A Question Every American Must Confront: Apartheid Israel or US Democracy?

by Dr Ramzy Baroud 

Bahia Amawai is a US citizen and Texas-based language specialist who helps autistic and speech-impaired children overcome their impairment.

Despite the essential and noble nature of her work, she was fired by the Pflugerville Independent School District, which serves the Austin area.

Every year, Amawai signs an annual contract that allows her to carry on with her tasks uninterrupted. This year however, something changed.

Shockingly, the school district has decided to add a clause to the contract that requires teachers and other employees to pledge not to boycott Israel ‘during the term of their contract.’

The ‘oath’ is now part of Section 2270.001 of the Texas Government Code, and it is stated in the contract with obvious elaboration so as those wishing to work, or keep their jobs with the Texan government find no loophole to avoid its penalties:

“‘Boycott Israel’ means refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territory ..”

The fact that Texas considers unacceptable even the boycott of businesses operating in the illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied West Bank puts it at odds with international law, and, subsequently with the vast majority of the international community.

But don’t rush to judgement yet, condemning Texas for being the infamous and stereotypical ‘wild west’, as portrayed even in the United States’ own media. Indeed, Texas is but a small facet in a massive American government campaign aimed at stifling freedom of speech as enshrined in its country’s own constitution.

25 US states have already passed anti-boycott of Israel legislation, or have issued executive orders targeting the boycott support networks, while other states are in the process of following suit.

At a federal government level, the Congressional Israel Anti-boycott Act, which is being received with enthusiasm among US legislators, vows to fine and imprison those who boycott Israel.

While there is strong civil society opposition to such obvious violations of the basic tenets of freedom of speech, the pro-Israel campaigners are unhinged.

Texas – which has passed and enacted laws criminalizing support for the boycott of Israel, as championed by the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) – continues to lead the way for other states.

In the Texan town of Dickinson, which was devastated by hurricane Harvey last year, hurricane victims were asked to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel in exchange for life-saving humanitarian aid.

It must have been a complete shock for displaced residents of the town to learn that the meager supplies they were about to receive hinged on their support of the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But this is the sad state of democracy in the US at the moment, where the interests of a relatively small, distant country are made the centerpiece of US government policies, at home or abroad.

Israel’s wealthy supporters are working hand in hand with Israel’s influential lobby groups in Washington DC, but also at state, and even city levels to make the boycott of Israel punishable by law.

Many US politicians are answering the unreasonable lobby call of criminalizing political dissent throughout the country. While in reality many of them could care less or even truly understand the nature of the debate concerning BDS, they are willing to go the extra mile (as in violating the sanctity of their own democratic system) to win lobby favors, or to, at least avoid their wrath.

The anti-BDS campaign started in the US in earnest a few years ago, and, unlike BDS’ own tactics, it avoided grassroot efforts, focusing instead on quickly creating an official body of legal work that places boycotters of Israel in the dock.

Although the hastily composed legal language has been bravely challenged, and, at times, reversedaltogether by civil society lawyers and organizations, the Israeli strategy has managed to place BDS supporters on the defensive.

That limited success can be accredited to powerful friends of Israel who have generously and forcefully responded to Tel Aviv’s war drums.

Las Vegas gambling mogul, Sheldon Adelson, took the helm of leadership. He moved into action, establishing the “Maccabee Task Force”, which raised millions of dollars to fight against what Israeli officials define as an existential threat to Israel and the delegitimization of the country as a “Jewish state.”

A major strategy that the Israeli camp has advanced in the discussion is the misleading notion that BDS calls for the boycott of Jews, as opposed to the boycott of Israel as a state that violates international law and numerous United Nations resolutions.

A country that practices racism as a matter of course, defends racial segregation and builds Apartheid walls deserves nothing but complete boycott. That is the minimal degree of moral, political and legal accountability considering that the US, as other countries are obligated to honor and respect international law in that regard.

The US however, encouraged by the lack of accountability, continues to behave in the same manner as countries that Washington relentlessly attacks for their undemocratic behavior and violation of human rights.

If such bizarre happenings – firing teachers and conditioning aid on taking a political stance – took place in China, for example, Washington would have lead an international campaign condemning Beijing’s intransigence and violation of human rights.

Many Americans are yet to fathom how the United States’ submission to Israel’s political will is affecting their everyday life. But with more and more such legal restrictions, even ordinary Americans will soon find themselves fighting for basic political rights that, like Bahia Amawai, they have always taken for granted.

Sure, Israel may have succeeded in coercing some people not to openly vow support of BDS, but it will eventually lose this battle as well.

Muffling the voices of civil society rarely works over long periods of time, and the anti-BDS campaign, now penetrating the very heart of US government, is bound to eventually resurrect a nationwide conversation.

Is protecting Israeli Apartheid more important to Americans than preserving the fundamental nature of their own democracy?

That is a question that every American, regardless how they feel about a supposedly distant Middle Eastern conflict, must answer, and urgently so.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies.

Muslims Win, Islamophobia Loses…

Kevin Barrett

Did Muslims just defeat Islamophobia in the American midterm elections of 2018?

The US electorate refused to follow pied piper Donald Trump down the path of Islamophobic extremism. Overall, of the 83 notably Islamophobic candidates, only 20 won their races, while 63 lost, according to Muslim Advocates. Those results may discourage future candidates from thinking they can score cheap political points and easy victories by joining the Muslim-bashing bandwagon.

Victories by the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, made mainstream media headlines — generally with a neutral to positive spin. Tlaib's support for a one-state solution in Palestine alienated Zionists of all stripes, causing the Zionist wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing “peace” group J Street to refuse to endorse her… but that didn’t stop Tlaib from getting positive coverage in the Zionist-dominated mainstream media.

In the past, any Palestinian who ran for Congress on a one-state solution platform would have been relentlessly smeared. In fact, any congressional candidate who displays any sympathy for Palestine usually gets quickly annihilated by the Zionist lobby and its lapdog media. Former six-term Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has described how every incoming member of Congress is bullied into signing a pledge of loyalty to Israel. Those who don’t sign are put on the Zionists’ enemies list, and soon face monstrous obstacles in their path to reelection — including media collusion in setups and smears.

So how could an anti-Zionist Palestinian like Tlaib draw positive media coverage? What’s different about 2018?

It seems that many Jewish Zionists in American media are increasingly liberal, educated, and appalled by Donald Trump. More and more of these liberal Zionists, especially the younger more left-leaning ones, are beginning to awaken to the justice of the Palestinian cause. To them, a young female Palestinian supporter of Bernie Sanders who endorses the one-state solution looks a lot less scary than Trump himself does. And even the older liberal-centrist Zionists may prefer Rashida Tlaib to Donald Trump, who is perceived as a threat to the liberal order in which Jews have thrived. Though they may be uneasy with Tlaib's support for the one-state solution, those moderately liberal Jews who care for America as much as for Israel still viewed Tlaib’s victory as a welcome slap in the face to Donald Trump.

Perhaps they also understand that one Rashida Tlaib in Congress poses no immediate threat to Israel’s stranglehold on US Mideast policy. The vast majority of Congressional representatives are still taking mountains of money from AIPAC and other hardline Zionist organizations, signing the loyalty pledge to Israel, obeying Israeli orders concerning which bills to vote for and against, giving enthusiastic standing ovations to the likes of Netanyahu, and otherwise demonstrating their abject and obsequious fealty to the State of Israel.

Another reason Rashida Tlaib’s victory doesn’t bother most American Jews all that much is that Muslims are still grossly underrepresented in the US government, while Jews are increasingly overrepresented. As I noted in my satirical online article “Kavanagh converts to Judaism to save Supreme Court nomination,” Jews represent less than 2% of the US population yet have three seats on the Supreme Court (representing 33% of available seats). Prior to the midterms there were 30 Jews (versus only two Muslims) in the US Congress, despite the fact that Jews and Muslims make up roughly equal percentages of the US population. And Jewish political money dominates federal elections, making up close to half of the bribes, euphemistically known as “campaign contributions,” that buy and sell American politicians like cattle.

The 2018 midterms reinforced the already strong Jewish position in Congress. According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) Jewish Congress members are “poised to take key leadership roles”: “Five Jewish Democrats are set to chair key House committees, including three representatives from New York: Jerrold Nadler, the Judiciary Committee; Eliot Engel, Foreign Affairs; and Nita Lowey, Appropriations. Adam Schiff of California will head the Intelligence Committee and John Yarmuth of Kentucky will lead the Budget Committee.” The JTA rundown on “races of significance to Jewish voters” offered lots more good news for Jews, including more than a dozen victories to celebrate, along with only two bits of bad news: Rashida Tlaib's victory in Michigan and pro-Palestinian Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s win in New York.

So despite hopeful signs, the gradual erosion of support for Likudnik Israel in the American Jewish community has not yet reached the tipping point. Barring unexpected developments (such as a 9/11 truth “black swan”) it will be years before the US frees itself from Israeli occupation.

But how many years? What is worrisome to the Zionists is that “criticism of Israel is part of a package among young progressives along with healthcare for all and jobs for all,” as Democratic strategist Brad Bannon puts it. And that young progressive wave, which Bernie Sanders almost surfed into the White House in 2016, could become a tidal wave, driven by the tectonic shock of revulsion against Trump, in 2020.

Should Muslims join the “young progressive wave”? Islam shares many core values with American progressivism including concern for social and economic justice, opposition to tyranny and usurious piling up of wealth, and an egalitarian ethos that emphasizes morality and ethics. Add the young progressives’ opposition to Islamophobia and support for Palestine, and the movement seems to resonate well with Islam.

But the young progressives also tend to support identity politics: the tendency to think and vote “as a woman,” “as a black,” “as a Hispanic,” or even “as an L or G or B or T or Q.” This unhealthy and narcissistic approach has undermined the concern for social justice that once was the hallmark of the Left. It has allowed billionaires and bankers to divide and conquer working people. And certain perverse manifestations of identity politics have contributed to the erosion of the traditional family values that most Muslims share with other socially conservative Americans.

So if Muslims choose to support the young progressives, they ought to try to steer the movement toward social justice for all, rather than petty obsessions with this or that form of identity politics. And fortunately the young progressives are relatively open to that message. After all, the major difference between the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigns was that Sanders was proposing concrete solutions to problems of economic inequality and injustice, whereas Clinton’s message was “make me the first woman president.” Sanders’ triumph over Clinton, which was undone by rigged voting machines, illustrated what Democrats could achieve when they campaigned for economic justice rather than identity politics.

But isn’t a concern with economic justice for Americans rather petty in light of the fact that US economic policies and military actions are causing the ruination and death of millions of Muslims and non-Muslims all over the world? This was a common critique of Bernie Sanders, who rarely spoke about US foreign policy during his campaign for president. It might also be a valid critique of whoever picks up the torch from Sanders and runs with it in 2020.

But opposing US or Zionist empire too radically or effectively is a recipe for political or even actual suicide, as the Kennedy brothers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Wellstone, and others learned the hard way. So Sanders’ approach — enthusiastic support for expensive social justice programs that could only be paid for by rolling back the US empire, without explicitly saying “I am going to roll back the empire” — makes political sense. Likewise, if Sanders intended to challenge the Likudniks, which seems likely, he was politically wise to avoid announcing those intentions too loudly and clearly.

All things considered, the 2018 midterms showed that Muslims should be guardedly optimistic about their chances of joining young progressives and helping ensure that (insha’allah) the inevitable decline of US empire occurs with a minimum of violence and injustice, and that Palestinians finally achieve a modicum of justice, perhaps even outright victory. And as the US empire declines and finally collapses, and Americans seek new ways of understanding their place in the universe, the next generation of Muslims could find itself in a position to convey the timeless message of Islam to those who had previously rejected it.

 

Kevin Barrett

US- and Zionist-occupied Golan Heights

Editor

The Zionist entity occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in the June 1967 War. Under international law, lands occupied through wars of aggression cannot be usurped. No action should be taken to alter facts on the ground. The Zionists, ever the outlaws, violated all these international laws and protocals.

In 1981, the Zionists declared “annexation” of the Golan Heights. No country in the world accepted this annexation. In fact, every year, a resolution is presented at the UN condemning this act. In the past, the US abstained from voting. This year, however, under Donald Trump and his ambassador at the UN, Nikki Haley, the US opposed the resolution that condemned Zionist annexation of the Golan Heights.

Haley whose real name is Nirmata Randhawa, is of Indian origin. She is a Zionist puppet and stooge. She acts not as the US ambassador but as representative of the Zionist entity. This is because she has presidential ambitions and understands that only the Zionists can put her in the White House.

Regardless of Randhawa Kaur’s rant at the UN on November 16, the Golan Heights remains occupied territory and the Zionists will have to vacate these occupied lands. That day is not very far; in fact, the entire Zionist enterprise will be dismantled with its racist ideology of apartheid consigned to the dustbin of history. There will emerge a single State in Palestine where equality before the law will apply to everyone irrespective of religion.

US, Israel, Saudi Arabia Green-Light Gaza Massacre - Again

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TEHRAN (FNA)- The Israeli regime’s military is ordering more tanks and ground troops to the Gaza border, with the United Sates and Saudi Arabia having green-lit the Zionist occupying forces to continue attacking the strip. Hamas has warned they will respond to continued Israeli aggression with more rocket strikes, and at longer range.

The entire matter started with an overnight Israeli military raid which went wrong, leading to a firefight that killed seven Palestinians, and one Israeli military officer. This led to Gaza rocket fire, which led to more Israeli attacks, and a day-long escalation.

Here, it is not history repeating itself, it is war crime repeating itself: The Zionist regime’s warplanes and tanks carry out airstrikes and artillery shelling on Gaza in yet another act of aggression against the besieged coastal enclave. In between the United Nations is looking the other way.

There is no doubt that Israel’s illegal attack on Gaza is unacceptable and must end now. Israel must also lift the illegal blockade and end its collective punishment of the civilian population. The relentless air assault and artillery fires have seen Israeli forces flagrantly disregard civilian life and property, which must be protected under International Humanitarian Law and UN Charter. Last night, the Israeli army leveled to the ground the Arabic-language Al-Aqsa TV station in Gaza, where tens of media personnel were working; the last in a chain of moves - that also include shooting at media workers - irrefutably aimed at suppressing freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

They have set the stage for humanitarian disaster. Sources of economic growth are all completely destroyed too – the airport (runways demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with a sniper tower in the middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely cut off since 2007.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his America-Saudi paymasters are pretty much aware that what is going on in Gaza is a war crime and they are complicit. Deliberately attacking a besieged population is a war crime. For those living in Gaza’s ruins, simply spending time in their own homes, frequenting a mosque, going to a hospital or school is still a dangerous enterprise since any one of these civilian objects could become at any moment a target for the Zionist army.

Rampant corruption within the United Nations sidelines help from that quarter as well. Reportedly, funds sent by the national governments to help pay for reconstruction, schooling, health care, water, and food rarely leave the Zionist regime’s offices, or are wasted on costs tagged as administrative. Tel Aviv bribes and coerces UN officials and aid workers. It also refuses to issue visas for human rights groups and activists. They cannot administer anything they know nothing about.

Western governments stay away too. They have no idea of Gaza; there is laxity in understanding its horrific situation. They continue to put politics and profits before human rights by aiding, arming and continuing trade ties with the usurper regime. As a consequence, there are global demonstrations in which angry protesters are calling for an immediate end to Western complicity in Israeli crimes. The international community has also condemned the UN’s silence about Israel’s shameless human rights violations, while accusing the United States of supporting the illegal blockade.

The US government for decades has backed Israel in its war on Palestinians. To suppose a creative response from them to suffering and human rights violations in Gaza would be wishful thinking. The upper levels of Christian-Zionist society readily accept the US role of protector and protagonist of the Zionist project. The Trump administration stays solid with the status quo in occupied Palestine.

With President Trump opening the US embassy in Jerusalem Al-Quds and displaying a revealing ignorance toward the role of Washington in Palestinian suffering, now is the time for the people of Gaza and the West Bank to stand up and shape the future of their country, their families, and their communities. They must demonstrate unity and hold accountable those in Tel Aviv and Washington until they faithfully serve the interests of the Palestinian people.

The people of Palestine must tell the Zionist regime and its sponsors that they are not going away, and that they will keep fighting until they achieve their goals through resistance for self-determination and liberty. 

A general overview of this era of discord

By: Martin Love

TEHRAN, Oct. 27 (MNA) – Yes, it is obvious. Iran and a number of other countries would be far better off today, economically and thus socially, if the US was not militarily attacking or threatening to attack someone, somewhere, and especially in the Middle East.

 It’s vital to know some facts about all this and try to analyze it and prognosticate what may or may not happen geopolitically, and the Tehran Times does as good a job of this as any newspaper I know.

As an American journo, one can say things in the Tehran Times, for example, that are not readily going to find a mainstream publisher in the US. One case in point was when, several years ago, I was writing paid opinion pieces in what used to be one of the top 10 newspapers in the US where I worked fulltime for a while in the 1970s – the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal. But like so many newspapers in the US today, the staff at the Journal is a third of what it used to be, and the paper has shrunk in terms of pages by two thirds, too. I had written a column there about the 19th century roots of Apartheid in South Africa after a visit to that country. Apartheid was in full force until Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison on Robbins Island and became President. In that prospective column I ended with some ideas about what soon became the JCPOA, and suggested that the US would do well to balance its treatment of Iran with that of Israel. This meant, of course, that uncritical support of the Zionists would have to fall by the wayside. However, the editor at the Journal refused to publish the column as if the comment about a more rational and fair Mideast foreign policy was “anti-Semitic”. This editor had never been to the Mideast and knew next to nothing about it. He was also allied with the Neocons like Bill Kristol and John Bolton and many others, presuming that whatever they thought was good enough. They did not support the JCPOA. I roundly criticized this editor and cut my ties to the Providence Journal, a mainstream regional paper in New England.

Iran is not the only country threatened by the US at least by sanctions and other measures aimed at preserving US hegemony of some sort. Look at China, for example, also threatened. Where the US has prioritized military interventions for decades, whether overt or covert, China, whose economy by some measures is now the largest in the world, has not. Trump as a campaigner in 2016 promised a very different foreign policy, one that would halt efforts to topple foreign governments, and the Chinese may have even worried about this potential change. Because if the US shifted its focus to its internal problems and pursued a benign foreign policy, it might prove to be a challenge to China’s rise to global power. Trump, however, did not change US foreign policies. In fact, he has made them much worse. Even if this lack of change has proven to be an irritant to China and worse for smaller countries like Iran, circumstances are bound to improve. Countries like China that focus their efforts on building and not bombing, or not on wars it cannot win, and not on economic sanctions, stand to win in the longer term. The US has been sowing the seeds of its own destruction but China has not and nor has Iran. (China in fact has not engaged in a foreign war since 1979 when it invaded Vietnam, and Vietnam fended off the Chinese and the Chinese soon withdrew from northern Vietnam.)

There may be a lesson in the Chinese example of waiting things out for smaller but equally important nations like Iran. But waiting for what? Well, for the US to fall apart eventually, and it will unless it changes course.

For one thing, a US economic crisis, another one that’s bound to be worse than the 2008-09 experience, is probably ahead. The US financial markets are beginning to telegraph that right now, and the country has rarely been so divided politically and socially. And the US increasingly has fewer allies, and none of moral standing in the Middle East. “Allies” Saudi Arabia and Israel are reviled around the world. Even the US dollar is at risk like never before. At some point China is going to insist, for one thing, that it won’t buy Saudi oil unless payment can be made in yuan. A farewell to the Petrodollar seems inevitable, however long it takes, and China is now the largest oil user and importer.

But patiently waiting for the US to implode in some substantive way must not be a merely passive exercise, but rather one where, despite the suffering and economic dislocations brought about by the US, Iran and other beleaguered countries seize difficult situations as opportunities to address internal issues, to promote further democratic representation and question policies that fail to address the needs and aspirations of all citizens, not just the current ruling elites. In the US the elites are making a mess of things and consequences are ahead.

When in time the current burdens of outside interferences fall away, that will have happened in part because leaders have been open minded and generous. This prescription may seem trite and too general even to mention, but to the extent that Iran, to cite just one example, gathers new friends and allies relatively while sloppy, repressive dictatorships like Saudi Arabia further lose influence and clout, as with the recent murders of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and many Yemenis, the payoffs will someday be enormous. As Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese political and military strategist and philosopher was alleged to have said:

If one waits patiently by the riverside, one’s enemies will eventually float by.

Attacks on US-Allied Troops Speak of Positive Developments in Syria

Kayhan Int’l  

    A series of positive news are coming out of Syria in recent days which indicate that the sedition, war, bloodshed, death and destruction imposed on the country by the US, the Zionists, the Saudis, the British, the Turks and the Qataris, to try to topple the legal government of President Bashar al-Assad, has miserably failed, 

     It is only a matter of time for the province of Idlib to return to the national fold and then for sure Damascus will launch a major offensive on Deir ez-Zore to flush out the terrorists and their backers. 

     Perhaps Ankara may not like it and is trying to delay the inevitable through a sort of an unwarranted summit with the leaders of France, Germany, and Russia, but it has no other choice than to withdraw its troops peacefully.

     Russia, along with the Islamic Republic of Iran – the two countries officially invited by the Syrian government – are part of the solution, which means it was needless for Turkey to ask the Heads of France and Germany to come to Istanbul for talks on Syria, since Damascus has nothing to do with either Paris or Berlin, which have the negative record of siding with the terrorists during the crisis.

     Anyway the reconstruction phase is about to begin and once Turkey goes back to its original stance of "zero problems” with Syria, then there is no reason why Ankara shouldn’t contribute to the rebuilding process. 

     Another piece of positive news is the decision of the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to step down after four years of fruitless efforts, mainly the result of his tilt towards the terrorists during the so-called peace missions, rather than supporting the stance of the government in Damascus.

     There is no need for any UN envoy for Syria, an independent country which can handle its own affairs, and certainly it doesn’t want the World Body or the powers that manage it, to draw a constitution for it.

      As Syria’s permanent ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’fari, after opposing de Mistura’s suggestion to include the terrorist groups in constitutional talks, has emphasized "the constitutional committee should renew the current constitution because we do not want a constitutional vacuum, since Syria is not a failed state.”

      The next positive development is the decisions of the government of Syria and Iraq to open up the joint border crossing, to facilitate trade and travel, following the meeting in Damascus between the two countries’ foreign ministers – Walid Mo’allem and Dr. Seyyed Ibrahim al-Jaafari. 

     Whether or not the West and the dictatorial Arab regimes like it, Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari did not mince words, when he said: "no one should isolate Syria”. He went on to add that he was advocating for Syria’s return to the Arab League – which under Saudi pressure froze Damascus’ membership in 2011 despite the fact that Syria (not Saudi Arabia) is among the founding members of the Arab League.

      The last and not least important positive news from Syria is the increase in the number of bomb attacks against US-backed terrorists and the uninvited American troops in Syria.

      These attacks which are part of the liberation campaign, have increased by five-fold since June, as the country’s majority Sunni tribes, ignoring the seditious propaganda of the West and the reactionary Arab regimes, have solidly closed ranks with the government in Damascus to safeguard the independence of their country.

     According to reports: "The increased number of attacks, and the locations in which attacks were conducted, appears to indicate concerted, organized efforts by these groups to pressure the US into withdrawing from Syria.”

      Syria has been asking the uninvited Americans to leave, but they insolently failed to heed the voice of reason. Now it seems, instead of leaving peacefully and making amends for their hostility against the government of President Assad, the US will be bringing home its soldiers in body bags.

      Indeed, a humiliating retreat from Syria, which will certainly be followed by a more humiliating exit from Iraq for the US, and finally from the Persian Gulf region and Afghanistan!

9/11/2001, the Biggest Lie of the 21st Century

By: S. Nawabzadeh

September 11 has again dawned to remind us of so far the Biggest Lie of the 21st century around which the official narratives of the successive US Administration have revolved for the past 17 years in an attempt to mislead the American public and the gullible around the world whose minds are held hostage by the Zionist-controlled western media.

Recently, the U.S. monthly Reader’s Digest carried an article titled: "10 Myths About the U.S. Constitution Most Americans Believe.”

Among the myths of the U.S. Constitution listed by the prestigious journal were "All Men Are Equal”, and "The United States of America is a Democracy”. 

It discussed and dismissed these two and other myths. The writer sought to prove that neither all citizens (let alone all men) are equal in the eyes of the various U.S. government departments nor the U.S.A. is a functioning democracy.

This is clear by the violation of human rights both at home and abroad by the U.S. Administration, the genocide to exterminate the native Amerindians, the discrimination against the Black and Hispanic people, censorship of the press to suppress facts but spread fake news, the entire process of elections that normally propel to power idiotic and dangerous persons like Bush Junior and Donald Trump, the support for dictatorial, tyrannical and unelected regimes around the world, the coups, wars, and sanctions to undermine and overthrow democratic systems of other countries, and so on. 

To these glaring examples of hypocrisy and diabolism of the U.S. government should be added the Biggest Lie of the 21st century, that is, terrorists living in a remote corner of a backward country sent technology-savvy agents to Boston to hijack aircraft and ram them in New York’s landmark 110-storied Twin-Tower World Trade Center on September 11.

Nothing could be far from the truth, as investigative journalists and respected researchers in the West – not to mention the 9/11 Truthers in the U.S. – have proved to be an inside job, done by the F.B.I. in collaboration with Israel’s Mossad.

It means, the official narrative of hitherto unidentified Arab hijackers, as well as the 3000 people killed as the twin towers collapsed, is nothing but a preposterous lie.

Facts have since emerged that in addition to the several hundred American Jews who did not turn up for work at the World Trade Center on Monday September 11 (not a Sabbath Day) and the abrupt cancellation of the official visit to the U.S. by Zionist premier Ariel Sharon (the Butcher of Baghdad who was eventually struck by divine wrath and died a painful death years later), so far only 1,642 persons have been identified and confirmed as killed on that particular day. In other words, figure of 3,000 dead is a conjecture.

If analysts note that the WTC affair was pre-planned to provide a pretext for the U.S. to invade and occupy Afghanistan – one of the weakest but strategically placed Muslim countries – scientists point out that the way the huge building collapsed on its foundations indicated implosion and controlled demolition from within that was timed with the two unmanned small aircraft that simply flew through. 

If the collapse was the result of the impact of the aircraft or explosives on board to blow the building, then the towers should have fallen in the opposite direction with the debris covering a wide area. But quite remarkably, the adjoining buildings didn’t suffer.

Moreover, of the security and relief personnel deployed to rescue survivors, hundreds have died over the past 17 years and all struck by lung cancer, which means dangerous toxics were used by the destroyers in the basement of the WTC.

Truth cannot be suppressed for long. Neither the factors behind the WTC collapse nor the creation of the Takfiri terrorists by the U.S. in collaboration with Saudi Arabia and the illegal Zionist entity. 

Whatever theatrics Donald Trump and his team of psychopaths may try, they cannot escape realities and the fate Divine Providence has decreed for such hoodlums, who lie glibly and are total strangers to truth.
Only the naïve and the knaves who are traitors to their own homelands belief in the official U.S. version, which is indeed the myth of the century – as the holocaust was of the previous century.

All About Yemen’s Revolution

It has been three years since Saudi Arabia initiated a war against Yemen, the Saudi coalition continues to carry out the barbaric attacks on the Yemeni people, and as a result of the continued blockade it has placed Yemen socially and economically in critical situations, while the Yemeni army and revolutionary forces continue their struggle in the war and launched several ballistic missiles with successful hit targets inside Saudi soil.Qodsna

On this regard our correspondent in Beirut in an interview with Ebrahim al-Dulaimi, member of the Political Bureau of Ansarullah Movement and Director General of the Al-Masirah Network, discussed the issue as follows:

- It has been three consecutive years since Saudi’s led strikes started over Yemen, How is the situation evaluated there on the ground in Yemen?

-- The situation on the ground in this country in 3 years of war can be divided into three parts; in the first part, we have witnessed targeting of everything from trees and plants to Human beings and children, and nothing has been left untargeted. The siege targets women and children and has been preventing them from the least of a living. This is resulted from the use of international prohibited weapons produced by West and delivered to Saudi Arabia. This tragic scene has occurred in the 21st century and fully describes the critical situation of Yemeni people, which west keeps closed eyes on it.

-- The next part is the resistance and sacrifice of Yemeni people and their struggling against oppression in all fields and faces. This has increased the level of resistance in Yemeni people. And it influences both the society and the military. This overwhelming situation became epidemic throughout Yemen, they enter the scene and devote themselves and fight. The right to resist and choose independence is what it gives them supremacy to encounter the materialistic weapons of west.

-- The third part is the scandal of the international community which refused to provide support to the Yemeni people’s development; the failure proved that international laws and standards have no meaning when it’s violated by the Saudis, Americans and Zionists. All these together raise an overview of international laws that have been cited for many centuries in human societies.

- The role of resistance media in the process of this brutal assault on Yemen is highly essential. How do you think these media can confront Saudi aggression and the blockade of Yemen?

-- Resistance Media’s have a lot of responsibilities of course; the lack of media facilities and media resources somehow influenced the complete agenda. Inside Yemen some media’s are influenced by the regime and our hostiles. Most of the media in Yemen are run by the government, and some other media outlets influenced by political parties and groups such as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. These media outlets are supporting the mercenaries, and they did nothing for national and patriotic interests.

-- The rest of media outlets were also providing wrong data, because they were full of former regime employees, who were providing biased data over the interest of the former regime, but since the annihilation of the former regime, many of them flee abroad and people had a chance of taking control of the official media outlets of the country. 

Israel writes script for the crisis and solution

President Barack Obama, wake up. The bloodletting in the holy city of Jerusalem sends you a stream of urgent messages that you should step in and act decisively to fulfil your promise of peace to the land of peacemakers.

As the crisis escalates with the Israeli police shooting any Palestinian, who they think is acting suspiciously in response to knife attacks on Jewish settlers, President Obama must try one last time to make peace between Israel and Palestine before his term ends in 15 months.

But it won’t be easy, given Israel’s hardline stance and the growing chill in the personal relationship between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal reached in July this year.

President Obama made a genuine effort for peace during the early days of his first term. He probably underestimated the power of the Zionist Lobby, which opposes a Palestinian state. His first foreign call from his White House office after he took oaths in January 2009 was to Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas. Indicating he meant what he said, he visited the Middle East within months of becoming the President. He appropriately titled the famous speech he made at the Cairo University in 2009 ‘A New Beginning’. The hope-stirring speech showcased his determination to find a peace deal acceptable to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. He was not unaware of the failures his predecessors suffered in their efforts to make peace.  Yet amidst standing ovation from an ecstatic crowd, he described the Palestinians’ plight as “intolerable”, though in the same breath he said the US bond with Israel was unbreakable and called on the Palestinians to abandon resistance to Israeli occupation through violence. In a bold declaration, seen as a departure from the policies of his predecessors, Obama told Israel that settlement building in occupied Palestinian territories should stop. 

“… There can be no progress towards peace without a halt to such construction”. … Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s,” Obama assured the region’s peace-starved people. 

His peace intentions won him the Nobel Peace Prize, just months after he took office. But a term and a half later, he cuts a sorry figure on the Palestinian issue. Israel has gone on with business as usual, building settlements in occupied territories, while paying little or no heed to Obama’s repeated don’t-do-it pleas. After his reelection in 2012, Obama launched a new peace initiative with an April 2014 deadline. Numerous visits to the region and shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State John Kerry drew a blank, because of tough conditions placed by Netanyahu. 


A member of Israeli security forces faces Palestinian protesters throwing stones during clashes in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. AFP

With Zionist hardliners shooting down his peace initiative, what Obama, in response, could do was to snub Netanyahu by not meeting him during the United Nations General Assembly sessions. Last month, Obama pulled out Secretary Kerry and UN envoy Samantha Power from the UN hall when the Israeli leader addressed the world body.

Netanyahu knows that in the US, the system is more powerful than the president, and as long as the Zionist lobby led by the mighty America-Israel Public Relations Committee has the system – which includes Congress -- under its control, Israel has little to worry about and Netanyahu does not give a damn about decisions made by the White House.

In what was seen as a snub to Obama and his peace initiative, Netanyahu was reelected in March this year on the strength of a promise he made in the closing days of his campaign that there could be no Palestinian state while regional violence and chaos persisted. 

Netanyahu’s reelection shut the door on Obama’s peace efforts. Yet, unable to turn a blind eye to the escalating violence, the Obama administration on Wednesday, in what appears to be a half-hearted announcement, said Secretary Kerry would travel to the region “in the near future”. But whether Kerry will succeed is a big question. Already, State Department remarks on the current violence which could trigger a third Intifada – uprising – have infuriated Israeli hardliners. State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters this week there were “credible reports” Israel was using excessive force against Palestinian protesters. 

As violence soars in Jerusalem and other parts of the occupied territories and in Israel, an opinion poll published last week found that 73% of Israelis wanted a harsher response to the attacks by Palestinian youths. Needless to say, Israeli troops resort to collective punishment, bulldozing several houses in a suspect’s village. 

The recent violence follows months of tension between the Palestinians and hardline Israelis, who, with state patronage, have been asserting the Jewishness of the Temple Mount al-Aqsa mosque, which the Muslims regard as the third holiest mosque in Islam.  The Palestinians say hardline Jews enter the al-Aqsa mosque premises and provoke them by holding Jewish prayers. The Jews say they want to rebuild the Temple and restore it to its original glory. 

The Palestinians fear that they will soon lose control of al-Aqsa mosque in the same manner they lost control of the Hebron mosque where Abraham, revered by both the Jews and the Muslims as the great patriarch of monotheism, is believed to have been buried. The Israeli occupying force decides on the days on which Muslims can pray at the Hebron mosque.

For centuries, the Muslims prayed at the Temple Mount while the Jews said prayers at the Temple wall over the cliff.  This unwritten agreement survived even after Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war.  

With the Palestinians being left to their own fate while Arab leaders are now more interested in fomenting troubles in places like Libya and Syria, the writing is on the wall that soon Israel will have full control of the Temple Mount. If the Muslims lose the right to worship in al-Aqsa, the situation could lead to further radicalisation of the Muslim world and more violence, and the world will have to deal with a much bigger terrorist problem. 

Some world leaders are urging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to bring the situation under control. But he is old, ineffective and does not enjoy much public support. 

With the Obama administration having little clout over Israel and the United Nations being just a bystander, Israel is in a position to write the script of the crisis and also the solution to it.  The ideal solution for the current crisis is to bring the Temple Mount site under United Nations control until a final solution emerges. But that is only wishful thinking, given Israel’s grand scheme to annex the whole of Palestine and more Arab lands.