| Were the Three Settler Kidnappings an Israeli “False Flag” Operation?

Were the Three Settler Kidnappings an Israeli “False Flag” Operation? ~ Karin Brothers, Global Research.

Evidence that came to light after Israel removed its gag order on information regarding the June 12 kidnapping and murder of three Jewish Israeli students suggests that it could have been an Israeli government operation that was intentionally used to punish Hamas and break up the new Palestinian unity government.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had immediately accused Hamas of the kidnapping — without presenting any evidence — and proceeded to “conduct a search” throughout the entirety of the West Bank until the bodies were reportedly found on June 30th.

The “search” entailed arresting and beating up about 600 Hamas members (including legislators) and trashing about 2100 homes; Israeli forces killed at least 7 Palestinians. Israel also heightened its daily air strikes on the Gaza Strip, which has been under the Israeli blockade since Sept. 2006. The Gaza government appealed to the UN for relief, which responded by condemning the kidnappings rather than the massive abuse of the Palestinian population. And then urging “all parties” to show restraint.

On July 1, Israel removed a gag order on information about the kidnapping that revealed shocking facts:

• The Israeli government had informed members of the press around June 15th that it was aware that the students had been killed (1) but placed a gag order on that information: the government must thus have known where the bodies were.  The brutal “search” was merely cover for punishment of members of Hamas, the democratically-elected party of Palestinians throughout the occupied territories. The Israeli media played along with the pretext for the abuse.

• The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were only called in 8-9 hours after the first call to report the kidnapping. One of the students placed a call to the police emergency hotline 10 minutes after they accepted a hitchhiking ride home, with the message that he was being kidnapped. The statement was followed by what sounded like several gunshots, groans and silence; the call lasted for 49 seconds. Police ignored the call. The teen’s father called police 5 hours later, at 3:30 am, to report his son missing. “Several hours” after that, after an exchange of 54 phone calls, the IDF and Shin Bet finally became involved. (2)

• Despite possession of all of the evidence of the kidnappings and murders, the Israeli government has offered no evidence that indicates responsibility for the acts. Those with any direct connection to the phone calls or the finding of the bodies have remained unidentified.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has used this event for huge political gain:

• to create divisions within the new “unity government” of Fatah and Hamas,

• to physically punish Hamas members and the cause of Palestinian resistance,

• to get legislation passed through the Knesset to block the return of East Jerusalem to Palestinians (1),

• to try to foment a third intifada to legitimate further attacks on Palestinians (1) and

• to whip up such hatred of Palestinians that it has become dangerous for them to be seen on Israeli streets.

The Israeli government is continuing to harass and attack Palestinians until it supposedly finds the killers. The two young Hebron men named as the accused have been missing since June 12th.

The uncovering of this deception should arouse world condemnation.

Karin Brothers is a freelance writer.

Notes

1. Lia Tarachansky. Israeli Government and Press Knew Teenagers Were Dead for Weeks. The Real News Network (TRNN). July 1, 2014. Accessed on July 1, 2014: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=12063

2. Amos Harel. Tapes reveal pleas of kidnapped boy’s father met with call center apathy. Ha’aretz. July 2, 2014. Accessed July 2, 2014 at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.602537

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| #ziocolony: From kidnapping to collapse: The beginning of the end?

From kidnapping to collapse: The beginning of the end? ~ Jeff Halper, +972.

In the end, the unsustainability of warehousing Palestinians will force the hand of the international community. The Israeli government, so strong it does not know when to stop, will lead us to that moment.

 

The kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli youths in the West Bank has unleashed a military operation marking the end of the Israeli occupation. The term “occupation” designates a temporary military situation resolvable only through negotiations. If that is were case, then it could be argued that Israel’s occupation over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza (not to mention the Golan Heights) lasted only a decade, during the dithering rule of Labor.

From 1977, when the Begin/Sharon government announced that “Judea and Samaria” would be considered integral parts of the Land/State of Israel, when it formally annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and began its campaign of systematically eliminating any two-state solution through massive settlement building, “occupation” gave way to something else. In fact, Israel denied it even had an occupation – that “something else” in Israeli parlance was merely the “administration” of a “disputed” territory.

 

Hence the Fourth Geneva Convention did not apply, Israel had not violated any international laws forbidding Occupying Powers from unilaterally changing the status of Occupied Territories and the Palestinians, defined as Protected People for whose well-being Israel is accountable, were left unprotected. Indeed, after the death of Arafat in 2004, if not before, Israel ushered in yet another variation of occupation: joint Israeli-Palestinian occupation rooted in an American-trained Palestinian Authority militia acting as Israel’s policeman.

 

And so it is with the killing of the three that we are about to enter yet another new and terrible phase of post-occupation, warehousing, a step beyond apartheid. After their land has been expropriated and 96 percent of the Palestinians confined to dozens of tiny islands on less than 40 percent of the Occupied Territories – i.e., 40 percent of 22 percent of their homeland – after 30,000 of their homes have been demolished and an entire population exposed to impoverishment and, in Gaza, conditions bordering on starvation, after negotiations have ended permanently and settlements have reached their critical, irreversible mass, warehousing is about to begin. The good news is: as violent and oppressive as Israel’s campaign of warehousing is likely to be (though strong international pressure may avert the worst measures), it will lead in short order to the complete collapse of Israeli rule and, if we are ready with an inclusive alternative, will open the way to new possibilities of a just peace not available today.

The term “warehousing” comes out of the world of America’s prisons. The U.S. has 4.4 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its prisoners. They are inmates, wards of the state, whose status is fixed and who have, for all purposes, disappeared. No one cares what happens to them (prison reform will not get you elected to Congress), and their rights are respected only in the breach. And when they “riot” – for we use non-political language to describe the doings of these less-than people – the prison guards have every right and duty to suppress them. No negotiations. They are not a “side,” just subjects to be managed, to be “warehoused,” forever if they prove to be recalcitrant.

This expresses precisely the way Israel views the Palestinians. It has never recognized the existence of the Palestinian people or their national rights of self-determination, and even in the brightest days of Oslo only recognized the PLO as a negotiating partner. Israel has never officially declared its acceptance of a two-state solution, certainly not one requiring it to withdraw completely from to the Green Line. Not considering them a genuine and equal “side” with whom to negotiate, it has merely made “generous offers” which they could either take or leave. Indeed, since the days of Ehud Barak Israel has claimed that it has no “partner for peace,” meaning that its policy decisions are made unilaterally.

The two-state solution buried forever under the settlement blocs, Israel is mopping up: the prison cells of Areas A and B have been prepared, and now the prison authorities have to convey to the prisoners the reality and hopelessness of their situation. Submit and you will live; resist and you will die. That is precisely the message of Operation Brother’s Keeper, which was only waiting for a pretext provided by the kidnapping.

Read +972′s full coverage of the kidnappings and their aftermath

Yet the powerless have one effective instrument at their disposal. They can say “no.” The Palestinian Authority comes close to being an occupying power in its own right. Israel’s take-over of Ramallah during its latest “operation” was carried out with the active cooperation of Palestinian security forces, and Palestinians often speak of living under two occupations. Whether it resigns or merely collapses under the weight of its own lack of credibility, it is hard to see how the PA can survive both the humiliation and the formal role of collaborator forced upon it by Israel, which it will be if it stays in power with no meaningful political process.

Here is where the collapse comes in – and the final resolution of the conflict. With no PA to perpetuate the fiction of “two sides” engaged in negotiations, Israel will unilaterally annex the main settlement blocs, half the West Bank, but will ultimately be forced to reoccupy the Palestinian cities and Gaza. (Avigdor Liberman, Israel’s foreign minister, has been urging the conquest of Gaza since the kidnappings took place.) Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter. What we will be left with, finally, is open-ended warehousing, the raw, naked imprisonment of an entire people. Israel thinks that’s a good thing. It believes it can imprison a people and get away with it. It can “win.” Such is its faith in the protection afforded by the American Congress and its usefulness as one of the world’s major purveyors of arms and security.

But here is where Israel misreads the political map. If left solely to governments, Israel could certainly prevail, for they merely manage conflicts rather than resolve them. But the Palestinian issue has assumed the proportions of the anti-apartheid struggle. And as in that struggle, the international civil society of political and activist groups, human rights organizations, trade unions, churches, students, intellectuals and an ever-more critical public opinion has grown in strength to the point where governments cannot ignore it. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not merely a spat between two local groups; it has become a global conflict that disrupts and destabilizes the entire international system, the inflammable Middle East in particular. In the end, the unsustainability of warehousing Palestinians will force the hand of the international community.

When that happens in the not-too-distant future, possibilities for a truly just resolution of the conflict will emerge offering alternatives not available today – the possibility of a single democratic, bi-national state being at the fore. The Israeli government, so strong it does not know when to stop, will lead us to that moment. It will not be a partner in achieving a just peace, however. It will be up to us ultimately, the people, to formulate what a just resolution would be, and push it to fruition. The moment is coming. The question is, will we be ready to seize it?

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.

Related:
Analysis: The end of the ‘cheap occupation’ era
Our problem with selective sympathy for young victims
When the canons roar, the Israeli Left remains silent

  

| Adalah: Withdrawal of the Prawer Plan bill is a major achievement!

Adalah: Withdrawal of the Prawer Plan bill is a major achievement ~ MEMO.

Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, has called the Israeli government’s decision to withdraw the Prawer Plan bill a “major achievement in the history of the Palestinian community in Israel.”

On 12 December, former Israeli cabinet minister Benny Begin announced at a press conference that the government is withdrawing the proposed Prawer-Begin bill. The draft law was set to be considered for a second and third reading in the Knesset until Begin admitted earlier this week that the bill faced sweeping rejection from the Bedouin community, contrary to government assertions that they had approved of the plan. The bill was proposing to forcibly displace up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab, or Negev, where many have lived for generations.

Adalah stated in a press release that the cancellation of the bill “shows that popular action, legal advocacy and international pressure can succeed in defending the rights of 70,000 Arab Bedouin residents of the unrecognised villages in the Naqab to live with freedom and dignity on their own lands and in their villages.”

Adalah described how the Israeli “decision to withdraw the bill follows the recent disclosure of maps, figures and details that echoed the numerous statements made by Adalah, human rights organisations and international bodies, which argued that the Prawer-Begin bill was created without consultation with the Bedouin community and without transparency to the villagers that it would effect.”

The centre further pointed out that: “The government was forced to reveal the Plan’s details after intensive media attention and public activism against the Prawer Plan in recent weeks,” noting that the Israeli police tried to suppress the widespread public activism against the bill by using “excessive force” and making “thousands of arrests”, adding that “Adalah and other volunteer lawyers defended the detained protesters in court and filed official complaints to the Police Investigation Unit (“Mahash”) against the police’s violent conduct.”

The statement continued: “The cancellation of the bill is a platform to continue the dedicated work in the struggle to prevent the Israeli government from implementing the Prawer Plan. The government’s plans for the Naqab will lead to the demolition, evacuation and confiscation of Bedouin homes and lands, among which is the village of Atir-Umm El-Hieran, which will be destroyed in order to build a Jewish settlement and a forest over its lands.”

The rights centre concluded that: “The state must recognise the Arab Bedouin citizens’ historical ownership of their lands, grant legal recognition to the unrecognised villages, and provide full services, infrastructure and proper living conditions that are denied to the Bedouin residents of the Naqab. Adalah remains committed to the struggle for the rights and recognition of the Bedouin villages, alongside local partners and international human rights actors.”

 On 12 December, former Israeli cabinet minister Benny Begin announced at a press conference that the government is withdrawing the proposed Prawer-Begin bill.________________________________________________________________________

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| Crisis: Have Palestinian-Israeli talks collapsed?

Have Palestinian-Israeli talks collapsed? ~ Stuart Littlewood, Redress Information & Analysis.

Next stop: the International Criminal Court?

 

In an earlier article I said that if the Palestinian Authority suddenly beamed information at me I’d view it with grave suspicion. So what was I supposed to make of the press release below, received yesterday evening and purporting to be from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Affairs Department and relayed by the embassy in London?

I could find nothing about this bombshell on the PLO or Palestine Mission UK websites. So, I called the London embassy at 10:15 this morning, to find nobody in to confirm or deny it! The ambassador’s secretary said there was a meeting with the UK Foreign Office and everyone was probably there.

Press Release: Statement on resignation of Palestinian negotiations team

In reference to the latest reports concerning the resignation of the Palestinian negotiations team from the final status negotiations, the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department would like to announce the following:

 

1. Several days ago, Dr Saeb Erekat and Dr Muhammad Shtayyeh wrote to H.E. President Mahmoud Abbas explaining that they would not be able to continue fulfilling their duties as negotiators, and thereby requesting that the president relieve them of their positions. This request was motivated by a number of factors, including: an unprecedented escalation of colonization and oppression against Palestine and the Palestinian people by the state of Israel; a lack of seriousness from the Israeli government about reaching a two-state solution; and the Israeli government’s failure to fulfil commitments undertaken before the resumption of direct negotiations on 29 July 2013.

 

2. Of particular concern was the Israeli government’s political use of the release of pre-Oslo prisoners in order to advance its illegal and profoundly damaging settlement enterprise throughout the occupied state of Palestine. This, combined with the false allegation that an agreement between the PLO and Israel was made in order to exchange prisoners for settlements, has demonstrated bad faith and a severe lack of integrity on the Israeli side.

 

3. The resignation of the Palestinian negotiators was presented after Israel had already approved 6,296 settlement units during the first three months of negotiations. This figure is higher than the total amount of settlement units approved during the five months prior to the resumption of negotiations (5,577 units). The resignation was not presented as a response to the latest announcement by the Israeli Ministry of Housing to advance almost 20,000 settlement units, but as a response to several policies that continue to undermine the prospects of a negotiated two-state solution, including accelerated settlement activity. PM Netanyahu’s call to “reconsider steps for evaluating planning potential” in illegal Israeli settlements does not halt the thousands of units Israel has approved, and continues to approve, in the occupied state of Palestine.

 

4. This resignation relates only to the current negotiations team: it does not invalidate the commitment made by the Palestine Liberation Organization to continue negotiations until the end of the nine month period agreed with Israel and the US, which ends on 29 April 2014.

 

5. The Palestinian leadership will continue its process of internal consultations and its contacts with the Arab League, Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, along with other international partners, in order to advance the cause for a just peace between Israel and Palestine, which includes ending the 1967 Israeli occupation and reaching a solution to all final status issues based on international law.

Questions for William Hague

Meanwhile I felt another “Dear Henry…” coming on so penned the following to my member of parliament, Henry Bellingham:

Dear Henry,

If the bulletin…  is true, the so-called peace talks appear to have collapsed. Few people with an interest in these matters will be surprised.

Negotiators Erekat and Shtayyeh have resigned, saying they came to the decision because of the “unprecedented escalation of colonization and oppression against Palestine and the Palestinian people by the state of Israel [for instance the 6,296 illegal settlement units  approved by the Israelis during the first three months of negotiation]; a lack of seriousness from the Israeli government about reaching a two-state solution; and the Israeli government’s failure to fulfil commitments undertaken before the resumption of direct negotiations on July 29th 2013.”

Everyone has known this charade was designed to buy time to create more irreversible “facts on the ground” in order to make Israel’s occupation – or at least domination – permanent. The wonder is that it took this long for the Palestinians to become disgusted enough to walk away.

Would you please ask the foreign secretary:

1. Why has Her Majesty’s Government continually pushed the Palestinians into direct negotiations with their oppressor knowing full well the Israelis’ track record of conducting these matters in bad faith?

2. Since it is obvious that no peace can be sustained unless underpinned by justice and the rule of international law, will HMG now recommend the Palestinians take their claims to the International Criminal Court and help enforce the outcome with trade or other sanctions until compliance is achieved?

Kind regards, etc.

With a fog of uncertainty (or secrecy) enveloping the London end, I have emailed a communications adviser at the PLO with the question: “Does this mean the peace talks have collapsed? Can anyone be found to continue them – if so who are the new negotiators? And what reasons are there to still delay taking Palestine’s claims to the International Criminal Court?”

I received the following reply from the PLO:

1. The statement is clear: this involves only the negotiations team, not the negotiations process.

2. The president, in consultation with the leadership, will take a decision regarding the future of the negotiations team. The president has said publicly that he is trying to convince the current team to stay but, if they refuse, he will nominate a new team.

3. The only reason for not ratifying the Rome Statue, as well as other international treaties, is an agreement with the Israeli side to free 104 pre-Oslo prisoners during nine months in return of [sic] not joining new international treaties or UN institutions. The nine months end on 29 April 2014.

Will anyone step forward? Shocking blackmail regarding the prisoners. And what a grubby, disreputable deal all endorsed by Western powers.

________________________________________________________________________

 

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| Racist ziolobby now claims colours are anti-Semitic!

Colors: the new-new anti-Semitism ~ Steven Salaita,  electronicIntifada.net.

It was a sad moment when sources at Israel’s foreign ministry pointed out a correlation that should have been obvious to any person of conscience. 

When the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, long suspected of anti-Semitic loyalties based on the dubious word “solidarity” (to say nothing of the more onerous “Irish”), tagged Israeli products with yellow stickers urging consumers to boycott them, the ministry rightly observed, “It is not by chance that the BDS [boycott divestment and sanctions] organization chose to express its protest with a yellow sticker—which is reminiscent of dark days of racism and incitement.” 

First Lady Michelle Obama in the White House kitchen with a conspicuously yellow Big Bird.

 (Lawrence Jackson / White House Photo)

 

That so many of us failed to make the connection of a yellow sticker that has nothing to do with the Holocaust to the Holocaust illustrates the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism among local sticker-making shops, the IG Farben of the modern age. The Israeli government and its hate-fighting minions saved the day by once again affirming the importance of factual analysis.

Like an anachronistic settler colony, anti-Semitism flourishes in the least appropriate places. Now that an authority as credible as the Israeli government has exposed the color yellow as anti-Semitic, we must be on guard for rubber duckies, jaundice, corn, school buses, bumblebees, mustard (especially of the French variety), the sun, bananas, Big Bird, dandelions, number two pencils, lemonade, snowy fields where dogs roam, legal pads, butter, canaries, grapefruit, and even — as one Israeli diplomat suggested a few years ago — Asian people.

The new-new-new anti-Semitism

The discovery that yellow is anti-Semitic begs the question of which other colors conceal evil intentions. Let’s investigate if any can be considered kosher:

• Black: Hitler’s wimpy little mustache was black. No black then.
• Brown: most Palestinians are brown. Brown is out.
• Pink: Eva Braun sometimes wore pink. All around the world, little girls proudly display their hatred of Israel with this infernal color.
• Orange: the inventor of Fanta was a Nazi. Bye-bye, orange.
• Green: the color of German uniforms during World War II. Green is a no-go.
• Red: the background of the Nazi flag. We cannot compromise on red.
• Gray: Nazi concentration camp prisoners wore gray. Away with gray!
• Blue: the ideal eye color to Nazi eugenicists. Blue is therefore terribly offensive. (Unfortunately, we must immediately lobby Israel to change its flag from an anti-Semitic endorsement of eugenics to something more tasteful like a clean-pressed length of Saran Wrap).
• White: Eichmann and Goebbels were white. Need I say more?
• Purple: in Nazi concentration camps, Jehovah’s Witnesses, not Jews, were required to wear purple. Purple is okay then.

Clearly, we have a serious problem. The new anti-Semitism was once any support of the PLO. Not long after, it was the refusal to condemn that bearded rapscallion, Arafat. Then it became acceptance of peace with Egypt. After that, it manifested itself in the perfidious desire for a Palestinian state. Later it evolved into sympathy for Palestinian children murdered during the second Intifada. Finally, it gave way to that hideous hate fad known asBDS.

The new-new-new-new-new-new-new anti-Semitism, however, may be the most vicious of all: color. Only a people as cunning as the Palestinians and their brainwashed supporters could have invented something so dastardly, so devious, so detestable, that it conceals anti-Semitism in the spectral sensitivities of the human eye. We are up against an insidious adversary, indeed.

As much as it might pain us to outlaw color (except for purple), we must act in the best interest of humanity and extinguish anti-Semitism wherever it exists. The Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign proved that those opposed to Jewish supremacy in Palestine are motivated by the nefarious desire to exterminate the Jews. We must create a world that is, despite Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal, safe for us to inhabit, one without hue or contrast, awash in semiotic paranoia, beholden to exaggeration, disseminating imaginary victimhood, and doggedly resistant to any form of justice.

After all, it would be a tragedy for the seriousness of anti-Semitism to be devalued.

________________________________________________________________________

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| Barack, A Few Travel Tips!

Barack, A Few Travel Tips ~ Amer Zahr, The Civil Arab.

Mr. President, I hear you are traveling to Israel next week.  As a concerned patriotic American citizen of Palestinian descent, I have some pointers for you.

Now, I assume you’ll be flying into Tel Aviv.  Usually, when non-Jews arrive there, especially if they are a little darker-skinned, they are asked to wait in a… let’s call it a “VIP Room.”  Incidentally, the room is quite nice. There’s a water cooler, comfortable chairs, and a soda machine.  It’s probably the only place in the world where you can be racially profiled and get an ice-cold Coca-Cola all at once.

To avoid the room, I would mention that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

You may get strip-searched.  Saying you are an American doesn’t help much here.  I’ve tried.  I even sang the national anthem last time an Israeli soldier was looking down my pants.  Right after I said, “Oh say can you see,” he said, “Not much.”

To escape this embarrassment, I would mention that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

In case they don’t already know, you might not want to tell Israeli security you are half-Muslim.  As a fellow half-Muslim, I can tell you they don’t really care about the percentage.  Any bit of Muslim freaks them out. And I’m not sure if you heard, but the fans of one of Israel’s soccer teams, Beitar Jerusalem, actually protested when the club signed two Muslim players.  When one of them scored in a game last week, hundreds of fans actually walked out of the stadium.  One of the fans later stated about the Muslim players, “It’s not racism. They just shouldn’t be here.” Hopefully, they don’t know your middle name is “Hussein.” Maybe they didn’t watch the inauguration.

In any case, I would mention that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

This next one might be a little tough.  Maybe you didn’t hear, but lately there has been a little “African problem” in Israel.  Over the past several years, tens of thousands immigrants from Africa, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have entered the “only democracy in the Middle East.”  Most of them are looking for work, and some are political refugees.  Israel has recently rounded up many of them for deportation.  Oh, and by the way, they don’t call them “refugees” or “migrants,” they call them “infiltrators.”  Israelis have held numerous demonstrations in Tel Aviv, where most of the migrants live, to demand an African exodus from Israel.

And the refugees aren’t the only Africans Israel seems to have a problem with.  About 150,000 Israeli Jews are of Ethiopian descent.  A number of news organizations reported early this year that Israeli government doctors had been giving Ethiopian Jewish women contraceptives either against their will or without their knowledge.  The Israeli government admitted the practice and decided to stop it once it was reported on.  See, Mr. Obama, many rabbis in Israel have questioned the “Jewishness” of Ethiopian Jews.  And if you’re not Jewish in Israel, well… I’d be glad to give you the full story on that someday.  So they’re not too crazy about their own Ethiopian citizens, and last year, Benjamin Netanyahu warned that illegal immigrants from Africa “threaten our existence as a Jewish and democratic state.”  I know, “Jewish” and “democratic”? It’s confusing.  I’ll try to explain that one to you one day too, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to.  But I think one thing is clear.  Israel does not seem to like Africans too much.

Now I know you’re not from Eritrea, Ethiopia, or Sudan, but I probably wouldn’t advertise too strongly that your dad was from Kenya.  This might be really hard, given your skin tone and everything, especially if you’re bringing Michelle with you.

To avoid any dangers of getting deported to Nairobi, I would just keep mentioning that you are the President of the United States.  It might help.

OK, finally, when you leave, Israeli security officers are going to search your bags.  And they don’t do it casually with a smile like our airport security here.  They go through your stuff like a wife looking for evidence of an affair.  You might remind them that you, as the President of the United States, sign their checks.

And they’re going to strip search you again.  Yes, on the way out too.  Strip searches in Israel are “buy one, get one free.”  They perform the strip search in a section of the airport aside from where the normal operations are conducted.  You’ll run into a few of your Palestinian-American constituents when you’re there.  I know it’s a weird place for someone to ask to take a picture with you, but to us, it’s just part of visiting home.

You don’t have to mention to us that you are the President of the United States.  We already know.  We supported you, twice.  Maybe you can return the favor.

___________________________________________________________

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| Sanctions time or no consequences (again) for Israel’s hateful conduct?

No consequences (again) for Israel’s hateful conduct? ~  Stuart Littlewood, Sabbah Report.

Civil society calls for trade sanctions but Hague says EU has ‘no enthusiasm’

Earlier this week, in a sham show of ‘get tough’ diplomacy, UK foreign minister Alistair Burt announced that the Israeli ambassador had been formally summoned to the Foreign Office following Israel’s decisions to build 3,000 new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, unfreeze planning in the area known as E1 and withhold tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority.

“I set out the depth of the UK’s concern about these decisions and I called on the Israeli government to reverse them. The settlements plan in particular has the potential to alter the situation on the ground on a scale that threatens the viability of a two state solution.”

He said the British response “stems from our disappointment that the Israeli Government has not heeded the calls that we and others had made for Israel to avoid reacting to the UN General Assembly resolution in a way that undermines the Palestinian Authority or a return to talks.”

A spokesperson said afterwards: “Any decision about any other measures the UK might take will depend on the outcome of our discussions with the Israeli government and with international partners including the US and European Union.” This referred to persistent reports that Britain and France had threatened to withdraw their ambassadors from Israel.

Area E1 is to the north-east of Jerusalem. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmertrecalls how Bush and Condoleeza Rice asked him: “Please don’t build in E1, because if you do, it will be beyond the capacity of the Palestinian leadership to sit with you.” Building there, he says, is “the one thing” which is certain to offend the government of the United States.

Netanyahu’s move, therefore, seems deliberately intended to scupper any chance of peace talks. Once again the situation makes a nonsense of Hague’s clapped-out mantra that issues can only be resolved by a return to negotiations.

The previous day Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was “extremely concerned” about the 3.000 new housing units. “Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and undermine trust between the parties.” Poor Willie Hague is a bit slow on the uptake because Israel’s illegal house-building on Palestinian land has been going on for decades.

He continued:

“If implemented, these plans would alter the situation on the ground on a scale that makes the two state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, increasingly difficult to achieve. They would undermine Israel’s international reputation and create doubts about its stated commitment to achieving peace with the Palestinians.”

If he’d been paying attention he would know that this point was reached some time ago.

“The UK strongly advises the Israeli Government to reverse this decision. The window for a two-state solution is closing, and we need urgent efforts by the parties and by the international community to achieve a return to negotiations, not actions which will make that harder.”

There has also been media speculation that France and Britain might consider trade sanctions if the settlement decision was not reversed. But Hague says he didn’t think there’s any enthusiasm around the European Union for that. As The Times of Israelputs it, “EU won’t punish Israel for settlement expansion plan, says Britain’s foreign minister”.

Not that anyone seriously thought the wimps would.

And just to put the whole matter quietly to bed, Israel’s comical propaganda chief Mark Regevdefended Israel’s latest criminal activity, saying that “from our perspective, Israel is responding in a very measured way to a series of Palestinian provocations.”

Pressure is building for sanctions

However, Hague is coming under increasing pressure in Parliament as MPs queue up to ask difficult questions. For example, SirGerald Kaufman (who is proudlyJewish) asked point-blank: “Is not the building of additional illegal settlements, in addition to settlements that already house 500,000 people, a blatant breach of international law, together with the theft by the Israeli Government of huge sums of tax revenues belonging to the Palestinians? When will we take action such as economic sanctions or an arms embargo against this rogue state that is committing criminal acts?”

Mr Hague: “The settlements are illegal and on occupied land, and the latest announcement undermines Israel’s international reputation and creates doubts about its stated commitment to achieving peace with the Palestinians. The Government have, of course, strongly advised Israel to reverse that decision…. Only successful negotiation will resolve this issue, and that will require the willing participation of Israel as well as the Palestinians.

Duncan Hames observed: “We have been here before, and he must grow weary of repeating to the Israeli Government his condemnation of illegal settlement activity. Given the importance of Europe as a market for Israeli goods and services, which European Ministers shy away from putting economic muscle behind our protestations, and can he assure the House that he is not one of them?

Mr Hague: “I do not think there is enthusiasm around the European Union for that. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) talked earlier about economic sanctions in Europe against Israel, but I do not believe there would be anywhere near a consensus on that, nor is it our approach. We continue to try to bring both sides back into negotiations.”

Ben Bradshaw told Hague: “The Netanyahu government are completely impervious to condemnation or summoning of ambassadors; it’s time for action. Uncharacteristically, you dodged earlier questions about trade with the illegal settlements. Will you nowtake the lead in Europe by implementing a ban on all trade with them?”

Hague replied: “My reaction to calls for economic sanctions of various kinds has not changed, but I also want to stress another point I made earlier: we will be discussing with other EU nations what our next steps will be, because the Israeli Government have not yet responded favourably to the representations we and other countries have made. We will be discussing that with other European Governments, therefore, but I would not want to raise the right hon. Gentleman’s hopes that there would be enthusiasm around the EU for such economic measures.”

Like all his Zionist friends Hague has an aversion to international law and economic sanctions – unless they happen to be targeted on Iran, of course. It was not enough that he shamed the British people by trying to blackmail the Palestinian leadership last week, requiring them not to use their upgraded UN membership to pursue Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity and instead to bog themselves down once more in dead-end ‘negotiations’.

Now he shames us again by shirking firm action against the racist regime’s endless land thieving and general lawlessness.

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| UN Propaganda: Fact Checking Bibi + Red Lines!

| The Israeli government, which rejects the Non-Proliferation Treaty, apparently STILL DOES NOT officially admit to possessing nuclear weapons

(the existence of which is now acknowledged by the International Atomic Energy Agency),

yet lets it be understood that it has well over 200 nuclear warheads and can use them!

Given its proven track-record in the region HOW can it be taken seriously as a Partner for Peace then?Even targeting European capitals, the NUCLEAR THREAT evidently stems from Israel NOT Iran – with it’s vested interest in perpetuating conflict to prolong its own survival !!

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BBC Israel’s Nukes and Chemical Weapons 1 of 5:
Very rare BBC program here in 5 parts exposing Israel’s secret Weapons of Mass Destruction!

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| Fact Checking Bibi … 
talking about extremism & intolerance. 
FACT SHEET on Israel’s Culture of Impunity: 

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| Fact Checking Bibi: 
Christians in the Holy Land: Under (Israeli) Siege.

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| Fact Checking Bibi: 
Q. Who’s violated MOST UN Resolutions in history?
A. Israel !!
A Summary of UN Security Council Resolutions on Palestine since 1948 

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2012 Netanyahu Addresses the UN General Assembly (FULL SPEECH)

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