Israel’s history with DU

Israel was among the first to use DU in 1973 and its nuclear program is an open secret. It was also suspected of using DU in the 2006 Lebanon War, though the evidence is murky. In 2006, experts also raised alarms about the extent of the destruction — which couldn’t be attributed to other bombs at the time — and detected elevated radiation levels around two bomb craters, though these were never officially documented.

The former director of the Pentagon’s DU program, Dr. Doug Rokke, who was later accused of promoting conspiracy theories in an attempt to discredit him, stated that all the evidence needed to convict Israel was there: from the U.S. sending DU weapons to Israel at the outbreak of the 2006 war, to its documented use in a photo taken of Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border loading DU shells into a tank.

In response, the UN Environment Programme analyzed 32 samples from southern Lebanon and found no evidence of DU. However, Magnier argues that investigations into the use of prohibited weapons are often highly politicized, making it difficult to rely on these findings.

Iraq as a case study

Environmental expert and anti-DU activist, Dr. Rania Masri, stated that “in the case of Iraq, the challenge was not in confirming the use of DU in Iraq, but getting the U.S. administration to admit its catastrophic health and environmental impact.” Many U.S. veterans returned from Iraq with increased cancer rates and fathered children with birth defects, raising alarm bells about the long-term consequences of exposure to DU.

Studies confirmed that DU exposure increased miscarriage rates by 1.62 times and birth defects by 2.8 times among Iraq War veterans, with cancer cases in Iraq surging fivefold between 1990 and 2013. NATO attempted to dismiss these findings, attributing them to a psychiatric illness it dubbed “Gulf War Syndrome.” To this day, the NATO website states that “the scientific and medical research continues to disprove any link between Depleted Uranium and the reported negative health effects.”

Masri believes “it is not unlikely that Israel could have used DU weapons” since “its violations of international law and known possession of these weapons make it highly suspect.” Magnier agrees, citing Israel’s documented use of banned weapons such as white phosphorus and cluster bombs, adding that Israel’s army is “the least moral and most criminal army in the world. That is why we cannot disqualify its use of any banned weapon.

The way forward

Radiation contamination is extremely challenging to contain as atomic particles can contaminate vast areas. Countries like the U.S. and U.K. have often shirked responsibility for cleaning up after using DU, as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The precedent set by these nations raises concerns about accountability and justice for affected populations.

After the first Gulf War, Kuwait pressured the U.S. to clean contaminated sites, eventually leading to partial cleanup efforts 13 years later; 6,700 tons of contaminated sand, 25 tanks, and 22 tons of DU munitions were buried in Idaho despite local opposition. Some contaminated tanks were deemed too costly to remove and were simply wrapped in plastic and buried in the Kuwaiti desert.

A thorough and impartial investigation in Lebanon seems unlikely, considering the complete exposure of state authorities to foreign influence. Even if positive results were found, Lebanon would face significant challenges, including taking legal action against Israel and organizing a costly radiation cleanup. Consequently, Lebanese state neglect and Israel’s lack of accountability may find “common ground” in sweeping the matter under the rug, leaving the Lebanese population to fend for itself against this silent killer.

November 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, Israel | Leave a comment

Fifty two nations call for global arms embargo on Israel

Turkiye is leading the call for the embargo despite its ongoing trade with, and oil deliveries to, Israel

The Cradle, NOV 4, 2024

The Foreign Ministry of Turkiye sent the UN a letter signed by 52 nations and two organizations calling for a halt in military transfers to Israel, stating the Israeli army is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called for the arms embargo on Israel while speaking at a news conference in Djibouti on 1 November.

While attending the Turkiye–Africa collaboration meeting, Fidan announced that the group letter was sent to the UN and that it must be “repeated at every opportunity that selling arms to Israel means participating in its genocide.”

Ahmet Yildiz, Turkiye’s permanent ambassador to the UN, stated that Israel’s actions have pushed the region to the brink of war……………………………………………..more https://thecradle.co/articles/fifty-two-nations-call-for-global-arms-embargo-on-israel

November 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, Turkey, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israeli Scholar Lays Out ‘True Brutality’ of Ethnic Cleansing Now Underway in Gaza

“Such dehumanization cannot help but trigger our associations with scenes depicting the Nazis loading Jews into cattle cars.”

Jake Johnson, Nov 01, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/news/israeli-scholar-northern-gaza

Much alarm has been raised over the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” an ethnic cleansing proposal for northern Gaza that has reportedly garnered attention in the highest reaches of the Israeli government.

But Israeli scholar Idan Landau argued in a column published in English by +972 Magazine on Friday that what the Israeli military is actually doing in northern Gaza “is even more appalling” than the plan outlined by a group of retired generals. Landau argued that focus on the details of the Generals’ Plan has served to obscure the “true brutality” of Israel’s deadly operations in northern Gaza, which has been rendered a hellscape of death and destruction by the military assault and siege.

Landau, a professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, opened his column—first published in Hebrew on his blog—by pointing to two photos: one showing a celebratory event at a camp built by an Israeli settler organization just outside of the Gaza Strip, and the other showing displaced Palestinians lined up at gunpoint amid the ruins of northern Gaza.

“These photos tell a story that is unfolding so rapidly that its harrowing details are already on the brink of being forgotten,” wrote Landau. “Yet this story could start from any point during the past 76 years: the Nakba of 1948, the ‘Siyag Plan‘ that followed it, the Naksa of 1967. On one side, displaced Palestinians with all the belongings they can carry, hungry, wounded, and exhausted; on the other, joyful Jewish settlers, sanctifying the new land that the army has cleared for them.”

The Israeli military’s dehumanization of the people of Gaza, Landau wrote, “cannot help but trigger our associations with scenes depicting the Nazis loading Jews into cattle cars.”

Landau wrote that what the Israeli army has been implementing in northern Gaza in recent weeks is “not quite” the Generals’ Plan, which entails giving Palestinians still in the region a week to leave before declaring the area a closed military zone—and designating everyone who remains a militant who can be denied humanitarian assistance and killed.

The actual strategy Israeli soldiers have been deploying in northern Gaza is “an even more sinister and brutal version” of the Generals’ Plan “within a more concentrated area.”

“The first, most immediate distinction is the abandoning of provisions for reducing harm to civilians, i.e. giving residents of northern Gaza a week to evacuate southward,” Landau wrote. “The second departure concerns the real purpose of emptying the area: while portraying the military operation as a security necessity, it was, in fact, an embodiment of the spirit of ethnic cleansing and resettlement from day one.”

“As opposed to the picture painted by the army, implying that residents in the northern areas were free to move south and get out of the danger zone, local testimonies presented a frightening reality: Anyone who so much as stepped out of their home risked being shot by Israeli snipers or drones, including young children and those holding white flags,” Landau noted. “Rescue crews trying to help the wounded also came under attack, as well as journalists trying to document the events.”

The scholar cites one “particularly harrowing video” in which a Palestinian child is seen “on the ground pleading for help after being wounded by an airstrike; when a crowd gathers to help him, they are suddenly hit by another airstrike, killing one and wounding more than 20 others.”

“This is the reality amid which the people of northern Gaza were supposed to walk, starved and exhausted, into the ‘humanitarian zone,” Landau wrote. “Since the Israeli army began its operation in northern Gaza, it has killed over 1,000 Palestinians. The Israeli Air Force usually bombs at night while the victims are sleeping, slaughtering entire families in their homes and making it more difficult to evacuate the wounded. And on October 24, rescue services announced that the intensity of the bombardment left them with no choice but to cease all operations in the besieged areas.”

The deadly military assault, Landau stressed, has been accompanied by a “starvation policy” that has severely hindered the flow of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza.

The heads of prominent United Nations agencies and human rights organizations warned Friday that conditions on the ground in the region are “apocalyptic” and that “the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence.”

Landau noted that on October 16, following pressure from the Biden administration, the Israeli government reportedly allowed 100 aid trucks to enter northern Gaza.

“But journalists in the north were quick to correct the record: Nothing at all had entered the besieged areas,” Landau wrote. “On October 20, Israel denied a further request by U.N. agencies to bring in food, fuel, blood, [and] medicines. Three days later, in response to a request for an interim order by the Israeli human rights group Gisha, the state admitted to the High Court that no humanitarian aid had been allowed into northern Gaza up to that point. By this time, we are already talking about a three-week-long food siege.”

Addressing the question of “what is left for us to do” in the face of such a catastrophe, Landau wrote that “the consensus concerning the war of extermination poisons Israeli society and blackens its future so profoundly that even small pockets of resistance can proliferate stamina and hope to those who have not yet been carried away by the currents of madness.”

“We can also look for partners in this fight abroad, where the critical lever of pressure is the pipeline of American weapons,” he added. “The struggle to end this intensifying war of extermination and transfer in Gaza, particularly in the north, is first and foremost a human fight. It is a fight for life, both in Gaza and Israel: for the very chance that life can continue to exist in this blood-soaked land. Nothing could be more patriotic.”

+972 Magazine published Landau’s column a day after Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, warned in a statement that “time is running out” to stop the far-right Israeli government’s attempt to “erase the Palestinians from their own land and allow Israel to fully annex Palestinian territory.”

“Genocide and a man-made humanitarian catastrophe are unfolding in front of us and in Gaza,” said Albanese. “I regret to see so many member states are avoiding acknowledging the suffering of the Palestinian people and instead look away.”

November 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Israel, Reference | Leave a comment

After election, will progressives acknowledge and oppose US genocide in Gaza?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 4 Nov 24

During the current US election cycle, many progressives have recoiled from addressing the 13 month long US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza.

They are singularly focused on pushing Kamala Harris to victory, saving democracy from the unhinged authoritarian Trump. As a result they’ve banished the word much less the reality of the genocide which the US enables.

That is deplorable. Every day dozens, hundreds, possibly a thousand Palestinian civilians die in the worst genocide this century. All financed, publicly supported and weaponized by their beloved Biden/Harris administration.

When the genocide in Gaza is brought up for discussion, too many progressives are ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.’

When asked to push back against US weaponizing, publicly supporting, financing the genocide, progressives come up with the darnedest excuses

‘There is no genocide in Gaza, just a defensive war against Hamas.’

‘Don’t dare say anything that will jeopardize Harris’ chances.’

‘The destruction in Gaza will be much worse under Trump.’

‘The United States has no influence on the government of Israel.’

‘President Biden and Vice President Harris are working night and day to achieve ceasefire in Gaza.’

‘People have been fighting each other there for thousands of years and nothing will change that.’

Maybe these otherwise fine progressives will open their eyes and souls to ongoing destruction of Gaza once the election ends and decide to resist it passionately.

Alas, with both candidates locked in ironclad support for sending endless billions for Israel to ‘finish the job’, they just might shrug and continue ignoring the most greatest moral dilemma of their lifetime.

November 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Israel, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Israel’s attacks on Iran were an apocalyptic error by Netanyahu. Here’s why

Martin Jay, Strategic Culture Foundation, Thu, 31 Oct 2024,
https://www.sott.net/article/495896-Israels-attacks-on-Iran-were-an-apocalyptic-error-by-Netanyahu-Heres-why

We see that Israel has no longer term military strategy, only short term excursions which will drain both its resources and the morale of its frontline soldiers.

While the whole world now waits with bated breath as to the result of the U.S. elections in only a matter of days, many are also waiting to see what are the implications for Israel’s recent strike on Iran. Despite being told by Joe Biden that it could not strike military installations it went against the advice of its chief sponsor and did precisely that. Perhaps there has never been a better example of western diplomacy failing than this incident, given that while Israel lies to its own people and the western world via news outlets more than happy to spin a yarn about the reality of the attacks, Iran now has to look at a number of options in how it will respond. But respond it surely will.

Yet this singular act is probably the most reckless to date from Netanyahu. Never before has the Israeli PM gone so far out on a limb and taken such a gambit which not only pushes the U.S. to the brink of a war with Iran but also throws a spotlight on the existential question of Israel itself. The next strike on Israel’s military infrastructure might be the final blow for Israel to function as a military entity forcing the U.S., or the next president, to intervene with Trump’s critics already pointing out that he owes a number of favours to the Zionists which they will certainly call in.

Netanyahu is desperate to keep wars on all fronts alive simply so he can remain relevant. But what is hardly talked about is the state of Israel itself, with an economy in pieces. Just how far will the next U.S. president go in supporting Israel’s new war with Iran, both in terms of military spending and breathing new life into the economy which has seen 40,000 businesses go under since October 7th 2023 and almost a million Israelis leave the country.

Netanyahu now is like a poker player who has used up all his IOUs at the table and is holding two pairs. How can he even believe he can take on Iran when even in Gaza and in Lebanon he is losing soldiers at a rate which should worry him and his generals. Yes, he has struck Hezbollah and reduced its capabilities but by no stretch of the imagination has he taken out the Iranian proxy which is still sending missiles and drones into Israel making the Israelis run to their air raid shelters even to this day.

The decision to strike Iran was surely out of an act of a gross political dilemma. However, the act itself has backfired on a level that neither he nor his entourage could imagine. Most of the targets were not even significantly damaged with a very low percentage of Israel’s missiles getting through Iran’s air defence which is so efficient that even Israel’s air force were too afraid actually fly into Iran’s airspace. Many in the west will be taken in by the spin from Israel’s lobby and impressive PR machine that it was a great victory and many sites were taken out, regardless of the fact that the IDF can’t provide one single shred of video evidence to back up such ludicrous claims, as it did previously in Gaza and Lebanon.

But the real defeat for Israel under Netanyahu is yet to come. Iran now has all the hard evidence it needs to strategize and hit Israel even harder than before. The erroneous strike on Iran by Netanyahu is not so much measured by the minor harm it did to a couple of weapons sites. It is by how now the myth of Israel’s military strength has been debunked once and for all. For decades Israel claimed superiority to everyone else, including Iran, and this was taken for granted by partisan western journalists who kept the dream alive. Remarkably, the strike on Israel by Iran on October 1st showed even Israelis that their air defence systems were hopelessly inadequate against Iran’s hypersonic missiles. That should have been enough to cool down the hot heads which straddle Netanyahu. At this point, the message he delivered at the UN, that there is “no place in Iran which Israel’s missiles cannot reach” should have been taken at face value and interpreted literally. Reaching Iranians sites is one thing. Actually taking them out is another.

Now, as the dust settles and Israel now waits for Iran’s response, the second myth that Israel’s strike capability was highly effective against Iran’s air defences is also blown. It seems like now Netanyahu’s folded as he has no more bluffs to play at the poker table. Unless of course he is deliberately coaxing his own country into a suicide strategy where Iran will completely desecrate Israel’s military leaving the U.S. little choice but to install itself on a grand scale. This so-called suicide strategy can’t be ruled out but seems hard to believe. The truth is that until Israel struck Iran, it didn’t know whether its own missiles and aircraft had the capability to penetrate Iran’s air defence system, supported heavily by Russia which sent it S-400 systems in August.

For the moment the Israeli press, as an act of desperate patriotism one can only assume, has indulged itself in a flurry of fake news stories about Iran’s air defence systems being destroyed as well as missile factories. But the jubilation will not last long. Oddly, the same media are becoming more pragmatic about Israel’s operations in Lebanon which has gone on for well over a month and in just two days managed to send over 80 body bags back to Israel, spurning a narrative which already is beginning to question the decision to cross the Lebanese border. The Jerusalem Post, in an oped, actually is admitting that the campaign is losing its credibility due to the number of lost lives of IDF soldiers. “The number of soldiers being killed in southern Lebanon also appears to be rising instead of falling over time” it opines. “The strikes against Hezbollah, such as the killing of Radwan commanders in September and the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, should have weakened the group’s command and control”.

The article is a remarkable admission of Israel’s strategy being misconceived and poorly planned, just like the 2006 invasion. But getting IDF soldiers out of southern Lebanon will be much harder than sending them there as Netanyahu has pushed his arm into a hornet’s nest. Israel cannot consider a war of attrition against Hezbollah as even Netanyahu knows he cannot win. His only means to scoring points are assassinations and bombing civilians in southern Beirut, a strategy which many would call terrorism. His team of military goons have not learnt the lesson that aerial bombardment is not a deal breaker in a war against a disciplined guerrilla outfit. It failed in Iraq. It even failed in Vietnam. Again, we see that Israel has no longer term military strategy, only short term excursions which will drain both its resources and the morale of its frontline soldiers.

November 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Killed Over 50 Children in Jabalia in 48 Hours: UN

Four children were wounded by an Israeli strike on a vaccination center in northern Gaza

by Dave DeCamp November 3, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/03/israel-kills-over-50-children-in-jabalia-within-48-hours-un/

Israeli strikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza, killed over 50 children in just 48 hours, the UN’s child relief agency, UNICEF, said in a statement on Saturday.

“This has already been a deadly weekend of attacks in North Gaza. In the past 48 hours alone, over 50 children have reportedly been killed in Jabalia, where strikes leveled two residential buildings sheltering hundreds of people,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza that began in early October. The campaign has involved a starvation blockade and massive strikes on civilians, and Israeli troops are preventing the approximately 50,000 Palestinians who have been forced out of Jabalia from returning.

Russell said Israeli strikes included an attack on UNICEF staff working on a polio vaccination campaign for children and an attack on a vaccination center. The World Health Organization said at least six people, including four children, were wounded in the Israeli strike on the vaccination center.

“The attacks on Jabalia, the vaccination clinic, and the UNICEF staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza strip,” Russell said. “Taken alongside the horrific level of child deaths in North Gaza from other attacks, these most recent events combine to write yet another dark chapter in one of the darkest periods of this terrible war.”

Israeli strikes continued to pound northern, central, and southern Gaza on Sunday. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 35 Palestinians were killed, including 16 in the north. An Israeli attack on a residential building in the southern city of Khan Younis killed seven members of the same family, including four children.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said in its death toll update on Sunday that at least 27 Palestinians were killed and 86 were injured in the previous 24-hour period. The latest violence brought the ministry’s death toll since October 2023 to 43,341 and the number of wounded to 102,105.

The Health Ministry’s numbers are considered an undercount since they don’t account for Palestinians missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. A group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza have estimated the US-backed Israeli bombing campaign and siege has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, including over 60,000 who have starved to death.

The genocidal slaughter would not be possible without US military aid, as Israeli officials have acknowledged they couldn’t sustain operations in Gaza for more than a few months without US support. The Israeli news site Calcalist has estimated the US has funded about 70% of Israel’s military operations over the past year.

November 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

US Bombers Arrive in Middle East as Part of New Deployment for Israel

The US has reportedly warned Iran not to respond to Israel’s attack

by Dave DeCamp November 3, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/03/us-bombers-arrive-in-middle-east-as-part-of-new-deployment-to-protect-israel/

US B-52 bombers arrived in the Middle East on Saturday as part of a new deployment to “defend” Israel amid speculation over whether or not Iran will respond to Israel’s October 26 attack.

“B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the US Central Command area of responsibility,” US Central Command wrote on X.

The Pentagon announced it was beefing up its military presence in the region on Friday, saying Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the “deployment of additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several US Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region.”

The Pentagon said the purpose of the deployment is the “protection of US citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation.” The US also recently deployed a THAAD missile defense system and about 100 troops to Israel.

Iranian officials have been vowing there will be a response to Israel’s attack, which killed four Iranian soldiers and one civilian. Israel launched the airstrikes on Iran in retaliation for the October 1 Iranian missile barrage that was fired into Israel in response to a string of Israeli escalations and assassinations in the region.

Axios has reported that Israeli intelligence suggests Iran is planning to launch a major attack from Iraqi territory and that it could happen before the US presidential election on November 5. However, a report published by The Wall Journal on Sunday said that Iran didn’t want to influence the US election and would likely wait until after.

The Journal report, which cited unnamed Arab and Iranian officials, said Iran has told Arab diplomats it’s planning a complex response against Israel that would involve more powerful warheads and other weapons not used in its previous attacks on Israeli territory. One source said Iran would likely target military facilities again “but much more aggressively than last time.”

Another Axios report said the US warned Iran that if it attacked, the US wouldn’t be able to restrain Israel. “We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” a US official told Axios.

November 5, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

F-35 components sent to Israel from Royal Air Force base

Parts for Israel’s most advanced fighter jet have been secretly shipped from a British military base during the assault on Gaza.

Declassified UK JOHN McEVOY, 31 October 2024

The shipments have continued under Keir Starmer’s Labour government

Reported in partnership with Irish news site The Ditch

F-35 fighter jet parts have been secretly transported to Israel from a British air force base in Norfolk, it can be revealed.

At least seven arms shipments have been sent from RAF Marham to Israel’s F-35 airbase at Nevatim since the Gaza bombing began.

Two of the deliveries took place this summer shortly after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.

The information is contained within cargo documents reviewed by The Ditch and Declassified.

The documents show that the UK government has not only been approving F-35 export licences to Israel, but actively facilitating their transportation through British military sites.

F-35 supplies have become particularly controversial after it emerged that Israel used one of the planes to bomb a designated safe zone in Gaza, Al-Mawasi, killing 90 people.

Campaign Against Arms Trade’s Sam Perlo-Freeman told Declassified: “The F-35 plays a major part in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and brutal bombardment and invasion of Lebanon”.

He added that “the UK is not only licensing the supply of spare parts, but actively using UK military assets to facilitate their delivery. This makes UK ministers and potentially even military personnel complicit in war crimes”.

The International Criminal Court is currently considering arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. Human Rights Watch has warned that countries supplying Israel with arms could be complicit.

F-35 shipments

The seven shipments of F-35 parts from RAF Marham took place on 11 November 2023, 13 January, 21 January, 7 February, 28 April, 28 July, and 6 August 2024.

In six of those cases, the registered sender was the Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems office which is based in Havant, a town near Portsmouth.

Lockheed Martin is a major US arms corporation and the lead player in the international consortium that produces the F-35 fighter jets.

The Havant site is Lockheed Martin’s main headquarters in Britain, employing over 500 staff and working on the F-35 programme.

The components were transferred from RAF Marham to Heathrow Airport, and then transported to Tel Aviv on cargo flights operated by Israeli airline El Al……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Munitions for Israel

Labour suspended some arms export licences to Israel last month but will continue to allow shipments of F-35 components to Israel through “global hubs”.

The UK Ministry of Defence did not dispute that F-35 parts had been supplied directly to Israel from RAF Marham on the dates found by The Ditch and Declassified………………………………………………………………..more https://www.declassifieduk.org/f-35-components-sent-to-israel-from-royal-air-force-base/?utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ICYMI+-+Weekly+Roundup

November 5, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Witnesses say the Israeli army is using facial recognition technology in its assault on north Gaza

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/witnesses-say-the-israeli-army-is-using-facial-recognition-technology-in-its-assault-on-north-gaza/

Witnesses told Mondoweiss that after the army scans people’s faces, most people are detained for field interrogations. During these encounters, soldiers use what Ishaaq al-Daour describe as “psychological tactics” to unsettle the people being questioned, claiming that they know everything about their lives and that if they lie in their answers, “they will be killed.”

Witness testimony from northern Gaza shows that Israel is using facial recognition technology to organize how it conducts mass arrests and forcible displacement. Some Palestinians say the technology is also being used to carry out field executions.

By Tareq S. Hajjaj October 31, 2024

Ishaaq al-Daour, 32, was sheltering with his family at the UN-run Abu Hussein School in Jabalia refugee camp when the Israeli army stormed the shelter on October 20, forcing over 700 hundred people out of the school and leading them into a large ditch that had been dug in advance by the military.

“They made all of the men go down into the ditch first,” al-Daour told Mondoweiss from the Remal neighborhood in Gaza City. “Then they ordered us to climb out of the ditch one by one and stood each of us in front of a camera that had been installed nearby.”

The army made the men stand in front of the “camera” for at least three minutes per person, al-Daour said, long enough for the cameras to scan their faces and reveal personal data seemingly already stored in the Israeli military’s system. After the scans, al-Daour said the soldiers would reveal information about each individual, including their “name, age, work, family members and names, place of residence, and even their personal activities.”

“When they suspected someone, they took him away [to an unknown location” al-Daour said. As for those who had relatives who belonged to Palestinian resistance movements or who personally belonged to resistance factions, al-Daour speculated that “their fate was immediate death,” citing stories he had heard from others in Gaza, whose friends and relatives were taken at checkpoints and had not been seen again, or who returned to Gaza in body bags.

Al-Daour is one of the thousands of people who were expelled from the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza and ordered to move south at gunpoint by the Israeli army. The forced exodus of thousands out of Jabalia is part of an Israeli offensive on northern Gaza that started on October 5. Its objective is to implement a proposal put forward by a group of senior Israeli generals that aims to empty northern Gaza of its inhabitants through starvation and bombardment, the so-called “Generals’ Plan.”

Survivors from Jabalia like al-Daour report that the Israeli army is using facial recognition technology to screen residents in the ongoing assault, often identifying people from long distances and picking them out from a crowd.

Witnesses say that the Israeli army has set up security checkpoints throughout northern Gaza where the facial recognition technology is being deployed. The military is also reportedly using this technology when it storms shelters for the displaced. Witnesses report that in these cases Israeli forces will corral people in enclosed places, usually ditches dug by military bulldozers, and process them individually.

Mondoweiss spoke to several survivors from Jabalia, who said that the Israeli army is using quadcopter drones to “identify people immediately from a distance,” and that soldiers are stopping people at checkpoints to conduct “camera scans” that lasts for several minutes. Witnesses say these were particularly unnerving as they stood awaiting an uncertain fate. Witnesses also report that the army picked people out of a crowd at checkpoints using what they described as a “red laser pointer” that was either mounted on a tank or on a soldier’s rifle.

The questions are typically wide-ranging, al-Daour said. “They ask us about our relatives, our neighbors, the movements of the resistance fighters on the ground, who we know from them, and who they are. They convince us that they already know everything about us by mentioning intimate details about our lives, and then they threaten us with killing if we lie.”

Israel’s use of facial recognition throughout the war

While Mondoweiss could not independently verify the nature of the “cameras” being described by witnesses, the use of facial scanning and facial recognition technology by the Israeli army has been well documented.

Facial recognition technology used by Israel pulls from a database of information about Palestinians that has been built up over the years, including on Palestinians in the West Bank. One of those databases is called Wolf Pack, which according to Amnesty International, contains extensive information on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, “including where they live, who their family members are, and whether they are wanted for questioning by Israeli authorities.”

In the old city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, Israeli surveillance cameras use a facial recognition system called Red Wolf on Palestinians who pass through checkpoints in the city. “Their face is scanned, without their knowledge or consent, and compared with biometric entries in databases which exclusively contain information about Palestinians,” Amnesty described in a May 2023 report.

It is unclear whether the facial recognition technology used throughout the ongoing assault on northern Gaza is the Red Wolf system or the other systems that the Israeli army has been reported to have used throughout the war on Gaza. In March, the New York Times reported that Israel’s cyber-intelligence division Unit 8200 used facial recognition technology developed by Corsight, an Israeli company, in combination with Google Photos. Together, these technologies enabled “Israel to pick faces out of crowds and grainy drone footage,” the Times said.

Likewise, it’s unclear whether these facial recognition systems are drawing upon data from Wolf Pack or another Israeli database, but media attention has recently focused on how that data is being processed and generated through a number of controversial AI programs to identify potential targets. Programs like “Lavender,” “The Gospel,” and “Where’s Daddy” have pushed Human Rights Watch to warn against their use of “faulty data and inexact approximations to inform military actions.” Several media exposés have also shown how some of these AI systems loosely identify civilians as targets for assassination or alert the Israeli army to target members of Hamas when they are with their families.

Testimonies gathered by Mondoweiss for this report and in previous reporting confirm that the brutal Israeli invasion in northern Gaza is utilizing these technologies as a means of organizing how it conducts mass arrests, field executions, and ethnic cleansing.

‘It was the most terrifying moment in my life’

Hiba al-Fram is one of the displaced people who passed through the army’s checkpoints during the Jabalia invasion. She says she was subjected to a facial and retinal scan, an experience she described as terrifying.

“Everyone was standing in the line, men and women, and everyone held up their IDs in their hands. Soldiers were using lasers to check our ID cards from a distance before we reached them,” she told Mondoweiss. Mondoweiss could not confirm what lasers the military was using.

Al-Fram said that the army picked people out of the queue using a “laser” pointer affixed to a tank. She described the army shining the laser on the ID cards and calling on people to advance towards the checkpoint, where the soldiers set up a camera.

“The soldiers arrested over 100 men in front of my eyes; they arrested them in front of their wives, and they were beating them, cursing them, and threatening to kill them and their families. Many wives saw their husbands in this situation.”

“The soldiers were telling the women: ‘We will kill you by a sniper bullet, we will run over your skulls with tanks, we will stone you to death, we will make you bleed to death,’” al-Fram continued. “The women were terrified and thought they would be killed.”

Then, the soldiers would gather five women at a time and walk them to a security check or a scan of the face or eye. “They arrested two women in front of me from the crowd based on their face scans. People later said they were relatives of people known to be members of armed factions, but they were women. They were carrying children.”

“The soldiers ordered them to give their children to other women. The mothers started to panic like crazy. They looked around frantically for any woman they knew to give their children to,” al-Fram continued.

“We would walk towards the face-scanning point in utter terror in our hearts, walking between dozens of tanks and soldiers pointing their weapons at us. And we would stand there for 3 or 5 minutes. They were the worst minutes of my life. A person’s fate was decided based on that scan: either arrest, beating and humiliation, or release them and force them to leave towards the south.”

After the soldiers take the face scan, the questions about neighbors and relatives begin. “They asked us where they are, where we can find them, when we last saw them. We did not know anything about these details, so we did not lie when we said we did not know. They would threaten us that if we lied, they would uncover the lie and shoot us immediately.”

Of all the terrifying moments experienced by residents of northern Gaza, many say that they experienced their most terrifying moments when they were stopped at an Israeli checkpoint.

“The most terrifying and frightening moments were the moments when you stand in front of the camera to get your face scanned,” Abdul Karim al-Zuwaidi, a journalist in northern Gaza, told Mondoweiss.

Before al-Zuwaidi reached the facial recognition point on his way toward Gaza City, he saw many young men being arrested by the army. As a Palestinian journalist working in the Gaza Strip, he like many of his colleagues is at particular risk of being targeted.

“The minutes we stand in front of the camera feel like years,” al-Zuwaidi said. “As a journalist conveying our message to the world, I was terrified.”

Al-Zuwaidi said that during their march south, many Jabalia residents would attempt to avoid upcoming checkpoints, often to no avail. “We had heard the stories about the checkpoints and how they were arresting people, so we tried in whatever way possible to avoid passing through them, but there was no way of escaping.”

“When we are examined, and the scan shows that one of us will be arrested, the soldiers start beating and cursing them before they take them away and they disappear. We saw this scene play out in front of us for dozens of young men.” Al-Zuwaidi did not see himself what information was revealed to the soldiers by the scans, but he said the soldiers would repeat aloud what details they were seeing on their screens, including peoples’ personal information, names, relatives, and more.

While people were waiting for the scan, al-Zuwaidi said that soldiers would curse at and beat the young men. The army severely beat al-Zuwaidi while he was standing and waiting for his turn. “They were dirty in their treatment of us,” he said. “But what can we say in response to a military armed with all these weapons and ready to kill?”

“They used every humiliating method against ordinary people,” he added.

November 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Banning United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is a new way to kill children, aid groups warn

Electronic Intafada, Maureen Clare Murphy 30 October 2024

Palestinian human rights groups say that new Israeli legislation banning a UN agency from providing services to Palestinians under occupation “aligns with a broader pattern of Israel’s genocidal intent.”

On Monday, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed into law – with near unanimity – two bills that would effectively ban UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, from operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

One of the laws bars state authorities from having any contact with UNRWA, which provides health, education and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

“The legislation also terminates the 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA with immediate effect,” according to three prominent Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The second law bans the agency from operating in so-called Israeli territory and “will go into effect three months after the passing of the laws – approximately by the end of January 2025,” the rights groups said.

If enacted, the new laws will shutter UNRWA’s headquarters in eastern Jerusalem, which Israel has unlawfully occupied since 1967 and annexed in violation of international law. UNRWA’s Jerusalem headquarters are the administrative hub for its operations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

According to media reports, Israel plans to build settlements on the site of UNRWA’s headquarters, which state authorities ordered vacated in May.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has the authority to block the legislation. But he is unlikely to do so, despite international pressure, especially after his foreign minister declared António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, persona non grata.

Israel’s unbridled hostility toward the United Nations will only escalate with every attempt towards accountability through the world body’s organs.

On Wednesday, the UN Security Council issued a statement declaring its support for UNRWA and warning “against any attempts to dismantle or diminish UNRWA’s operations and mandate.”

“Criminalization of humanitarian aid”

Three prominent Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said that the passage of the laws is part of a “calculated, decades-long campaign to dismantle UNRWA and undermine the inalienable right of return” of Palestinian refugees.

“Now more than ever, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, UNRWA’s role is not only essential but irreplaceable,” the groups added.

The new legislation “amounts to the criminalization of humanitarian aid and will worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis,” Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday………………………………………………

UNRWA is the agency with the largest humanitarian footprint in the West Bank and Gaza and one of the largest employers in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“Dismantling UNRWA will have a catastrophic impact on the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told the president of the General Assembly in a letter on Tuesday. “It will also sabotage any chance of recovery.”

In the absence of any other entity to provide government-like services, the effective ban on UNRWA will leave more than 660,000 children in Gaza without an education. “An entire generation of children will be sacrificed,” Lazzarini said.

The Palestinian rights groups observe that 2.4 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza “will be deprived of essential services – particularly education and healthcare – that only UNRWA has the mandate and capacity to deliver.”

UNRWA staff killed and tortured

Addressing Israel’s allegations, Lazzarini said that UNRWA provided Israel with a list of its staff on an annual basis for 15 years. Personnel that Israel never raised concerns over are now included in its lists of alleged fighters, he said.

Repeated requests to the Israeli government appealing for evidence regarding its allegations against UNRWA staff have gone without a reply, he added.

“UNRWA is therefore in the invidious position of being unable to address allegations for which it has no evidence, while these allegations continue to be used to undermine the agency,” Lazzarini said.

He added that at least 237 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza and more than 200 of its facilities have been damaged or destroyed in attacks that have killed more than 560 people “seeking UN protection.” Meanwhile, “dozens of UNRWA staff have been detained and report being tortured,” Lazzarini said.

Israel has abused UNRWA employees detained in Gaza in order to extract forced confessions incriminating the agency.

Israel’s attacks on UNRWA “are an integral part” of the crumbling of “the rules-based international order … in a repetition of the horrors that led to the establishment of the United Nations,” Lazzarini added………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

At the time that Israel’s Knesset voted to ban UNRWA, some 100,000 Palestinians were under siege in the northern Gaza areas of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya refugee camp without food, water or medical supplies.

“The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying,” Joyce Msuya, the acting UN relief chief, stated two days before the vote. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/banning-unrwa-new-way-kill-children-aid-groups-warn

November 3, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | 1 Comment

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