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adverse critique of israhell shall be stopped.....Having just read journalist John Lyons’ book Balcony Over Jerusalem, I’m acutely aware of the ways in which the pro-Israeli Lobby in Australia exerts its influence on the media here to disparage journalists and their work and to even try to have them removed from their positions, if this lobby deems there is adverse critique of Israel. ABC – Ignorant, fearful or biased journalism? By Judy Attwood
Is that why Patricia Karvelas and Steve Kinnane on the ABC Radio National AM program choose words of clarification that either suspend or diminish acknowledgement that genocide is happening in Gaza? Do they want to avoid a complaint by the Zionist Federation of Australia? Karvelas typically chooses to comment after an interview where “genocide” in Gaza has been mentioned, with words like “the UN has not made a specific finding of genocide” (ABC RN AM Tuesday 16 July), while on AM on 12 August Steve Kinnane commented “At the moment genocide is a term that is contested”. When I hear these comments I want to ask “What on earth do you mean?” I think, “These are not comments made impartially or to inform.” So where and how do these comments originate? Are they the journalists’ own, or are they following ABC guidelines? They certainly do not emanate from the International Court of Justice interim ruling this year, nor from two UN special rapporteur reports and certainly not from any human rights reports I could find such as The University Network for Human Rights. International Court of Justice (ICJ) interim report The ICJ in its interim report on 26 January this year concluded that it was plausible that at least some of the actions South Africa alleges that Israel has committed in Gaza, seem to fall within the provisions of the (Genocide) Convention. I wonder why these two journalists do not refer to this report for their clarifying comments. UN Special Rapporteur report on the right to food The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, reported in February 2024 that, “Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable – not just individuals or this government or that person.” I wonder why this UN report has not persuaded these journalists or their employer to refer to it for their explanatory comments. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestinian territories The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, reported in March 2024 that, “By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimise genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.” Another report that seemingly failed to impress these journalists or their employer to use for their explanatory comments – that’s three reports in quick succession that refer to genocide. The University Network for Human Rights Nor did these journalists or the ABC get their ideas from human rights reports that abound concerning the situation in Gaza – reports such as Genocide in Gaza Analysis of International Law and its Application to Israel’s Military Actions Since October 7 produced in May 2024 by the University Network for Human Rights. It concluded, “Specifically, Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people.” So have these journalists and the ABC succumbed to pro-Israeli pressure? Are they ignorant, or are they and their employer just plain biased? The recent P & I article Zionist bullying distorts politics, media and education by Stuart Rees and Greg Barns (10 August) has relevance. Whatever the answer, the Palestinians of Gaza and the fearless pursuit for truth lose out and the ABC’s reputation as a source of unbiased, fearless and reliable information is diminished. https://johnmenadue.com/abc-ignorant-fearful-or-biased-journalism/
YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
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spewing lies....
A new investigation reveals that the criminal Jewish junta ruling occupied Palestine sought to create third-party nonprofit groups to funnel funds to US Jewish and Christian groups spewing endless Jewish lies in support of Genocide
News Desk
AUG 18, 2024
The Israeli government sought legal advice on how to bypass US federal law governing the spreading of propaganda among the US population by foreign states, an investigation published on 17 August by The Guardian in collaboration with journalists Lee Fang and Jack Poulson shows.
US federal law requires the disclosure of foreign-backed lobbying campaigns, but leaked documents reviewed by The Guardian show the Israeli government sought legal advice concerning the law out of concern that Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbying groups working in coordination with the Israeli government would be required to register as foreign agents and disclose their ties to Israel.
The documents, which include emails and legal memos originating from a hack of the Israeli justice ministry, show that Israeli officials proposed creating a new US nonprofit in order to continue Israel’s activities in the US while avoiding scrutiny under the law.
Lee Fang and Jack Poulson write, “A legal strategy memo dated July 2018 noted that compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) would damage the reputation of several American groups that receive funding and direction from Israel and force them to meet onerous transparency requirements. A separate memo noted that donors would not want to fund groups registered under FARA.”
The memo says the Israeli government was worried about FARA because it compels registrants to “flag any piece of ‘propaganda’ that is distributed to two or more parties in the US, with a disclaimer stating that it was delivered by a foreign agent and then submit a copy of the ‘propaganda’ to the US Department of Justice within 48 hours.”
To prevent FARA registration and the stigma and scrutiny associated with it, the legal advisors suggested channeling funds through a third-party US nonprofit.
Liat Glazer, a legal advisor to Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, wrote that even though the new US nonprofit would not be formally managed from Israel, “we will have means of supervision and management” through grant-making and “informal coordination mechanisms” such as “oral meetings and updates.”
The Israeli government sought legal advice from Sandler Reiff, a prominent election and campaign law firm in Washington, DC. Joseph E. Sandler, the former in-house general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, and Joshua I. Rosenstein, a widely-cited expert on FARA, provided the legal advice on behalf of the firm.
Fang and Poulson add that the Israeli government was specifically concerned that a US-based nonprofit, “Kela Shlomo” (which translates to “Solomon’s Sling”) would be forced to register under FARA.
The group was formed in 2017 by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs to distribute Israeli propaganda.
Rebranded as “Concert” in 2018 and “Voices of Israel” in 2021, the group focused on undermining the BDS movement, which leads boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns against Israel in protest of its illegal occupation of Palestine and apartheid laws.
The emails and documents were released by Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, a US-based nonprofit. The documents were obtained by “Anonymous for Justice,” a self-described “hacktivist collective” that announced in April that it had infiltrated Israel’s Ministry of Justice and retrieved hundreds of gigabytes of data.
https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/08/18/the-jews-are-allowed-to-bypass-foreign-agent-law-to-spread-vile-black-propaganda-in-us-thru-fox-nyt-cnn-newsweek-daily-beast-abc-wapo-wsj-report/
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
....אַטראַקשאַן
BY Robert Inlakesh
On August 22, Israeli Brigadier General Yitzhak Brik wrote an article for Haaretz in which he predicted the collapse of the Zionist regime within a year if the war continued. As it now becomes clear that the occupying entity is in an existential crisis, which some Israeli officials recognize, it is important to look at the underlying issues that have made this situation inevitable.
The Zionist Entity had sold the world on the idea that it was the most powerful military regime in West Asia, it boasted undeniable supremacy in its weapons capabilities and its roots appeared to be unshakable. However, as the secretary-general of Lebanese Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said in 2006: the Zionist entity is like a spider's web.
When we look at almost every war that the Zionist Entity has been involved in, they either briefly took place inside the borders of occupied Palestine or occurred in neighboring countries, with the exception of 1948. Even the brutal assaults on Gaza in 2008/9, 2012, and 2014 were all reduced to a relatively limited exchange of fire where neither side was forced to commit all it had to the battle.
The reality is that the Israelis had prepared themselves with the weapons capabilities to pulverize entire nations and the technology to deal with limited projectile threats, while boasting a military that, when combined with reservist soldiers, could amount to a force of over 500,000 people. On paper, armed with a nuclear arsenal, the Zionist regime was capable of somewhat deterring its opposition and even attracted collaborators from across the Arab and Muslim World who were drawn to its material powers and influence.
Inevitable DefeatThe Zionist regime has to be understood in its proper context. Emerging as a settler-colonialist movement, led by irreligious Jews from Europe who sought to replicate the experience of other persecuted or economically disadvantaged Europeans, Zionism emerged as the answer to the “Jewish Question”.
Without going into too much detail, the Europeans had historically attacked, killed, ethnically cleansed, and wiped out entire swathes of populations that did not agree with or prescribe to their dominant religious beliefs or identifying cultural/ethnic markers. One of the escape methods for some of those persecuted peoples, or those that were economically disadvantaged, was to travel to the colonies of the dominant nations. If we take the British example, those who would not have fared quite as well in their mother country had the opportunity to travel to India or what was then Burma for instance, earning themselves small fortunes to enjoy.
In such an environment, where colonization was not a dirty word, but instead the norm, the idea of traveling to an occupied land in order to set up a new life and even form a State was not frowned upon at all. In fact, if we take a look into the early history of Zionism, it was French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte who recommended there be a Jewish State in Palestine to begin with. Napoleon was also the man credited with birthing Nationalism.
So, for the early Zionists, the idea of traveling to a foreign land to set up a State for their European minority group was one of many obvious options that presented itself. At the time of Theodore Herzl and other foundational figures within the Zionist movement, these were the days of pseudo-race-science and orientalist philology, when a pernicious Darwinian ethno-supremacist doctrine was so prevalent that it was just accepted as “fact” that non-Europeans were inferior beings.
That being said, the native inhabitants of Palestine were not exempt from this racism, and so, killing, occupying, expelling, and forcing newly invented forms of governance upon them was not seen as a real issue. At this time, there was also a small segment of Europe’s Jews who had managed to amass great economic wealth and were beneficiaries of the Capitalist system. The Rothschild family and others, decided therefore that Herzl’s vision for the Jewish people, to settle a foreign nation and create a new nationality was the best way forward.
Of course, there were European Jews who did not support this idea. Yet evidently, these voices did not end up winning the debate on how to answer the Jewish Question.
Therefore, the Zionist settler project pushed full steam ahead with its intended goal of seizing Palestine. In doing so, it sought to create “the new Jew” culturally, physically, and linguistically in a State that would be exclusively for them. In the beginning, the leaders of this movement were almost entirely secular and most of the earlier Zionist political parties were quasi-socialist in their outlook.
But the Zionists ran into a huge problem, and the world suddenly changed. Although the events of World War II, with the mass extermination of Jews and placing them into forced labor camps had convinced the wider European Jewish population that Zionism was justified, something else also came out of the Second World War. As the power of what we call the Western Empire shifted from France and Britain, into the hands of the United States, the colonial era began to fall and the United Nations was setting forth its foundational legal documents, establishing its organs of international regulation, and new Nation States were rapidly being created.
While the creation of “Israel” in 1948, through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, happened at a moment when the truth could be hidden and the crime against humanity could be ignored, this was only the beginning for the Zionist Entity. The problem they faced from that point onwards was that the Palestinian people never forgot who they were, never gave up, and never stopped resisting and were surrounded by nations who were tied to their cause for self-determination on an ideological level.
This idea of the Palestinian cause ran so deep in the hearts of the Arabs and Muslims, not only because many of them had also suffered at the hands of the Zionists and/or their Western backers, but managed to transcend dogmatism based upon political ideologies. The Palestinian cause never had a specific country, but it lived on through the collapse of Egypt’s Socialist Arab Nationalism, it was still alive after the defeat of the Marxist and nationalist groups, never relenting even through the collapse of the Soviet Union. No matter how bad the military defeats were, whether in 1967 or 1982, the Palestinian Resistance would continue taking different forms.
The Israelis believed that the Oslo Accords [1993-5] would be able to shut the Palestinians up, that if they were given a Palestinian National Authority in the 1967 occupied territories, they would simply continue to steal more land quietly and condense the Palestinian people into smaller and smaller enclaves.
While the Israeli public may have been focused on the Palestinian issue for some time, especially during the Second Intifada [2000-2005] when the armed Resistance would carry out frequent attacks, following this, the issue would fade into irrelevance to a certain extent. If you were to follow the election cycles, over the last decade, in the Zionist entity and look at their internal political debates, it was not focused on whether Palestine would become a State and if such an issue reared its head it was not considered the main issue for the majority of Israelis.
What was happening during the post-Oslo period, however, was actually a process of rot and decay domestically for the Zionists. First, there was the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu’s brand of the Likud Party, the party which was seen as the ideological inheritor of the Revisionist Zionist movement that had drawn inspiration from Italian Fascism. The aggressive ideology that Netanyahu promoted began to take over the minds of the Israeli public, leading to the collapse of the once-powerful Labor Party in the polls.
In 2005, with the withdrawal of Israeli illegal settlers from their settlements in Gaza, a new monster also began to form and was aided along the way by Netanyahu. As Israeli society shifted further and further to the extreme Right, so came the rise of Religious Zionism spearheaded by a violent and aggressive settler movement in the West Bank.
This rise in religiosity, combined with a far-right political doctrine, eventually culminated in the current coalition government that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads today. This ended up leading to the clash between the religious far-right and the more secular-leaning far-right, culminating in the mass street protests that were taking place in “Tel Aviv” and other occupied cities until October 2023. The secular brand of far-Right Zionism, which many calling themselves liberals prescribe to, began clashing with the supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition who were accused of trying to overthrow the Israeli judiciary and Judaize the country.
Why This All MattersFrom the beginning of the Zionist Entity, the problem was that the Zionists failed to exterminate and ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians and they failed to kill the cause. As Israeli Historian Benny Morris admitted: the idea of transfer [ethnic cleansing] is "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism". In the end, the only answer the Zionist Entity ever had for what was to be done with the Palestinian people was a combination of extermination, ethnic cleansing, and subjugation.
While the Israelis had not had to fight a war against any country since 1973, only wars against Resistance movements, it developed what it calls its “deterrence capacity” to deal massive concentrated blows against the likes of Hezbollah and Hamas when it saw fit to do so. If you look into the Israeli war games or military exercises, where they prepare for conflicts with Hamas or Hezbollah, or in some cases a multi-front war, it is always assumed that the war will end within weeks, or maximum months.
When October 7 happened, based upon the model set forward by the regime, its response was in many ways predictable. They used unimaginable firepower to pulverize the cities and refugee camps, and mass murdered civilians, before entering with their ground troops in heavily armored vehicles, cowering away from engaging in street battles and depending upon their technology. They believed that this medieval maximum force strategy would work and here they are 11 months later with not a single one of their objectives achieved.
They never anticipated that a war with the Resistance in Gaza would last this long, just as they couldn’t have anticipated Yemen’s blockade in the Red Sea or Hezbollah continually firing upon their position in the north of occupied Palestine on a daily basis.
With no way of bringing about a plausible victory, all of the Zionist Entity’s problems began coming to the surface.
The Israelis have come to realize that there will be no “Israel” without the elimination of the Palestinian people from the equation, whether you look at it from a demographic perspective in the long term or a perspective of unrelenting resistance.
Then there’s the Israeli society, which is deeply divided in what they believe their ethno-supremacist regime should even look like and what legal system they seek for it.
Another problem is that their economy, society and military were not prepared for a long war of attrition against a variety of fronts: Hundreds of thousands of settlers are internally displaced, their industry is dead in the north, the Port of Eilat is bankrupt, their tourism industry is gutted, around a million settlers are said to have left the country, 46,000+ businesses have gone bust, investors are withdrawing, multi-billion dollar deals are being abandoned, inflation is taking hold, their currency is devaluing and the list goes on.
But what of their 500,000 strong mighty militaries? The cost of calling up the reserves for so long is one issue, but the bigger problem is their willingness to serve and how exhausted they are, in addition to inefficient training. To quote the Haaretz article written by Yitzhak Brik:
“Israel is sinking deeper into the Gazan mud, losing more and more soldiers as they get killed or wounded, without any chance of achieving the war's main goal: bringing down Hamas. The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss. If the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year.”
The truth is that the most authentic iteration of the Zionist ideology is now on display for the entire world, a racist settler-colonial entity that is only in disagreement about what their exterminationist ethno-regime will look like and in what way they will get rid of the Indigenous population. While such a murderous criminal entity may have gotten away with its ambitions 100+ years ago, it started too late and failed to defeat the Palestinians. Now, with modern weapons the Israelis are trying to finish their Zionist project, but in a world that doesn’t accept this and in an era when smartphones provide us with the ability to follow their genocidal actions with minute-to-minute updates.
They failed to look at the reality staring them in the face and instead consumed themselves in their own sense of security, believing that their greed could not know bounds. The Resistance shocked them and now the entire world can see the reality if they so seek to. This war of attrition was inevitable and they have already lost.
The Israeli public lived in a number of delusions, kinds of bubble worlds that were shaped by their unlimited capacity for self-deception, where they could just continue living their lives as usual while destroying an entire national group. In this sense, in a way, the likes of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who we all call an extremist, are actually more sober than the rest of Israeli society when it comes to the situation in which they live. These kinds of settlers admit to the world that the only way to continue maintaining their privilege in an Apartheid regime is to continually kill and expel innocent people because the Zionist Entity’s war was never with Hamas or Hezbollah, it is with the Palestinians and anyone else who dares question their “right” to maintain supremacy at the expense of the indigenous population of the lands they occupy.
Believing that they could just continue tormenting Palestinians indefinitely and that nothing would be done and that they could perpetually cause suffering in the nations surrounding them, while only planning for limited confrontations that won’t cost them greatly demonstrates the sheer maniacal arrogance of the settler entity. This also explains why they are behaving in a much more extreme manner now as a society because they are beginning to realize that the pre-October 7 world will never return and the only way to maintain their racist regime is through a never-ending conflict.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-zionist-entity-was-never-prepared-for-a-war-of-attrition
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
SEE ALSO: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-torture-of-palestinian-healthcare-workers-exposed--h