A monthslong investigation unpacks a false warning and an Israeli airstrike in the deadliest war for journalists on record.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a master of misdirection, the technique master illusionists use to divert the viewer’s attention from the trick and to pull the wool over their eyes. He uses his slick American accent, his bulging eyes, his rhetorical flourishes, his maniacal certainty, to fool people whenever and however he can.
The Israeli army uses the veneer of internal accountability to fend off external criticism. But its record reveals how few perpetrators are punished.
How Israel plans to whitewash its war crimes in Gaza
By Dan Owen
“The administration must work to defend our democracy fully, and ensure that no foreign state has a green light to inappropriately target American citizens or manipulate our democratic process.”
Groups Demand Probe of Israeli Influence Operations Targeting Americans
The Guardian, and Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which, in separate investigations, uncovered an Israeli influence campaign that used fake accounts to pose as Americans in order to disparage pro-Palestinian groups with “deeply Islamophobic and anti-immigrant content,” target student groups and human rights organizations who were critical of Israel, and post pro-Israel content online. The campaign was designed to persuade lawmakers to continue providing military aid to Israel for its war on Gaza, and focused on Black Democratic members of Congress.
“What this letter asks for is very simple: that President Biden and his administration treat reports of inappropriate Israeli influence operations with the same seriousness that it has allegations of Russian and Iranian influence campaigns.” said Jamal Abdi, head of the National Iranian American Council, referring to separate efforts to interrupt American democracy by Iran and Russia ahead of the 2016 and 2020 elections and earlier this year. “Unfortunately, what has been reported thus far could just be the tip of the iceberg.”
Rights Groups Demand Biden Give Answers on Israel’s Secret Influence Campaign on Congress
Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress — and spent a significant portion of his hourlong speech attacking the U.S. pro-Palestinian protest movement with insults and misinformation.
Netanyahu Insulted and Smeared the Pro-Palestine Protest Movement. Congress Clapped.
CBS News was the worst. The network, which once employed genuine journalists like Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, has so far not aired a single report on the court’s decision.
US Media Downplays and Ignores ICJ Ruling Declaring Israeli Occupation Illegal
U.S. support for Israel’s genocide against Palestine is rooted not only in campaign financing but in other factors, including a rigid ideology stuck in the shadow of World War II, writes Joe Lauria.
Netanyahu Commands, US Obeys
July 24, 2024
We seem to live in a strange age where politics relies more than ever on the big lie technique, even as social media makes the exposure of such lies inevitable.
Craig Murray: Who Runs America?
July 24, 2024
I have just witnessed the most pathetic and humiliating hour which I, as an American, have experienced in my lifetime. <…
American obeisance
International relations, Politics, USA
Jul 25, 2024
The genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment in Gaza perpetrated by Israel has removed the masks from Western governments.
If Kamala Harris really wants to show she is ready to turn a new page in the campaign against Donald Trump, it’s obvious who her choice as running mate should be: Bernie Sanders.
“We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years,” one expert said.
Sunday was earth’s hottest day on record
How have these apologists for genocide justified Israel’s latest atrocity? Al Mawasi, which was specifically designated by Israel as a ‘safe zone’? Israeli planes bombed the tents in this desolate area on the pretext of trying to murder Hamas leader Mohamad El Deif. Their response is to say nothing.
If Hamas Had Planted a Bomb in Jerusalem, in an Attempt to Assassinate Netanyahu, Killing Over 90 Civilians, Would the World’s Leaders Remain Silent? Yet that’s what happened in Al Mawasi, Gaza
StoryJul 23, 2024
Israel’s Government has another agenda making Gaza unlivable
“The Prescription Is Ceasefire”: Israeli Public Health Leaders Sound Alarm over Polio in Gaza
An Israeli strike targeted a tent inside the courtyard of a hospital in the central Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian journalist. Eyewitnesses told Mondoweiss the strike was precise, hitting only the tent shelter that was clearly marked as ‘press’.
Israeli strike targets press tent at Gaza hospital, killing one and injuring others
Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu unpacks the ICJ opinion on Israel’s military regime, and the lessons of turning international law into action.
‘Israel always sold the occupation as legal. The ICJ now terrifies them’
The Biden administration, and all its predecessors, have attempted to deflect questions about the concerted Israeli land theft from Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967 by underlining Washington’s commitment to a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The last time, however, that a US president put himself on the line in a serious way to attain any such thing was the 1993 Oslo Accords, which required Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian West Bank by 1997. When the Israeli Right, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, sabotaged Oslo and refused to withdraw, and on the contrary doubled the number of Israeli squatters in the years 1993-2003, the Clinton and Bush administrations rolled over and played dead, letting the far right Likud Party get away with murder. At least in those days the US spokesmen occasionally politely demurred from Israeli war crimes. As time went on, and we got to Trump and Biden, the US began actively supporting the war crimes and avoided criticizing the Israeli government almost entirely.
Israeli Parliament Rejects any Palestinian State, Exposing US Gaslighting
Britain’s Ministry of Defence holds video surveillance footage of Gaza from the day that Israel killed seven international aid workers but is refusing to publish the tape.
Among those killed in the World Central Kitchen convoy on 1 April were three British military veterans: John Chapman, James Kirby and James ‘Jim’ Henderson.
In the face of Israel’s intransigence the only way to secure Israel’s compliance with international law is the application of political and economic sanctions along the lines of those imposed upon South Africa which led to the deconstruction of that apartheid State.
Certainly Penny Wong is correct to say, as she did, that “We have been consistent in Israel having a right to self-defence” but as Israel has been found to be an occupier at all relevant times it is under particular international law duties to those under its occupation.
Sure, we may have sailed successful voyages most of the time (with the years 2000 and 2016 being among the worst exceptions). But with billionaire influence becoming larger every election, there’s an ever-increasing chance that democracy may not reach the shore. Will we be distracted by the dust on our hull or the massive wave rising before us?
Who’s a Bigger Threat to Democracy—Immigrants, or Billionaires?
Democrats are anointing another amoral politician as a mask for outsized corporate greed, the folly of endless war, the facilitation of genocide and the assault on our most basic civil liberties.
Chris Hedges: Billionaires Tossed No-Longer-Useful Biden
July 23, 2024
When the money talked he walked
A few days later, Biden’s performance at the NATO Washington summit produced sharp intakes of breath when introducing the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky as Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He also managed to mangle his Vice President, confusing Kamala Harris with Trump. The elites proved increasingly disgruntled. With the donor based now in open revolt, threatening withdrawal of support, the decision was a foregone one. Pity they are not willing to step aside as well.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has become notorious for his aggression and bullying, which the mainstream media is happy to ignore.
Media has normalised Trump’s bullying — it’s time to take control
DONALD TRUMP |
“We are seeing frequent allegations of Palestinian children being detained on their way home from school, or shot while walking on the street,” said the U.N. agency.
Israel’s West Bank Assault Sparks 250% Surge in Killings of Palestinian Kids
I saw the first bulldozers arrive in my village 17 years ago. Now, after the most brutal weeks in our history, my son will carry similarly painful memories.
In Umm al-Khair, the occupation is damning us to multigenerational trauma
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Presidents have two major legacies, on domestic policy and on foreign policy. Big foreign policy mistakes can throw even gargantuan […]
Like LBJ, Biden let a Catastrophic Foreign Conflict Stain his Domestic Legacy: He must end the Gaza War Now
As the world’s media is mesmerised by political events in the USA and the findings by the ICJ of the illegal occupation by Israel of Gaza and the West Bank have slipped off the headlines, health officials in Gaza have found yet another potential catastrophic virus in the waste water, the poliovirus.
Israel’s border closures contribute to polio outbreak in Gaza
The appearance again in Congress of the Israeli prime minister makes it seem as if he is the American president and Israel and the U.S. are one country, writes Corinna Barnard.
Capitol Hill: Netanyahu’s Second Home
July 22, 2024
Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel for years. In 2017 she addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference and reminded attendees that the first resolution she co-sponsored as a senator was aimed at combating “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations.
Zionism is a political ideology, not a religious or ethnic identity. The egregious, false equivalence between it and Judaism is the only way Israel and the West can justify genocide.
In Australia, pro-Palestinian voices face a frenzy of Zionist McCarthyism
A land in which billionaires will pay much reduced tax, but too impoverished to afford decent schools, universal health care or provision for the aged and infirm. A land where bureaucrats have less power, and police have more. A land which refuses to control its guns. And a land in which about half the population must receive heavy financial support because their education, industriousness and employment cannot feed families, sustain good health, and provide clean water. An atomising country where politics no longer turns on a sense of community or the concept of the common good, but the demonisation of immigrants and entrenching the poverty of the poor. What a triumph of American politics, and JD Vance, that those who suffer most from such theories are among those most enthusiastic for it.
Anyway, I was more interested in the fact that the Republicans thought that it was a great idea to have a professional wrestler to be one of the speakers at their convention.
At this stage, Gaza is a cause that has transcended the Islamic. It has brought countries of the Global South to the forefront as leaders in international fora, bringing more and more Western countries outside the US-British orbit on board, and driving a groundswell of opinion among young people around the world but especially in the United States and Britain. Countries like South Africa, with its extraordinary achievement in pulling together the case for genocide at the International Court of Justice, have shown Muslim states what effective organisation is all about.
Israel’s Defense (Offence) Minister Yoav Gallant fulfilling his promise of not sustaining life in Gaza
This past week, poliovirus was detected in sewage samples in the Gaza Strip. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) polio (poliomyelitis) is a “highly infectious disease” that “invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours”.
The local Health Ministry says at least 64 people were killed and 105 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours. Many victims are still under the rubble and on roads, with civil defense crews not able to reach them, it adds.
Israeli Military Strikes Claim Lives of 64 Individuals in a Single Day
Over nine months since October 7, Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza continues — and the US is still aiding and abetting it. Jacobin spoke with two pro-Palestine activists about the movement for Palestine in the US and its prospects for changing American policy.
Why Is the US Still Backing Israeli Genocide?
The Israeli port of Eilat officially declared its bankruptcy, after eight months of complete paralysis of commercial activity and its cessation of receiving ships and containers, especially coming from the Asian countries’ markets, carrying with them the needs of the economy and its industrial sector. This includes raw materials, intermediate goods, production inputs, machinery and equipment, crude oil and fuel, wheat, food, cars and other market needs.
Israel’s Eilat Port has been Bankrupted by the Houthis supporting Palestinians of Gaza
The attempt by Zionist lobbyists to silence criticism of Israel is running in top gear to try to counter the swell of public opinion against Israel flowing from the exposure in real time of the barbarity of its actions in Gaza.
The attempted suppression is widespread in the United States where pressure has been put on Congress and many universities to adopt and implement the definition, and the lobby has been equally diligent in its efforts in England and Europe.
Zionist attempts to silence criticism running in top gear after ICJ ruling
Common sense and evidence prove that former President Donald Trump will not lead America again. But will reason prevail?
Logic shows Trump cannot win another term, but don’t relax just yet
DONALD TRUMP |
Simply put, Israel is an illegal apartheid State defying the world just as Hitler once did.
“All States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. […] This illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967.”
The unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory must cease immediately
The Hamas attack on October 7 shook Israeli society. But to its powerful settler movement, it was an opportunity to realize its expansionist vision.
Israeli Settlers Believe Their Moment Has Come
07.20
Recently, real estate events in synagogues in Toronto, Los Angeles, and New Jersey, among other locations, have promoted property sales in Israel and the Occupied West Bank. In response, Palestinian communities have protested the sales and engaged in legal action. Marketing property assets in “Anglo neighborhoods,” events of this nature target Zionist Jews from the US, Canada and the rest of the English-speaking West. Notably, establishment and expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are widely recognized as violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Corporate Real estate investment and sales by companies both within and outside of Israel have long been integral to settlement policies, with new developments reinforcing this trend.
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