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Netanyahu’s Tunnels-to-Kindergartens Propaganda
One of the most important strikes in the propaganda war for Israel in the last month was dealt by the New York Times and CNN when they ran long pieces giving credence to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas was building tunnels out of Gaza aimed at kindergartens in nearby kibbutzes.
Back on July 22, Netanyahu asserted – on the basis of this cartoon drawing he tweeted – that the tunnels were aimed at Israeli kindergartens:
Netanyahu tweeted this cartoon evidence on July 22, 2014
In fact (and as we reported), the only Israelis attacked from the tunnels were Israeli soldiers. But a week after Netanyahu’s statement, both the Times and CNN took the prime minister’s claim at face value. The Times’s piece, “Tunnels Lead Right to Heart of Israeli Fear” gave priority to rumors over actual information, and reported that “one tunnel was found over the weekend” in Kibbutz Be’eri.
Now it turns out no tunnel was found in Kibbutz Be’eri.
The Israeli site +972 has blown that propaganda completely out of the water. A well-researched article in Hebrew that it translated from an educational worker near Gaza states that the tunnels do not appear to be targeted at civilians and they come out more than a mile from any kibbutz, let alone the kindergartens.
In short, the tunnels fear was hysteria, drummed up by the Israeli government to heighten war fever, and then purveyed by the New York Times and CNN.
Full article at Mondoweiss.net
Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers
Svoboda party leader Oleh Tyahnybok
You might think a story about modern-day Nazi storm troopers attacking a European city without mercy would merit front-page coverage in the U.S. press, but not when the Nazi paramilitaries are fighting for the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government and are killing ethnic Russians, writes Robert Parry.
The U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is knowingly sending neo-Nazi paramilitaries into eastern Ukrainian neighborhoods to attack ethnic Russians who are regarded by some of these storm troopers as “Untermenschen” or subhuman, according to Western press reports.
Recently, one eastern Ukrainian town, Marinka, fell to Ukraine’s Azov battalion as it waved the Wolfsangel flag, a symbol used by Adolf Hitler’s SS divisions in World War II. The Azov paramilitaries also attacked Donetsk, one of the remaining strongholds of ethnic Russians opposed to the Kiev regime that overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.
Yet, despite this extraordinary reality – modern-day Nazi storm troopers slaughtering Slavic people in eastern Ukraine – the Obama administration continues to concentrate its criticism on Russia for sending a convoy of humanitarian supplies to the embattled region. Suddenly, the administration’s rhetoric about a “responsibility to protect” civilians has gone silent.
This same hypocrisy has permeated nearly everything said by the U.S. State Department and reported by the mainstream U.S. news media since the Ukraine crisis began last year. There was fawning coverage of the Maidan protesters who sought to overthrow Yanukovych and then an immediate embrace of the “legitimacy” of the regime that followed the Feb. 22 coup. As part of this one-sided U.S. narrative, reports about the key roles played by neo-Nazi activists and militias were dismissed as “Russian propaganda.”
U.S. Senator John McCain, center, speaks as Democratic senator from the state of Connecticut, Chris Murphy, left, and Opposition leader Oleh Tyahnybok, right, stand around him during a Pro-European Union rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013.
But the ugly reality has occasionally broken through the blinders of the Western press. For instance, on Sunday, in the last three paragraphs of a long article about the Ukraine conflict, the New York Times reported that the Ukrainian military strategy has been to pound rebel-held cities from afar and then turn loose paramilitary forces to carry out “chaotic, violent assaults.”
“Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.”
Full article at Consortiumnews
Related: The Rebirth of Fascism in Ukraine | Neo-Nazis in Ukraine
Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, Public Perception Management, War & Terror
Tagged Nazism, Oleh Tyahnybok, Right Sector, Svoboda, Ukraine, USA
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The Empire Reaps the Jihadist Whirlwind
ISIS militants on the move in Iraq
For more than three decades, the U.S. has deployed Islamic fundamentalist surrogates to fight its imperial wars in Muslim lands. Now, the world’s most successful jihadists have turned on their former masters – and will soon go after the Gulf oil states. “The Caliphate has taken the ideology to its logical and ghastly conclusion, and dares to challenge the legitimacy of its former funders, staunch allies of the ‘Crusader’.”
The rise of the Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria has flipped the script on U.S. proxy war policies in the region, and may ultimately bring down the royal oil states whose survival is indispensable to American hegemony in the world. At the foot soldier level, the imperial proxy strategy has already collapsed with the disintegration of the (always ephemeral) “moderate” armed opposition to the Syrian government and the defection to the Caliphate of formerly U.S.-financed Sunni fighters in Iraq.
The $500 million President Obama has requested for Syria has been rendered moot by the Caliphate’s stunning political and military victories; no amount of money can create an army out of phantoms. The most active Syrian insurgents have flocked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State formerly known as ISIS, whose leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, served notice on Washington: “You should know, you defender of the cross, that getting others to fight on your behalf will not do for you in Syria as it will not do for you in Iraq.”
The U.S. corporate media were more interested in the rest of al-Baghdadi’s message, in which he warned Washington that “soon enough, you will be in direct confrontation – forced to do so, God willing. And the sons of Islam have prepared themselves for this day. So wait, and we will be waiting, too.” For most self-obsessed Americans, this was received as a threat to attack “the Homeland.” However, downtown Manhattan is not on the Caliphate leader’s map. Al-Baghdadi meant that the American strategy of financing Muslim muppets to fight imperialism’s wars is kaput, and that the Pentagon will soon have to do its own dirty work, dressed in “Crusader” uniform.
Accordingly, the U.S. is sending additional hundreds of “non-combat” troops to northern Iraq – as if Marines and Special Forces are anything but combat soldiers – to join the 1,000 or so American military and “security” personnel already there, by official count. Contrary to what many Americans on the Left believe, U.S. planners are not itching to send large American units to Arab lands (the Kurds are not Arabs), since their presence is counter-productive in the extreme. The problem is, the Pentagon’s proxies are evaporating, in flight, or – in the case of Arab Iraq – growing even more dependent on Iran and (who would have predicted it?) Russia, which is assisting in reconstituting the Iraqi air force.
Imperialism has let loose a plague upon the world, that will – sooner, rather than later – consume the kings, emirs and sultans the U.S. depends on to keep the empire’s oil safe. The pace of imperial decline just got quicker.
Full article at the Black Agenda Report
Related: Washington Opened the Gates of Hell in Iraq: Now Come the Furies
Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, Religion & Philosophy, War & Terror
Tagged Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, USA
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Life in Occupied Palestine
Anna Baltzer, a Jewish American with the International Women’s Peace Service, documents the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israelis.
Edward Snowden in His Own Words
Dispatched to Moscow, famed portrait photographer Platon captured a never-before-seen side of Edward Snowden for WIRED. In this riveting montage, the elusive whistleblower explains the thinking behind his decision to reveal the extent of domestic surveillance being conducted by US intelligence services.
Related: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story
Wailing for War at the Western Wall
Dan Cohen reports from a recent pro-war prayer vigil held at Jerusalem’s Western Wall where young Israeli Jews spouted racist, hyper-violent rhetoric directed at Palestinians. “Kahane was right,” one young woman chanted, while another man said, “We have God. God help us to beat the Arabs.” The footage is a window into the besieged mentality and anti-Arab racism that is entrenched in Israeli society.
Source: Mondoweiss
Posted in Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror
Tagged Gaza, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Palestine, racism, Zionism
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Gaza’s Children: The Psychological Trauma of Catastrophe
Children watching mortars being fired from Gaza during ceasefire between Israel and Hamas（The Guardian）
By Louisa A. Lamb
Within the last ten years, Israel has provoked three offensive movements against the Palestinian territory in Gaza: Operation Cast Lead, which began at the end of 2008 and 2009, Operation Pillar of Defense, which last eight days in November 2012, and most recently, Operation Protective Edge, which started on July 7th, 2014. During this period of devastation, homes have been obliterated, nearly two thousands civilians have been killed, and humanitarian resources are extremely limited due to the Israeli blockade. Catastrophic damage has already been done, some irreparable and some of the most important consequences are often overlooked.
According to Dr. Jesse Ghannam, a clinical psychologist working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, reported that the rate of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among children has doubled since the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense attack. These children will most likely suffer from mood disorders, anxiety, depression, problems with attachment and develop antisocial personality traits. Children of Gaza who are nine years old have spent whole lives experiencing the terror of ruthless violence.
The UN relief and works agency reported that approximately 270,000 people in Gaza are currently living in shelters. The organization also calculates that more than 350,000 children need mental health services because of severe and persisting psychological trauma. How can children cope when they witness the loss of their homes and their entire families from a single explosion? These children are witnessing their mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors being blown apart with no understanding of why.
Children are unable to understand the nature of this ongoing destruction. The children who have witnessed all three of the Israeli offenses are old enough to have reached Concrete Operations of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development. Even so, how can they begin to conceptualize such oppression being justifiable? They don’t. Instead, these children, who are completely traumatized, are taught that survival is retaliating against these forces. The innate human compassion that every single human is born with is drowned with the blood of their people, leaving these children as empty shells, with their only hope to survival becoming filled with hatred and violence to join an extremist organization, where they will become like their oppressors—ruthlessly inhuman and unaffected by bloodshed.
In addition to the trauma they experience from witnessing these horrors themselves, family tensions contribute to their psychological issues. It’s difficult for children to feel safe when their parents, older relatives and other adults are stressed. Children need reassurance from adults and a healthy and supportive environment. Their parents are also suffering and face their own worries, so these children of Gaza cannot even retrieve comfort from their family.
The children of Gaza, who may initially be socially withdrawn and reclusive, quiet yet scarred and suffering, are at grave risk of growing into killing machines with nothing but bitter resentment for Israel. The attacks on children in Gaza are only fueling the ongoing violence, because for these children the only option is to avenge their dead family members, their homes, their schools, and their lack of human resources. Essentially, these kids have never known a proper society and will undoubtedly return to a very barbaric nature because that is their only means of survival.
These children are unable to have normal lives and development—besides the psychological trauma and lack of resources—because their identity is not fostered in a normal, healthy way. One of the most notable theories of development comes from Erik Erikson, who developed the 8 stages of psychosocial development. The nine-year old survivors of the Israeli offenses in Gaza, for instance, would be in Erikson’s stage of Industry vs. Inferiority. This is a crucial stage of human development, but these children will not be able to surpass this stage and continue to develop in a healthy manner. The Industry, which we can compare to the Israeli militant forces, dominate over the Palestinians. The children of Gaza who have lost everything—while never really having anything—are robbed of their dignity and the right to a stable life and identity of self.
The Palestinian suffering and Israeli-Hamas conflict is nothing new. This problem has been raging on, but it is important to ease the suffering of these children and provide resources to help them and help the world. There is a way to stop the cycle, with humanitarian efforts and discussion about what needs to be done. These children are innocent, and yet they are subjected to so much. It is a moral responsibility of the international community to provide assistance to alleviate the strife of these children and rebuild what is left of the home of the Palestinian people.
Full article at Media with Conscience
Posted in Human Rights & Justice, Psychology & Psychiatry, War & Terror
Tagged children, Crimes against Humanity, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, war crimes, Zionism
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Pepe Escobar: NATO is Desperate for War
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is desperate; it is itching for a war in battlefield Ukraine at any cost.
NATO secretary-general Anders “Fogh of War” Rasmussen arrived in Kiev practically foaming war in his mouth, ready to lay down the groundwork for NATO’s summit in Wales on September 4 when Ukraine, enthroned as a major non-NATO ally, could be projected to become, in lightning speed, fully NATO-weaponized. Moreover, NATO is about to seriously “build up” in Poland, Romania, the Baltics and even Turkey.
Moscow’s red lines are quite explicit: NATO out of Ukraine. Crimea as part of Russia. No US troops anywhere near Russia’s borders. Full protection for the Russian cultural identity of southern and eastern Ukraine.
Yet the – real – humanitarian crisis (which Washington dismisses) is another serious matter entirely. Kiev’s forces are not equipped for prolonged urban warfare. But assuming these forces – a compound of regular military; oligarch-financed terror/death squads; the neo-Nazi-infested “voluntary” Ukrainian national guard; US-trained foreign mercenaries – decide to go for mass carnage to take Donetsk and Luhansk, arguably Moscow will have to consider what NATO types spin as a “limited ground intervention” in Ukraine.
NATO spinsters are foolish enough to believe that if Putin can disguise the intervention as a peacekeeping or humanitarian mission, he may be able to sell it to Russian public opinion. In fact Putin has not “invaded” because Russian public opinion does not want it. His popularity is at a staggering 87%. Only an – improbable – Kiev-perpetrated mass carnage would change the equation, and sway Russian public opinion. Considering this is exactly what NATO wants, Fogh of War will be working overtime to force his vassals to bring about such carnage.
Full article at Asia Times
See also: Kiev Looks for Cannon Fodder
Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror
Tagged Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, USA
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If Palestinians Were Human Beings
Palestinian children in Jenin, a city on the West Bank (photo by Tarek)
By Shourideh C. Molavi
Today the struggle for people of conscience appears to be less about convincing people that Israel is committing war crimes against Palestinians or grossly violating international law. Instead the struggle has become about convincing the world that Palestinians are human beings too. The ongoing televised genocidal attack of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli army makes one wonder what the situation would have been like if global powers and mainstream voices saw Palestinians as human beings.
If Palestinians were human beings, they would not lay scattered in the hundreds on the grounds of a crowded marketplace in Shuja’iya after IDF shelling during a four-hour ceasefire declared by Israel.
If Palestinians were human beings, the corpses of those killed in Khuza’a, with skins melted from the intensity of U.S.-made Israeli bombs, would not have been found piled on top of one another in the corner of the bathroom of a house. Many of them have not been identified as their bodies were completely burnt.
If Palestinians were human beings, the medical crews would not have been denied access by Israeli tanks to the dozens of civilian casualties in Khuza’a. These victims of missiles fired from Israeli drones would have been buried instead of scattered in the streets and reportedly eaten by nearby animals.
If Palestinians were human beings, Israel would not have launched a massive campaign with artillery shelling in Rafah with explosions everywhere, cars flying up in flames, and a barrage of bombs killing entire families prevented from evacuating their villages, only to be literally crushed to death by their collapsing homes.
If Palestinians were human beings, they would not have been bombed to death by Israel while taking shelter in one of the seven UN schools attacked thus far, including in Beit Hanoun, in Jabaliya as families lay sleeping on the floor of a classroom, and most recently in Rafah as children queued for sweets and biscuits.
If Palestinians were human beings, then their cities, villages and towns, including Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Shuja’iya, Khuza’a, and Zanaa would not have been razed and flattened by the Israeli army, with buildings pulverized into sand and pieces of bodies visible beneath the rubble.
If Palestinians were human beings, whole portions of single families would not have been erased by targeted Israeli military strikes, while sitting together in their homes. There would not be a globally institutionalized disregard for their lives.
If Palestinian parents were human beings, they wouldn’t have to experience searching for, collecting, and carrying in plastic bags the remaining pieces of their children’s bodies blown up by Israeli shells.
If Palestinian children were human beings, they would not lose their entire families to Israeli bombs while suffering shrapnel wounds at 2-years old, or be prematurely born as orphans like Shaymaa al-Sheikh only to be buried next to her dead mother at a mere one week-old. If they were human beings Palestinian children would not be killed by airstrikes while playing on the beach, sleeping, eating, or even while undergoing surgery in a hospital. They would not be the main targets of Israel’s ‘precision war’.
If Palestinians were human beings, Israeli leaders and public figures would not publicly fantasize for years about their mass extermination and concentration camps, or to extinguish them en masse by having Gaza grazed, painted red, turned into rubble and flattened, reformatted and wiped clean, and sent back to the Middle Ages.
If Palestinians were human beings in the eyes of Israel and global powers, their killers in the IDF would be held accountable under international law. They would be allowed to flee a war zone contained by concrete walls where thousands of tons of Israeli bombs rain down on them, be protected in UN schools, and access clean water, electricity and basic medicine. They would be able to watch their children grow up in peace and live with dignity. We would know their names, what they did, what they liked and what they dreamed.
If Palestinians were seen as human beings, the world would follow in the footsteps of their extreme resilience, care and compassion, with which they refuse to give in to their utterly inhumane conditions.
Source: Global Research ～ Copyright © Shourideh C. Molavi, Socialist Project, 2014
Posted in Human Rights & Justice, War & Terror
Tagged Crimes against Humanity, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, war crimes, Zionism
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Against the Grain 