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    Trump and Putin are the real targets of Israel’s alleged strike in Syria -

    Exceptional strike, attributed to Israel, signals Netanyahu can disrupt a ceasefire in Syria if Israel’s security interests are ignored ■ Incident comes amid anti-Hezbollah war game

    Amos Harel Sep 08, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.811078

    The weapons manufacturing plant that occurred early Thursday morning in western Syria is a site clearly identified with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The exceptional attack, which foreign media are attributing to the Israel Air Force, appears to be a message to the world powers that maintain a prominent aerial presence in the area. Over the past two years, Russia has invested huge efforts in saving and rehabilitating the Syrian president.
    The bombing is not routine, either in its target or its timing. In an interview with Haaretz last month, outgoing air force chief Amir Eshel said that over the past five years, the air force had launched attacks on the northern military theater and on other fronts.
    But most of these forays were designed to quell efforts to strengthen Hezbollah and other terrorist and guerrilla groups. This time, according to Syrian reports, the target was a government one – a missile production facility run by the Assad regime – rather than another Hezbollah weapons convoy destined for Lebanon. 
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    Over the past year, senior Israelis have highlighted their concerns following the wide steps taken by the Iranians to try and enlarge and upgrade the supply of precision missiles in Hezbollah’s possession. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi have all made reference to this in public appearances. 
    For several years now, Hezbollah has maintained a huge weapons arsenal, containing between 100,000 and 130,000 missiles and rockets (according to various estimates). If the proportion of precision missiles is increased and their precision improved, that could enable the organization to inflict more devastating damage to the Israeli home front in a war.
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    In accordance with its declared policy, Israel is acting to prevent Hezbollah improving the quality of its weapons. The chaos the Syrian civil war has caused, during which serious damage has been inflicted on the capabilities of Assad’s army, has seemingly made this easier for Israel. Syria has for years been a no-man’s-land that no one has controlled. That changed with the arrival of the Russians two years ago. 
    According to foreign media, the deployment of Russian squadrons in northwest Syria since September 2015 hasn’t entirely halted the Israeli attacks. But the strategic reality has become more complicated. The prime Russian interest is the survival of the Assad regime. For Moscow, it is important to show that the regime is stable and that Russia is the party dictating what takes place in Syria. The attack on the facility – the Syrian Scientific Researchers Center – undermines that image, and could concern the Russians.
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    The timing of the action attributed to Israel is sensitive. At the end of July, in a Russia-led effort, the Assad regime reached a partial cease-fire with Syrian rebel groups. Although the fighting has continued in various regions, its intensity has declined in many places. The United States, whose interest in Syria has been on the decline, acceded to the Russian initiative. 
    Washington and Moscow also failed to heed Israeli protests that the agreement to reduce friction in southern Syria failed to require Iran and allied militias to steer clear of the Golan Heights.
    Consequently, the attack attributed to Israel – the first to be reported since the agreement was reached – may be interpreted as an Israeli signal of sorts to the world powers: You still need to take our security interests into account; we’re capable of disrupting the process of a future settlement in Syria if you insist on leaving us out of the picture. 
    Since the attacks attributed to Israel began in January 2012, the Assad regime has shown restraint in the vast majority of cases, other than in one incident in March this year when missiles were fired at Israeli planes after an attack near the town of Palmyra in eastern Syria. One missile was intercepted by an Arrow missile over Israel.
    At first, the Syrian regime totally ignored most of the attacks. At later stages, it would accuse Israel and sometimes even threaten a response, but it didn’t follow through. The reason is clear: The damage sustained by the regime from the responses was marginal compared to the harm to civilians in the civil war, and the last thing President Bashar Assad wanted was to drag Israel into the war and tip the balance in the rebels’ favor.
    Israel will have to see how recent developments are received in Moscow, Washington and Tehran. The response won’t necessarily come immediately.

    Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting in Moscow, October 2015.AP
    Russia is not hostile to Israel but, above all, it looks after itself and Assad. The Russians will also take the consequences on countries in other areas into account, as well as its tangled relations with the United States – which has been acting as a present-absent party in the Middle East for a long time now.
    This comes against the backdrop, beginning Tuesday this week, of a large Israeli military exercise based on a war scenario with Hezbollah. In fact, Israel is taking pains to declare that the exercise was planned nearly a year in advance and that it has no warlike intentions. But the fact that the exercise was carried out has raised the anxiety threshold among Hezbollah’s leaders.
    Al-Manar, the Hezbollah television station, declared Wednesday that Hezbollah isn’t worried about a war. That’s very inaccurate. To a great extent, Hezbollah, like Israel, is worried about a war and would prefer to avoid one – but in the Middle East things sometimes happen when you don’t exactly intend them.
    The early morning attack came exactly 10 years and a day after the bombing of the North Korean nuclear facility in eastern Syria, which U.S. President George W. Bush and others attributed to Israel. Last time (and then too, by the way, an attack came during a major exercise by the air force) a war was averted. That’s the hope this time too.

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    Stalingrad diaries: The battlefield transcripts that Stalin deemed too true to publish -

    During the most ferocious battle in human history, in 1943, Soviet historians interviewed over 200 Red Army soldiers about the fighting that helped seal Nazi Germany’s fate. Decades later, Prof. Jochen Hellbeck became the first historian to read their stories
    By Michal Shapira Sep 06, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-1.810966

    The book is based on interviews with Red Army soldiers that you found in the archives. They describe shocking violence. Can you talk about the nature of the violence?
    The interviews were recorded in Stalingrad, during the final stage of the battle and its immediate aftermath. They resonate with the din of the battlefield, and violence is everywhere in the picture. Red Army soldiers describe how they fought their way into the city center, blowing up basements and entire buildings filled with Germans after at least some of them refused to lay down their arms. What becomes very clear is the extent to which the Soviet defenders were driven by hatred toward the Germans. In the interviews I was surprised to discover the source of this hatred.
    Take Vassily Zaitsev, the famed sniper at Stalingrad, who killed 242 enemy soldiers over the course of the battle, until he suffered an eye injury, in January 1943. Asked by the historians about what motivated him to keep fighting to the point of exhaustion and beyond, he talked about scenes he had personally witnessed: of German soldiers dragging a woman out of the rubble, presumably to rape her, while he helplessly listened to her screams for help. [Quoting Zaitsev]: “Or another time you see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park. Does that get to you? That has a tremendous impact.”
    German atrocities, which many Soviet soldiers were familiar with, certainly played an important role in mobilizing them to fight, and fight hard. There was in addition ample violence within the Red Army, perpetrated against soldiers who were unwilling to risk their lives. In his interview, Gen. Vassily Chuikov described how he shot several commanders, as their soldiers watched in line formation, for retreating from the enemy without permission.

    Maj. Gen. Ivan Burmakov and Lt. Col. Leonid Vinokur, two of the Russian officers interviewed after the Battle of Stalingrad. Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad
    Until your book came out in Russian translation, in 2015, these interviews had never been published. Why is that?
    The testimonies were too truthful and multifaceted for their times, and Stalin forbade their publication, not least because he alone claimed full credit for the victory at Stalingrad. Little changed after Stalin’s death. Yes, leading generals of the Stalingrad battle, like Chuikov, were able to publish accounts of their role in the battle, but they carefully omitted any reference to executions within the Red Army. In his memoirs, Chuikov writes that he issued “a sharp rebuke” to his cowardly officers.
    Archival documentation tells me that at least some Soviet historians read the interviews, but it seems that they were at a loss about how to integrate individual, “subjective” voices, as they called them, into a mandated “objective” (communist) history of the war, and so the documents were overlooked and forgotten. I was extraordinarily lucky to have been the first historian to fully explore the 215 interviews conducted with Soviet defenders of Stalingrad, and publish them. I found them in the archive of the Institute for Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
    ‘Edge of Europe’
    Who was conducting the interviews and why? Who were the interviewees of these “Stalingrad transcripts”?

    Josef Stalin in 1950. AP
    The interviews were conducted by historians from Moscow who responded to the German invasion in 1941 with a plan to document the Soviet war effort in its totality, and from the ground up. From 1942 to 1945, they interviewed close to 5,000 people – most of them soldiers, but also partisans, civilians who worked in the war economy or fought in the underground, and Soviet citizens who had survived Nazi occupation. These historians hoped that the published interviews would mobilize readers for the war. They also wanted to create an archival record for posterity. I was struck by how they made this decision as early as fall 1941, when the Soviet Union seemed to be teetering under the German assault. But the historians drew confidence from history, notably the War of 1812, when the Russian people had been able to defeat a technologically superior invader. Hitler, they were certain, would meet Napoleon’s end.
    Why did Stalingrad become important to the Nazis and the Soviets in 1942? In what way was it a battle that changed world history?
    When the Germans resumed their offensive, in spring 1942, their strategic target was the oil fields of the Caucasus. Only as Army Group South advanced toward Maikop and Grozny did Hitler order a separate attack on Stalingrad. He banked on the psychological blow that the fall of “Stalin’s city,” which is what Stalingrad literally means, would deliver to Stalin. It was largely because of its symbolic charge that the battle for Stalingrad turned into a decisive showdown between the two regimes.

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    Israël : exercice militaire simulant une confrontation avec le Hezbollah
    Par Le Figaro.fr avec AFPMis à jour le 04/09/2017 à 22:16
    ▻http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2017/09/04/97001-20170904FILWWW00328-israel-un-exercice-militaire-organise.php

    L’armée israélienne va mener à partir de mardi un vaste exercice simulant une confrontation avec le mouvement libanais Hezbollah, les plus importantes manoeuvres de ce genre en près de 20 ans, ont annoncé des militaires lundi.

    Cet exercice va permettre de simuler « les différents scénarios que nous pourrions avoir si nous affrontons le Hezbollah », a déclaré une source de défense.

    Des dizaines de milliers de soldats dont des réservistes prendront part à ces manoeuvres qui mobiliseront également des avions, des navires et des sous-marins, selon une autre source militaire.

    L’armée simulera la mise en place de deux hôpitaux de campagne et expérimentera de nouvelles technologies comme des camions ou des hélicoptères sans pilote pour des évacuations.

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    Vivants comme morts, les improbables bâtisseurs du projet sioniste restent invisibles - RipouxBlique des CumulardsVentrusGrosQ
    ▻http://slisel.over-blog.com/2017/09/sioniste-restent-invisibles.html

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    « Aidez-le à bâtir la Palestine » : affiche de l’Agence juive par Modest Stein, 1930
    L’amour israélien pour les travailleurs de la construction a pris fin une fois que les travailleurs ont cessé d’être juifs
    Les nouvelles sur leur mort ne font que des entrefilets. Tout au plus une phrase dans un bulletin d’information, quelques lignes dans le journal, et encore. Tous les deux ou trois jours, parfois plus d’une fois par jour, un travailleur de la construction meurt ou est blessé au travail quelque part en Israël. Ils n’ont ni nom, ni âge, ni lieu de résidence, ni même un visage ou une famille en deuil – tout ce qui est humain chez eux nous est étranger. Il n’y a personne pour faire leur éloge, personne pour tenir une oraison funèbre, personne pour raconter comment ils sont morts. Un travailleur de la construction est tombé – et c’est tout. Même des jeunes avec des couteaux aux points de contrôle reçoivent plus d’attention. Les travailleurs de la construction sont transparents dans leur vie sur les échafaudages et sont également invisibles dans la mort.
    Ce sont les gens qui construisent nos maisons, les bâtisseurs du pays, les derniers des bâtisseurs du projet sioniste. Par une chaleur torride, dans le froid mordante, ils sont sur les échafaudages, du crépuscule de l’aube au crépuscule, des ombres de personnes que personne ne remarque, dont personne ne se soucie de la mort.
    On a cessé d’aimer les travailleurs de la construction dans ce pays une fois que les travailleurs ont cessé d’être des juifs. Presque personne n’est jugé pour leur mort, qui est presque toujours due à la négligence criminelle des employeurs – et cette attitude, il faut l’admettre franchement, provient aussi des origines des travailleurs, qui font de leur existence le synonyme de « vies bon marché ».
    Ils sont généralement palestiniens ou chinois. Ils vivent comme des mouches et ils meurent aussi comme des mouches.
    Mohammed Hussein était le 23ème travailleur de la construction tué cette année et le sixième au mois d’août, autant que l’on sache. Âgé de vingt-sept ans, il avait pris femme il y a deux ans et lui avait construit une maison. Il laisse un nourrisson d’un an, une jeune veuve en fin de grossesse, des parents endeuillés et des frères et sœurs, qui étaient assis cette semaine dans leur maison de la ville de Biddya, dans le centre de la Cisjordanie, pleurant leur mort.
    Ici, il n’y a pas de drapeaux nationaux ni d’affiches de victoire ; Hussein n’était pas un chahid, un saint martyr ou un héros. Pourtant, tout le monde dans sa ville savait qu’il avait été tué, et les citadins nous ont indiqué sa maison cette semaine.
    À 10 minutes seulement de la colonie urbaine d’Ariel, Biddya était, jusqu’à la deuxième intifada, un symbole des années d’abondance entraînées par le commerce avec Israël. C’était le centre commercial du shabbat pour les Israéliens avant qu’il y ait des centres commerciaux climatisés dans tout le pays, et avant qu’il y ait une intifada de kamikazes. La ville est restée relativement riche, la plupart de ses jeunes hommes travaillent en Israël et presque tout le monde y parle l’hébreu.
    En face de l’épicerie du quartier, à côté de la mosquée, dans la partie orientale de la ville, Mazen Yakoub, qui travaille l’aluminium, nous montre le chemin de la maison des parents de son voisin et bon ami, feu Mohammed Hussein. Avant cela, il nous montre la nouvelle maison construite par Mohammed : une structure stylisée et bien conçue, avec des couleurs de terre cuite. Hussein l’a construite de ses propres mains au long de sept années – chaque fois qu’il avait un peu d’argent, il ajoutait un pilier, un mur, jusqu’à ce qu’elle soit finie, avant son mariage. Maintenant, la nouvelle maison est abandonnée : les proches du défunt se sont rassemblés dans la maison des parents, à faible distance de là.
    L’expression sur le visage de Ziyad Hussein, le père endeuillé, alors qu’il ouvre la porte, est un mélange de lassitude, de chagrin et d’étonnement. Qui donc en Israël s’intéresse à la mort de son fils ? Depuis que Mohammed a été tué le mercredi 23 août, personne n’a appelé Ziyad – pas la société pour laquelle il a travaillé, ni aucun responsable du gouvernement israélien. Pas de condoléances, aucune expression de chagrin. Personne n’a même pris la peine d’expliquer ce qui s’est passé, comment son fils a été tué. Il a vu le corps, à l’intérieur d’un sac mortuaire, au pied du squelette du bâtiment, peu de temps après l’accident. Le père lui-même travaillait à quelques centaines de mètres de son fils ce jour-là. Les deux ont contribué à la construction de Bnei Brak, une ville largement ultra-orthodoxe proche de Tel Aviv.
    Ziyad, qui a un permis de travail en Israël, comme son fils Mohammed, est un vétéran des chantiers – 35 ans sur des échafaudages, dans chaque ville israélienne que vous pouvez imaginer. Il a 56 ans, est père de sept enfants, et il travaille dur pour subvenir aux besoins de sa famille. Il se lève à 3h30 tous les jours pour être sur le chantier vers 6 heures du matin, après avoir enduré les humiliations du poste de contrôle et les autres épreuves du voyage. Un bus pour les travailleurs avec un chauffeur de la ville arabe israélienne de Kafr Qasem les emmène, lui et des dizaines d’autres à leur travail via le point de contrôle de Na’alin.
    La journée de travail de Ziyad se termine à 16 heures, mais il fait presque nuit quand il arrive chez lui. Pour cinq jours par semaine à ce rythme, il gagne entre 5 000 et 6 000 shekels par mois (= de 1100 à 1400 €).
    À l’âge de 19 ans, immédiatement après avoir terminé ses études secondaires et passé ses examens, Mohammed a également commencé à travailler dans le bâtiment en Israël. Il est le seul fils qui a suivi les traces de son père : les deux autres fils gèrent une boulangerie à Biddya. Le premier travail de Mohammed était dans la colonie d’Elkana. Il a ensuite changé pour Bnei Brak. Dans la ville natale de la famille, on dit que « la moitié (des hommes) de Biddya est à Bnei Brak ».
    La vie de Mohammed était un peu plus confortable que celle de son père. Il gagnait plus d’argent parce qu’il était plus jeune, et il pouvait également quitter son domicile plus tard tous les jours, vers 6 heures du matin, car le sous-traitant de son chantier faisait le ramassage des travailleurs.
    Au cours des derniers mois, les deux membres de la famille Hussein ont travaillé sur des sites incroyablement proches, le père rue Sokolof, le fils rue Chaim Pearl, pour différents patrons. « Chacun pour soi », dit Ziyad. Ils n’ont jamais fait la route ensemble,ne se sont jamais rencontrés à Bnei Brak. Ziyad n’a vu pour la première fois le lieu de travail de son fils, si proche de lui, que lorsque le corps de Mohammed était allongé là.
    Il y a deux ans et demi, Mohmmed a épousé une fille nommée Zouhour, de sa ville. Elle a maintenant 20 ans. Ils sont entrés dans la nouvelle maison au coin de là où nous sommes ; Leur premier enfant, un garçon, Abdelkader, est né il y a environ un an. Zouhour attend un autre fils dans un mois. Il y a une photo de famille dans le téléphone portable de leur voisin, Mazen Yakoub : la mère, le père et le bébé dans un moment de joie, il y a moins d’un mois.
    Mardi soir, la semaine dernière, Mohammed est allé à la maison de ses parents avec Zouhour et Abdelkader. C’était sa coutume d’y aller après le travail pour le dîner ou le café. Après quoi, Ziyad allait se coucher et la jeune famille rentrait chez elle. Le lendemain, vers 14 heures, Ziyad a reçu un appel du lieu de travail de son fils sur la rue Sokolov : Votre fils, Mohammed, a été tué dans une chute. Ziyad a immédiatement abandonné ce qu’il faisait, et un chauffeur l’a conduit en toute hâte au chantier. Il est arrivé alors que le corps de son fils, enveloppé dans un sac en plastique, était placé dans une ambulance. Il a pu identifier Mohammed – son visage avait l’air « régulier », dit-il -, avant d’être interrogé par la police à propos de son fils. Ensuite, le père est rentré chez lui en taxi.
    Tout ce que Ziyad sait, c’est que Mohammed est tombé du cinquième étage de l’enveloppe du bâtiment sur lequel il travaillait. C’est là toute l’information qu’il possède. Le corps de son fils a été emmené à l’institut de médecine légale à Abu Kabir à Tel Aviv et a été renvoyé à la famille le lendemain. Mohammed a été enterré dans le cimetière de Biddya.
    Après l’Aïd El Kbir, la Fête du Sacrifice, qui a lieu ce week-end, Ziyad reprendra son travail à Bnei Brak. Il dit qu’Allah a décidé que son fils ne vivrait que 27 ans. Cela soulage quelque peu la douleur. Mazen, le voisin, dit que si Mohammed avait été israélien, sa mort aurait été traitée différemment. Mazen lui-même a connu une chute il y a quatre ans, alors qu’il était encore travailleur de la construction, du troisième étage d’un immeuble sur la rue Sokolov, mais, heureusement, il n’a subi que des blessures légères.
    Les travaux ont été interrompus temporairement au 15 de la rue Chaim Pearl. Au cœur de Bnei Brak, en face d’une « petite yeshiva pour des jeunes gens remarquables », se trouve le chantier d’un bâtiment étroit et haut. Les panneaux d’affichage demandent aux fidèles d’assister aux prières de Selihot, récitées pendant les jours redoutables précédant la Roch Hachana. Le chauffeur d’un camion transportant des planches, qui est stationné à côté du chantier, dit tranquillement : « C’est crimionel, tout ça », et souligne des défauts de sécurité très visibles.
    Ce chantier ne comporte aucun panneau indiquant le nom de l’entrepreneur ou d’autres professionnels engagés. Rien. Seule une paire de gants médicaux abandonnés par terre atteste de ce qui s’est passé ici. Pas besoin d’être un grand expert pour repérer les dangers qui guettent sur ce chantier. Une pile de parpaings perchés au bord du deuxième étage menace de nous tomber dessus. La passerelle étroite au quatrième étage, sur laquelle les travailleurs se tiennent, semble tenir par un fil. Les inspecteurs de sécurité du ministère du Travail, des Affaires sociales et des Services sociaux n’étaient pas au courant de l’existence de ce chantier, de sorte qu’ils ne l’ont jamais visité.
    On peut gager à coup sûr que le travail ici reprendra bientôt, comme si de rien n’était. Personne n’a parlé d’indemnisation à Ziyad et il n’a aucune idée de ce qu’il faut faire.
    À Biddya, un bébé naîtra dans un mois, nommé Mohammed, d’après le père qu’il ne connaîtra jamais.
     
    Par Gideon Lévy | 31/08/2017
    Article original : ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.809947
    Traduit par Fausto Giudice
    URL : ▻http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=21385

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    As violence intensifies, Israel continues to arm Myanmar’s military junta
    Responding to a petition filed by human rights activists, Defense Ministry says matter is ’clearly diplomatic’
    By John Brown Sep. 3, 2017 | 5:58 PM
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.810390

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.810394.1504451156!/image/933588068.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/933588068.jpg

    The violence directed at Myanmar’s Rohingya minority by the country’s regime has intensified. United Nations data show that about 60,000 members of the minority group have recently fled Myanmar’s Rahine state, driven out by the increasing violence and the burning of their villages, information that has been confirmed by satellite images. But none of this has led to a change in the policy of the Israeli Defense Ministry, which is refusing to halt weapons sales to the regime in Myanmar, the southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma.

    On Thursday, the bodies of 26 refugees, including 12 children, were removed from the Naf River, which runs along the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Of the refugees who managed to reach Bangladesh, many had been shot. There were also reports of rapes, shootings and fatal beatings directed at the Rohingya minority, which is denied human rights in Myanmar. The country’s army has been in the middle of a military campaign since October that intensified following the recent killing of 12 Myanmar soldiers by Muslim rebels.

    Since Burma received its independence from Britain in 1948, civil war has been waged continuously in various parts of the country. In November 2015, democratic elections were held in the country that were won by Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi. But her government doesn’t exert real control over the country’s security forces, since private militias are beholden to the junta that controlled Myanmar prior to the election.

    Militia members continue to commit crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of human rights around the country, particularly against minority groups that are not even accorded citizenship. Since Myanmar’s military launched operations in Rahine last October, a number of sources have described scenes of slaughter of civilians, unexplained disappearances, and the rape of women and girls, as well as entire villages going up in flames. The military has continued to commit war crimes and violations of international law up to the present.

    Advanced Israeli weapons

    Despite what is known at this point from the report of the United Nations envoy to the country and a report by Harvard University researchers that said the commission of crimes of this kind is continuing, the Israeli government persists in supplying weapons to the regime there.

    One of the heads of the junta, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, visited Israel in September 2015 on a “shopping trip” of Israeli military manufacturers. His delegation met with President Reuven Rivlin as well as military officials including the army’s chief of staff. It visited military bases and defense contractors Elbit Systems and Elta Systems.

    The head of the Defense Ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate — better known by its Hebrew acronym, SIBAT — is Michel Ben-Baruch, who went to Myanmar in the summer of 2015. In the course of the visit, which attracted little media coverage, the heads of the junta disclosed that they purchased Super Dvora patrol boats from Israel, and there was talk of additional purchases.

    In August 2016, images were posted on the website of TAR Ideal Concepts, an Israeli company that specializes in providing military training and equipment, showing training with Israeli-made Corner Shot rifles, along with the statement that Myanmar had begun operational use of the weapons. The website said the company was headed by former Israel Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki. Currently the site makes no specific reference to Myanmar, referring only more generally to Asia.

    Who will supervise the supervisors?

    Israel’s High Court of Justice is scheduled to hear, in late September, a petition from human rights activists against the continued arms sales to Myanmar.

    In a preliminary response issued in March, the Defense Ministry argued that the court has no standing in the matter, which it called “clearly diplomatic.”

    On June 5, in answer to a parliamentary question by Knesset member Tamar Zandberg on weapons sales to Myanmar, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel “subordinates [itself] to the entire enlightened world, that is the Western states, and first of all the United States, the largest arms exporter. We subordinate ourselves to them and maintain the same policy.”

    He said the Knesset plenum may not be the appropriate forum for a detailed discussion of the matter and reiterated that Israel complies with “all the accepted guidelines in the enlightened world.”

    Lieberman statement was incorrect. The United States and the European Union have imposed an arms embargo on Myanmar. It’s unclear whether the cause was ignorance, and Lieberman is not fully informed about Israel’s arms exports (even though he must approve them), or an attempt at whitewashing.

    In terms of history, as well, Lieberman’s claim is incorrect. Israel supported war crimes in Argentina, for example, even when the country was under a U.S. embargo, and it armed the Serbian forces committing massacres in Bosnia despite a United Nations embargo.

    #Israël_Birmanie

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    The Zionist tango -
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.810226

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.810229.1504372009!/image/4261255341.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/4261255341.jpg

    Why the racist honesty of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is preferable to the fake views of the Israeli left
    By Gideon Levy | Sep. 3, 2017 | 2:28 AM

    Ravit Hecht attributes a “fragrance of true love” for my “honest, brave princess,” Justice Minister Shaked, in her op-ed “When Gideon Levy fell in love with Ayelet Shaked.” [ ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.810167 ] Hecht knows my taste in women is slightly different than that, and that, despite what she writes, I don’t know how to dance the tango. But my appreciation for Shaked and her ilk is that they do not deceive: they openly acknowledge their nationalism and racism.

    They don’t hide their belief that the Palestinians are an inferior people, indigenous inhabitants who will never gain the rights Jews have in the Land of Israel-Palestine; that no Palestinian state will ever be established here; that Israel will ultimately annex all of the occupied territories, as it already has done in practice; that the Jews are the Chosen People; that Zionism is in contradiction to human rights and superior to them; that dispossession is redemption; that biblical property rights are eternal; that there is no Palestinian people and no occupation; and that the current reality will last forever.

    Many of these views are also held among the Zionist left, Hecht’s ideological camp. The only difference is that the Zionist left has never admitted it. It envelops its views in the glittering wrapping paper of peace talks, separation and hollow rhetoric about two states, words it has never really meant and has done precious little to realize.

    That’s why I prefer Shaked. With her, what you see is what you get – racism. In its actions and deeds, the Zionist left has done everything to implement Shaked’s views, only in polished words and without acknowledgement. The Zionist left is embarrassed by things Shaked and her colleagues are not ashamed of. That doesn’t make the left any more moral or just. It has merely been quasi-Shaked in its actions.

    The occupation was no less cruel under left-wing Israeli governments, which was the founding father of the settlement enterprise. Those princes of peace Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin established more settlements than Shaked and caused the deaths of more Arabs. The left has enthusiastically defended every military action Israel has carried out and every brutal act committed by the Israel Defense Forces. It hasn’t just sat silent in the face of such acts; it has been supportive. Always.

    Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge in Gaza (in 2008-09 and 2014, respectively) involved thousands of senseless deaths, and most of the Zionist left supported them. The majority of those on the left supported the siege on Gaza, the checkpoint executions, the nighttime abductions, the administrative detentions, the abuse, dispossession and oppression – the left remained silent throughout.

    But the truth is that it’s not Shaked and it’s not the left. It’s Zionism. Havoc has been wreaked, as Hecht herself wrote. But instead of trying to repair the unstable foundations, all of Israel – and not only the right wing – has done everything to undermine them even further.

    Yes, this involves the 1948 War of Independence, which has to be discussed even though it’s uncomfortable. The spirit of 1948 has never stopped blowing here and, in this respect, Shaked and Hecht are in the same boat. According to this view, there is only one people here that needs to be considered, only one victim, and it is entitled to do as much harm as it wishes to the other people. That is the essential evolution of Zionism.

    It could and should have been rectified, without derogating the Jews’ right to a state. But the Zionist left has never done this. It has never acknowledged the Nakba suffered by the Palestinians, and never did anything to atone for its crimes. This never happened because the Zionist left believes in exactly what Shaked believes in.

    It is true there are many other issues in which the right causes national disasters the left never would have created. But on the other side of the line lives a people that for the past 50 years – the past 100, actually – has been suffering and oppressed. Not a day goes by without horrible crimes being committed against it. We can’t say, “Be patient. We’re busy at the moment with the status of the Supreme Court.”

    And on the truly crucial issue that overshadows all others, Shaked and Hecht are performing a perfect tango together, with a fragrance of true love exuding from them both – a Zionist tango.

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    A dangerous 71-year-old
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.809634
    The Israeli military authorities are keeping a retired Palestinian history teacher in detention without trial, and we’re not allowed to know why. Next comes the decision whether he’s healthy enough for prison

    By Amira Hass | Aug. 30, 2017 | 1:04 AM

    Badran Jaber , 71, is endangering the security of the region. Thank God we have the Shin Bet security service, which sent soldiers on the night of August 9 to break into his home, hold his seven terrified grandchildren (ages 2 to 10) in a room separate from the adults, and detain him. Jaber, a retired history teacher, is so dangerous that he and we aren’t even allowed to know the suspicions against him.

    An administrative detention order for four months was issued against him on August 13, and the military authorities can extend the injunction repeatedly. And so Jaber was added to the 450 or so Palestinians who are now imprisoned without trial. On August 16 the secret information was whispered into the ear of the military judge, Maj. Rafael Yemini, who approved the detention — without evidence, witnesses, an indictment and a right to respond. Has an Israeli judge, military or civilian, ever been born who doubted the word of the Shin Bet?

    I’ll let you in on a secret: Jaber is opposed to the Israeli occupation. The same is true of his seven children and his wife. When asked his opinion, he doesn’t hide it. There are pictures of him from a few years ago demonstrating with Palestinians and Israelis in Hebron against the destruction of the city by one of the most violent species of settlers.

    “He’s very proud of his relationship with left-wing activists in Israel,” said his daughter Bissan, referring to his ties with Tarabut-Hithabrut, an Arab-Jewish social movement, and the joint conferences in Hebron of the Palestinian left and a genuine, socialist and anti-colonialist Israeli left. When she and her brothers weren’t allowed to travel abroad, she said, they were told that it was because of her father. Israel, the military and democratic power, is intimidated by his words and opinions. Or it’s sending a message: Imprison your thoughts and your words. Keep quiet.

    With chains on his feet, Jaber will once again be brought into the military courtroom in Ofer. He will be holding a bag full of medication. Military occupation isn’t a recipe for one’s health, nor were Jaber’s previous periods of detention. Between 1972 and 2006 he spent almost 12 years in prison: in administrative detention, in detention during an investigation, and after being convicted of political activity for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

    Each time he was behind bars for two to three months to a maximum of 27 months. On Thursday it will be decided whether he is fit for detention, as an anonymous prison service doctor has determined, or not, as his lawyer, Mahmoud Hassan of the prisoner support and human rights group Addameer, will try to prove.

    Jaber will be holding a bag full of medication because there’s no way of knowing how long he’ll be kept handcuffed in a kind of waiting cage before being brought into the trailer that serves as the courtroom. During the first extension of his detention, on August 10, which was one of the hottest days of the year, he was kept in that situation from 8:30 A.M. until about 5 P.M. A kind of torture, even for a healthy man, and certainly for someone suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, has had open heart surgery, is taking medication for prostate cancer and is connected to a catheter.

    Bissan, 26, is a lawyer. On the morning before his detention, the proud father joined her when she was furnishing her new office. Thirteen years ago, after being tortured for an entire day in the cage where he was awaiting trial, he told her, his youngest daughter: I want you to be my lawyer the next time. Sure enough, she was there for the extension of his recent detention, before the administrative order was issued.

    Her presence didn’t prevent the torture. After about six hours in one cage with a water faucet, he was transferred to another cage without one. There she was allowed to see him. She wanted to give him her water bottle, but the alert prison service guards prevented her and other lawyers from doing so. Beyond the letter of the law the guards brought him a bottle that they filled with water.

    During their meeting, Bissan told him that she and her fiancé planned to postpone their wedding, which was scheduled for August 18, until her father’s release. “Absolutely not,” he told her. “I’ll be angry if you postpone it, if you let that interfere with your plans. Our lifelong struggle is only so that we’ll be able to live.”

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    Israel-Palestine. Trump is wasting his envoys’ time - Haaretz Editorial

    Another round of pointless visits to Israel and the PA and empty words that we’ve heard endless times before will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Haaretz Editorial Aug 28, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/1.809457

    The visit to the Middle East of a delegation from Washington, led by U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, was met by complete apathy in Israel, from both the political establishment and from the public and the media. So, too, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Kushner. After the meeting on Thursday, the two men thanked each other for the “effort” and reiterated the mutual American and Israeli “commitment” to “peace.”
    This indifference to the visit by both right and left is understandable. After all, “efforts,” “commitment” and “peace” are nice words, but they aren’t enough to convince anyone that there’s something substantial on the negotiating table.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also frustrated by America’s behavior. “I’ve met with [Donald] Trump’s envoys around 20 times since the beginning of his term as U.S. president,” said Abbas. “Every time they repeatedly stressed to me how much they believe and are committed to a two-state solution and a halt to construction in the settlements. I have pleaded with them to say the same thing to Netanyahu, but they refrained. They said they would consider it but then they didn’t get back to me.”
    Abbas’ frustration is also understandable. Another round of pointless visits and empty words that we’ve heard endless times before will not resolve the conflict. It may be fine for those who want to merely manage the conflict and are satisfied with just preserving the security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but it’s not enough for anyone seeking a peace agreement or who dreams of two states for two peoples.
    Anyone who follows Netanyahu’s declarations can discern that even he has stopped believing in Trump’s commitment to a political agreement. Otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed himself to express his hawkish views on the Palestinian issue as he did at a rally two weeks ago, at which he declared his opposition to a Palestinian state and to any withdrawal from the West Bank.
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    If Trump is indeed interested in advancing “the ultimate deal” or a “peace deal” in the Middle East, as he claimed immediately upon being elected, he must back this declaration of intent with real demands from both sides and with a public presentation of an outline agreement, including a map.
    Meanwhile, the U.S. administration hasn’t even expressed public support for a settlement freeze. Trump has been president for less than a year, but the conflict is old, as is the peace “process.” The time for processes is over. It’s time to act. If Trump isn’t capable of doing so, he shouldn’t waste his envoys’ time.

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    Israel’s Netanyahu uses fake ’2,000-year-old’ coin to justify settlements in West Bank -
    Daily Sabah - GERMAN PRESS AGENCY - DPA - TEL AVIV -
    Published 8 hours ago
    ▻https://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2017/08/28/israels-netanyahu-uses-fake-2000-year-old-coin-to-justify-settlements-in

    A 2,000-year-old coin promoted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as proof of the Jewish people’s connection to the Israeli-controlled West Bank has been found to be a souvenir reproduction.

    “This exciting discovery is additional evidence of the deep connection between the people of Israel and its land - to Jerusalem, to our temple, and to the communities in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said of the coin on Facebook Sunday, using the biblical Hebrew term for the West Bank.

    Ancient discoveries are not uncommon in Israel and the West Bank. Earlier this month, Israeli authorities uncovered a 2,000-year-old workshop for stone vessels in northern Israel. But this “discovery,” first reported by Israeli media, turned out to be one of thousands of cheap souvenir coins minted by the Israel Museum.

    “There is no chance that it is authentic; it is not an ancient coin. Even to call it a coin is to exaggerate what it is,” Haim Gitler, chief curator of archaeology and numismatics at the Israel Museum, told the Times of Israel.

    The coin was found by an 8-year-old girl near the Israeli settlement of Neveh Tzuf in the West Bank in May. The supposed discovery garnered attention in Israeli media last week

    “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““

    http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Polish+Prime+Minister+Visits+Jerusalem+28jcJmqhwA9l.jpg

    ▻http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/v4xlRaNRlN5/Polish+Prime+Minister+Visits+Jerusalem/28jcJmqhwA9
    Polish Prime Minister Visits Jerusalem
    In This Photo: Donald Tusk, Benjamin Netanyahu
    In this handout image provided by the Israeli Government Press Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) shows Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (2L) around his offices on February 24, 2011in Jerusalem, Israel. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is the head of a delegation of ministers arriving for a series of inter-governmental meetings with the Israeli Prime Minister and his government, with the goal of further strengthening ties between the two countries.
    (Feb. 23, 2011 - Source: Handout/Getty Images Europe)

    ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

    Fake history: Netanyahu boasts about ’ancient coin’ from Jerusalem - turns out to be souvenir
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.809399
    Netanyahu uploaded (then deleted) to Facebook a photo of the object, describing how its discovery attested to long-time Jewish ties to the Holy Land
    By Nir Hasson | Aug. 28, 2017 | 4:35 PM

    Among those captivated by the recent story of the little Israeli girl who stumbled on a 2,000-year-old half-shekel coin – only to learn some days later that what she had found was a roughly 15-year-old souvenir – was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Various news outlets reported last week that Hallel Halevy, 8, had discovered a rare coin from the days of the Jews’ Great Revolt against the Romans, from 67 to 70 C.E., when walking to get her little sister from kindergarten in the West Bank settlement of Halamish, north of Ramallah.

    Not only wasn’t the find a rare coin, it wasn’t a coin at all, at least according to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Officials noted that it’s a replica, dating back anywhere between 15 to 20 years, created as part of its educational program for kids. They also noted that the object had an imprint on only one face, not two, as coins do. The coins were given to children as a souvenir.

    Meanwhile, however, Netanyahu had joined the trend, uploading a photo of the item on his Facebook page and writing how the coin, ostensibly a half-shekel dating to the era of the Second Temple, had been found in the province of Benjamin, in the West Bank. The moving discovery, the premier wrote in his post, further attests to the deep ties between the people of Israel and their land – including ties to Jerusalem, the Temple and Judea and Samaria.

    Netanyahu’s Facebook editor, Yonatan Orich, says the post has been removed until the issue can be clarified

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    Kushner reportedly told Abbas: Stopping settlement construction impossible, it would topple Netanyahu - Palestinians - Haaretz.com
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.809057

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.809059.1503752029!/image/4246689407.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/4246689407.jpg

    A U.S. delegation headed by President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week that “stopping settlement construction is impossible because it will cause the collapse of the Netanyahu government,” according to diplomatic sources who spoke to international Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. 

    The U.S. delegation, including envoy Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell, met with Abbas on Thursday during their regional trip aimed at kickstarting peace negotiations

    #arnaque pseudo #processus_de_paix #Palestine

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    Top Sudanese minister expresses support for normalizing relations with #Israel - Israel News - Haaretz.com
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.808253

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.808321.1503392560!/image/1255378936.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/1255378936.jpg

    Sudan’s minister of investment, Mubarak al Fadil al Mahdi expressed support for the establishment of ties between his country and Israel and for normalization of bilateral relations. His statement is unusual for a senior minister in the Sudanese government, which does not recognize Israel and has no diplomatic ties with it.

    #indigents_arabes

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    Revealed: Nearly 3,500 settlement homes built on private Palestinian land

    These illegal structures could be legalized under Israel’s contentious ’land-grab’ law, whose validity is now being determined by the High Court of Justice

    Yotam Berger Aug 23, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.808442

    There are 3,455 residential and public buildings built on private Palestinian lands in the West Bank, according to Civil Administration data. These illegal structures could be legalized under the expropriation law, whose validity is now being determined by the High Court of Justice in response to Palestinian petitions against the law.
    Extensive details on the scope of illegal structures on private Palestinian land were revealed in an appendix to the state’s response to the petitions.
    The law allows the state to expropriate Palestinian lands on which settlements or outposts were built “in good faith or at the state’s instruction,” and deny its owners the right to use those lands until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories. The measure provides a mechanism for compensating Palestinians whose lands are seized.
    According to the Civil Administration, the 3,455 structures fall into three categories. The first includes 1,285 structures that are clearly private land. These are structures built during the past 20 years on land that was never defined as state land and all have had demolition orders issued against them. The second category comprises 1,048 structures that were built on private land that had earlier been erroneously designated state land. The third category contains 1,122 structures that were built more than 20 years ago, during a period when planning laws were barely enforced in the West Bank.
    The structures on clearly private land are within the jurisdictions or adjacent to the jurisdictions of 74 settlements throughout the West Bank. Of these, 874 are in outposts – small, illegal satellites of larger settlements. One example would be the Tzur Shalem outpost near Karmei Tzur in the Etzion Bloc. Amona, which was evacuated in February, was another example. The other 411 are individual structures that were built on enclaves of private land within various legal settlements that were planned in accordance with Israeli law.
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    Of the 1,285 structures built on clearly private land, 543 are built on what the Civil Administration calls “regularized private land,” meaning lands whose owners are known and whose ownership is formally registered. The other homes are built on lands recognized as private after aerial photos proved that these lands had been cultivated over the years, but there is no definitive registry of who was cultivating them. Cultivating land establishes ownership in the West Bank in accordance with the Ottoman-era laws that still prevail there.

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    WATCH: #Hezbollah uses #drones against ISIS in Syria - Syria - Haaretz.com
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/1.808225

    Hezbollah deployed the drones to hit Islamic State positions, bunkers and fortifications in the Western Qalamoun area near the border with Lebanon, achieving direct hits, the military media unit said.

    ▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&noapp=1&v=tPDKdJLGIig

    #Liban

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    In blow to Iran, Egypt becomes surprise new player in Syria - Syria - Haaretz.com
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-1.808039

    A new and surprising player has recently entered the Syrian arena and has already contributed to establishing local cease-fires: Egypt received Saudi and Russian “permission” to conduct negotiations between the rebel militias and the regime, both in Ghouta al-Sharqiya (east of Damascus) and the northern neighborhoods in the city of Homs. In both cases, it managed to get a cease-fire deal signed – in the former on July 22, in the latter in early August.
    Both areas are part of the de-escalation zones on which Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed in May, in consultation with the United States. But this is the first time Egypt has played an active role in diplomatic negotiations between the warring parties that produced positive results.
    From Israel’s standpoint, Egypt’s involvement is important. Any country engaged in blocking Iran’s influence in Syria serves Israel’s interests. But that’s especially true when said country is Egypt, which is Israel’s partner in the war on terror in Sinai and an ally (together with Saudi Arabia and Jordan) with whom it sees eye to eye about both the Iranian threat and the danger of Syria disintegrating into cantons.
    Israel is also involved in discussions about the de-escalation zone in southern Syria that runs along Syria’s borders with both Israel and Jordan. Over the weekend, an Israeli delegation headed by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen began talks on the issue with senior U.S. officials in Washington, and a meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
    During these discussions, Israel will presumably push the superpowers to encourage Egypt’s involvement in Syria, thereby ensuring another Arab partner (alongside Jordan) that will be sympathetic to its interests.

    #Egypte #Syrie

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    This Israeli mixed Arab-Jewish city is in denial
    Nearly a quarter of the residents in Upper Nazareth, founded as a Jewish suburb of the Arab city below, are now Arab – yet it doesn’t have a single Arab school or Arabic on the municipality website
    By Noa Shpigel Aug 20, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.807855

    Four years ago, leaflets were distributed around Upper Nazareth calling for an end to the application of the law allowing Israelis to live wherever they wanted. “Now is the time to defend our home!” the flyers declared. They were part of Upper Nazareth Mayor Shimon Gapso’s 2013 election campaign and were accompanied by billboards declaring “Upper Nazareth – Jewish forever.”
    Gapso won the election, although his term was cut short after he was jailed following a bribery conviction. His electoral pledge wasn’t the first on the subject. A year earlier, the chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party in city hall tried to initiate a plan that would have provided grants to Arab residents who sold their homes to Jews and then left Upper Nazareth. In fact, a decade ago, Gapso initiated a competition to choose a new name for the city so it didn’t sound like Nazareth – the Arab city in northern Israel it was established next to.
    Nevertheless, over the past decade there has been a substantial increase in the Arab population of Upper Nazareth: in 2015 the Central Bureau of Statistics said that 23.1 percent of the city’s residents were Arab. Yet there is a lack of recognition of the city’s diversity. By contrast, in Haifa – which is considered a mixed Jewish-Arab city – Arab residents comprise only 11 percent of the population.
    Haifa, though, has a different history and different customs. In the northern coastal city, there is no attempt to counter the statistics. In Upper Nazareth, there are more than 2,000 Arab schoolchildren but not a single Arab school, where Arabic would be the language of instruction. And, also unlike Haifa, there are no Christian or Muslim religious institutions - not even a cemetery.

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    Europe must not buy what Israel is selling to combat terror
    Israel has managed to turn 50 years of Palestinian resistance to occupation into a cottage industry, and is now selling the concept of a police state to the world

    Jeff Halper Aug 20, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.807941

    Whenever a terrorist attack happens such as the one last week in Barcelona, Israel politicians and security “experts” get on TV to criticize European naïvité. If only they understood terrorism as we do and took the preventive measures we do, they say, they would suffer far less attacks. Most infamous in this regard were the remarks of Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz after the Brussels bombing in March 2016, in which 34 people died.
    Rather than convey his condolences in the name of the Israeli government, he scolded the Belgians in the most patronizing way possible. “If in Belgium they continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life and parade as great liberals and democrats while not taking account of the fact that some of the Muslims who are there are organizing acts of terror,” he pronounced, “they will not be able to fight against them.”
    The Belgians reacted angrily, and asserted the position of most European governments: While we will continue to be vigilant and take the necessary precautions, we are not going to forsake our freedoms and political openness to become copies of Israel. For they understand that Netanyahu’s government is peddling something far more insidious than mere precautions – even more than the weapons, surveillance and security systems and models of population control that is the bread-and-butter of Israeli exports. What Israel is urging onto the Europeans – and Americans, Canadians, Indians, Mexicans, Australians and anyone else who will listen – is nothing less than an entirely new concept of a state, the Security State. 
    What is a Security State? Essentially, it is a state that places security above all else, certainly above democracy, due process of law and human rights, all of which it considers “liberal luxuries” in a world awash in terrorism. Israel presents itself, no less, than the model for countries of the future. You Europeans and others should not be criticizing us, say Katz and Netanyahu, you should be imitating us. For look at what we have done. We have created a vibrant democracy from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River that provides its citizens with a flourishing economy and personal security – even though half the population of that country are terrorists (i.e., non-citizen Palestinians living in isolated enclaves of the country). If we can achieve that, imagine what we can offer those of you threatened by terrorist attacks?
    In a brilliant shift in imaging, Israel has managed to turn 50 years of Palestinian resistance to occupation into a cottage industry. By labeling it “terrorism,” it has not only delegitimized the Palestinian struggle but has transformed the occupied territories in a laboratory of counterinsurgency and population control, the cutting edges of both foreign wars and domestic repression. It has transformed tactics of control and their accompanying weapons of surveillance systems into marketable products. No wonder, as Netanyahu constantly reminds us, “the world” loves Israel. From China to Saudi Arabia, from India to Mexico, from Eritrea to Kazakhstan, Israel supplies the means by which repressive regimes control their restless peoples.

    #Europe #Israel #terror

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    The Hebrew neo-Nazis -
    By Gideon Levy | Aug. 20, 2017 | 4:43 AM
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.807833

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.807887.1503206589!/image/3652053350.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3652053350.jpg

    Why Israelis are remaining silent about U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments about ’many fine people’ taking part in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville

    Israel has no moral right to judge U.S. President Donald Trump over his forgiving remarks about the neo-Nazis in his country. First, Israel wasn’t really shocked by what he said. After all, it is willing to accept anything from anyone who supports the Israeli occupation. That’s axiomatic at this point. Whether it’s a Hungarian fascist or an American neo-Nazi, as long as they support the occupation – even if they secretly hate Jews – they are considered friends of Israel and moral people.

    The best of the “friends of Israel” today are fascists and evangelicals, xenophobes and Islamophobes. What’s most important is that they support the occupation. It’s only opponents of the occupation who are anti-Semites, and we will mount a special effort to combat them. We will forgive everyone else.

    But there is also another reason for Israelis’ silence. It recalls the Yiddish saying about betrayal of one’s own guilt – that the thief thinks his hat is on fire. Neo-Nazis? We have a lot of our own “Made in Israel,” Hebrew equivalents of neo-Nazis, and the opposition to them in Israel is less than to neo-Nazis in the United States. A resolute counter-demonstration was organized by liberals in the face of the march in Charlottesville. What about here?

    The sacred symmetry that Trump tried to create between attacker and attacked, between assailant and defender, between incitement and protest, between justice and evil – that was invented in Israel. Here we have the occupier and the occupied, a violent and at times even murderous right wing and a left wing that has never murdered, but they are deemed comparable.

    Any assault by settlement thugs on Palestinian farmers on their own land is deemed a “clash.” Any Palestinian protest against the violence of the occupier is considered a “disturbance of the peace.” It’s a symmetrical brawl between the two peoples’ shepherds. After all, there are good and bad people among the settlers – just as Trump said with regard to his “alt-right.”

    The Israeli alt-right is not neo-Nazi. But a thousand neo-Nazi flowers bloom on its margins that no one thinks about weeding out. Fascism in Israel has long been accepted. Neo-Nazis haven’t, but the distinction between the two is vague. If the extremist Lehava organization isn’t neo-Nazi, what is? If Beitar Jerusalem’s La Familia fan group isn’t neo-Nazi, what is? If the firebombing of the Dawabsheh family home in the West Bank village of Duma and the kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir aren’t neo-Nazi acts, what are? And what about the Arabic-language highway sign near the settlement of Halamish declaring: “This area is under the control of the Jews. The entry of Arabs is forbidden and constitutes a risk to your life!”

    The flag parade by Jews on Jerusalem Day is a state-sponsored neo-Nazi provocation, like the Purim rioting in Hebron. The Jewish community in Hebron is in essence neo-Nazi. Go see, judge for yourself. And the pools and Jewish communities along the way that are closed to Arabs? What will they do to any Arab who breaks the rules and sneaks into the Jewish swimming pool in Kochav Ya’ir – an Israeli community of people from the virtuous center-left, where a majority of voters support the enlightened Yesh Atid and Zionist Union parties? And what will they do in the Galilee community of Nofit if Arabs build houses there after expansion plans? After all, it’s not hard for us to imagine these people on the Zionist left objecting, even using unpleasant means, to Arabs coming into their communities.

    The plan for surrender proposed by MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) is neo-Nazi, despite all his protests. Among the three options he would provide to the Palestinians, there isn’t even one that is humane – and the third calls for their expulsion and destruction. What else do we need? And his wife’s objection to giving birth in the same room as a woman of the inferior race is also neo-Nazi.

    Social media is full of frightful neo-Nazi statements – from wishing for the death of every dying Palestinian child, to similar wishes to those who tell the children’s stories. You cannot write this off as just as “a handful of deviants.” That, too, is the spirit of the times.

    We cannot ignore the sentiments in this country, where there is a policy of organized and institutionalized racism against African asylum seekers. Pre-fascist sentiments are taking hold here – with manifestations of state-sponsored neo-Nazism – more than in any other Western country.

    In the West, most contemptuous efforts are directed against foreigners. In Israel, they are directed mostly against the people who are native to the country. Complaining about Trump? That would already be the height of hypocrisy.

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  • @kassem
    Kassem CC BY-NC-SA
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    After Steve Bannon’s dismissal, pro-Israel hardliners lose an ally in the White House - U.S. News - Haaretz.com
    ▻http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-1.807776

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.807777.1503113953!/image/3230503709.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3230503709.jpg

    "ZOA’s own experience and analysis of Breitbart articles confirms Mr. Bannon’s and Breitbart’s friendship and fair-mindedness towards Israel and the Jewish people,” the organization said in a statement. "To accuse Mr. Bannon and Breitbart of anti-Semitism is Orwellian. In fact, Breitbart bravely fights against anti-Semitism.” The organization added that it “welcomes” Bannon’s appointment and wishes him success.

    Bannon also received strong backing from Caroline Glick, a Jerusalem Post columnist whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to persuade to join the Likud’s list for the Knesset in Israel’s 2015 election. Glick wrote on her Facebook account that “Steve Bannon is not anti-Semitic. Period. He is anti-leftist.” She added that “despite the ravings of the ADL, which is now a leftist outfit staffed by Jews rather than a Jewish organization staffed by leftists, ’Jewish’ and ’leftist’ are not synonymous.”

    The Republican Jewish Coalition also released a statement, attributed to board member Bernie Marcus, offering support for Bannon. “I have known Bannon for many years,” Marcus wrote. “The person that is being demonized in the media is not the person I know. He is a passionate Zionist and supporter of Israel.” Marcus mentioned that during his tenure as the editor-in-chief of Breitbart, Bannon opened an office for the website in Jerusalem, because “he felt so strongly about this and wanted to ensure that the true pro-Israel story would get out.”

    #sionistes #sionisme #Israel #Israël #antisémitisme

    Kassem CC BY-NC-SA
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  • @alaingresh
    Nouvelles d’Orient
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    @orientxxi
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    An Israeli Arab’s encounter with Jaffa’s finest

    ‘You’re suspected of stealing a motorcycle,’ one of the cops said as he beat me. I told him I owned the bike and I was the one who’d called the police, but he kept calling me ‘Mohammed” and two other cops started kicking me.

    Michael Mansour Aug 18, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.807516

    You never know how an evening might turn out that begins with an intimate dinner along the Israeli sea. The Manta Ray restaurant, located where Tel Aviv and Jaffa meet, was full on that Sunday evening three weeks ago, as it always is, with the elegant, international clientele that frequents it. The fish that I ordered was delicious and the atmosphere was serene. There was no hint I would end the evening wallowing in my own blood, humiliated and in restraints.
    Because I had drunk a little over dinner and the sun had not yet set, I decided to take a walk on the seafront promenade and leave my motorcycle at the restaurant, which I had driven there. A short time later I got a call from a friend who works there. “Michael, listen,” he said. “Your motorcycle isn’t here. I think it’s been stolen.”
    Because I was no longer near the restaurant, I called my brother, Peter, and asked him to go to Manta Ray. He rushed to the area and after talking to several passersby, told me that some of them had seen people dragging the motorcycle away.
    In the past, every time the pampered cats that hang around outside the café that I own in an expensive, mixed Arab-Jewish part of Jaffa spread themselves out on my motorcycle, I would get a notification from my alarm company. But this time, even though the cycle was dragged a considerable distance, I never heard from them. I called the company to notify them of the theft, but a short time later I was pleased to be informed that Peter had already found it — thrown on a sidewalk. My helmet was missing.
    I grabbed a cab and called the police to let them know that the motorcycle had been found, and I asked that they come to take fingerprints. It was already dark when I saw three men in civilian clothes approach me. In truth, I didn’t attach any particular importance to them. My sights were set in the distance, looking to see if the police were getting close.
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    The three men came closer and one of them started rushing at me. With great force, he knocked me to the ground, turned me over and handcuffed me. He identified himself as a policeman and started punching me in the back. Three or four other men showed up suddenly behind my brother, who was standing closer to the motorcycle. They pounced on him, handcuffed him and started hitting him. One of the men also called for reinforcements.

    Nouvelles d’Orient
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  • @alaingresh
    Nouvelles d’Orient
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    More Israelis left Israel than moved back in six year record - Israel News - Haaretz.com

    16,700 left and 8,500 came back in 2015, in first year since 2009 that more Israelis exited than returned

    Lior Dattel Aug 15, 2017
    read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.806869

    After years of a decline in the numbers of Israelis leaving the country for an extended period, the trend reversed itself in 2015 and for the first time since 2009 the number of leavers grew. 
    Approximately 16,700 Israelis left the country to live overseas on a long-term basis in 2015, mostly with their families, while only about 8,500 returned after living abroad for at least a year, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Monday. 
    The latest figures for the immigration balance are for 2015 because the statistics bureau figures for immigration only include Israelis who have lived outside of Israel for a continuous period of one year or more, so they have to wait a full year to do the calculations. 
    The year 2015 also saw the lowest number of Israelis returning home any time in the past 12 years. The numbers of those returning has been steadily decreasing since 2012. 
    Among those leaving, in 2015 the average age was 27.6 years and 53% were male. Among returnees, the average age was a slightly older 29.8 and 55% were male. Nearly two thirds of the returnees had been abroad for no more than three years.
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    The latest CBS figures show that two Israelis out of a 1,000 leave Israel to live overseas for an extended period, while only one out of 1,000 return.

    Nouvelles d’Orient
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