DUMP TRUMP! WATCH THIS GREAT SPEECH BY A GREAT LADY

ISRAELI JOURNALISTS MUST WRITE OR SAY WHAT THEY ARE TOLD

This is seen as the latest evidence of Israel’s attempts to silence anyone who criticises its army or politicians.

Israel journalist facing trial for calling soldiers who beat Palestinians ‘animals’

An Israeli journalist who called Israeli army soldiers “animals” for beating a Palestinian father and son in custody is to face trial.

Oshrat Kotler, a journalist with Israel’s Channel 13, is to face trial on charges of incitement, incrimination of suspects, failure to grant a right of reply and more after she called several soldiers accused of beating two Palestinians in custody “human animals”, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Speaking on the channel’s news programme in February, Kotler said:

When you send your children to the [Israeli] army, they are kids. You send them to the [occupied Palestinian] territories, and they come back as human animals. This is the result of the occupation.

Her comments allegedly prompted complaints from thousands of viewers, as well as complaints to Israel’s Press Council, an independent body established to safeguard press freedoms and outline journalism ethics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also responded to Kotler’s comments, saying her words “deserve every condemnation” and that he is “proud of the [Israeli army] soldiers and loves them very much.”

She now faces trial and will appear at a court hearing, though it is unclear when she will be summoned.

The Israeli soldiers to whom Kotler referred were last week convicted of aggravated assault and aggravated battery for beating a 50-year-old Palestinian and his 15-year-old son who were detained in custody. The soldiers were suspected of beating the father and son as revenge for a December attack on members of their battalion, since both sets of soldiers belong to the same unit – the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion of the Kfir Brigade, which is stationed in northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Details of the brutal beating emerged during February’s court proceedings, with the 15-year-old boy telling the court: “I was lying on my back, with hands cuffed behind my back and a blindfold over my eyes. I was kicked by four soldiers – who used their hands, feet and the barrels of their M16 rifles – in the face, chest, abdomen, legs, and testicles […] I couldn’t open my left eye and my mouth was filled with blood.”

Despite the severity of the crimes and the Netzah Yehuda battalion’s history of anti-Palestinian violence, the soldiers reached a plea bargain and will serve only 190 days in prison. They were sentenced yesterday by an Israeli military court.

The bid to take Kotler to court will be seen as the latest evidence of Israel’s attempts to silence anyone who criticises its army or politicians. Journalists in particular have come under attack, with Netanyahu slamming the “left-wing media” for conspiring against him and the country’s interests ahead of the upcoming election on 9 April.

Netanyahu drew criticism in January when a billboard appeared outside Tel Aviv showing a number of prominent journalists who have been critical of his premiership with the words “they will not decide”. The four journalists had been closely covering the corruption scandal in which Netanyahu has long been embroiled, and it was thought his Likud party was behind the campaign to discredit them. Netanyahu’s rivals lambasted the move, with head of the Yesh Atid party and Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) co-leader Yair Lapid labelling the move incitement.

Netanyahu has also tried to side-step the mainstream media by creating his own TV channel, dubbed Likud TV. Launching the channel on his official Facebook page with the slogan “we’re throwing the ‘fake’ out of the news,” Netanyahu said that “whoever the media praises is bad for Likud and usually whoever it crucifies is good for Likud”.

Commentators were quick to point out the similarity between Netanyahu’s campaign and that of US President Donald Trump, noting that Likud TV “seems to follow the model of [Trump’s] Real News Update” ahead of the US elections due to be held in 2020. Trump has championed the “fake news” narrative, labelling journalists the “enemy of the people” and taking aim at some of America’s biggest news outlets.

Journalist Oshrat Kotler [Wikipedia]

SOURCE

‘THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST’??? … NOT QUITE

Hopefully the Supreme Court will reverse the decisions written about below …

A decision by Israel’s electoral committee to ban two Arab parties and a candidate from a third Arab-led slate from running in elections, while allowing a far-right-wing candidate despite recommendations from the attorney general to ban him, was sharply criticized Thursday by leaders of Israel’s Arab community.

The ruling was called unreasonable and racist, and it sparked fears among Israeli Arabs that the country’s 1.8 million Arab citizens could be further politically marginalized ahead of April 9 parliamentary elections.

The decision to ban the parties, which are running on a united ticket, and candidate, Ofer Cassif, followed petitions submitted by three right-wing factions, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party. 

Israeli demonstrators carry placards that read in Hebrew, “No to putting racism in the ballot box,” during a protest March 2 in Jerusalem against right-wing followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane. (Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)

Israeli electoral committee bans Arab candidates, allows extreme right to run

By Ruth Eglash Loveday Morris

A decision by Israel’s electoral committee to ban two Arab parties and a candidate from a third Arab-led slate from running in elections, while allowing a far-right-wing candidate despite recommendations from the attorney general to ban him, was sharply criticized Thursday by leaders of Israel’s Arab community.

The ruling was called unreasonable and racist, and it sparked fears among Israeli Arabs that the country’s 1.8 million Arab citizens could be further politically marginalized ahead of April 9 parliamentary elections.

The decision to ban the parties, which are running on a united ticket, and candidate, Ofer Cassif, followed petitions submitted by three right-wing factions, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.

The two parties and Cassif now plan to appeal to the Supreme Court next week, and a panel of nine judges will make a final ruling on whether they can run in elections for the parliament, called the Knesset.

In a hearing Wednesday of the Central Elections Committee, it was argued that the two parties, Balad and the United Arab List, as well as Cassif — a politics professor and the only Jewish candidate for the Arab-majority Hadash party — had either expressed views supporting terror or rejected Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

“Those who support terrorism will not be in the Israeli Knesset!” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Parties and individuals can be disqualified if they reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, incite racism, or express support for an enemy state or for terrorist organizations.

Hanin Zoabi, an outgoing parliamentarian for Balad, faced such petitions in the past for expressing support for Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, and for calling Israeli soldiers murderers.

But Adalah, a legal center advocating for Arab minority rights in Israel, said the bans were politically motivated, “reflecting the McCarthyist persecution of those whose views are not acceptable to Israel’s political right.”

Hassan Jabareen, the group’s general director, said that there have long been attempts to disqualify Arab candidates but that this was the first time a Jewish candidate was banned for holding left-wing views. He said this was due to a deal struck recently between Netanyahu and the far-right Otzma Yehudit party and because of a nationalistic nation-state law — which declared Israel a national homeland for Jews and prioritized Jewish-only communities — passed last year.

Arab citizens comprise roughly 20 percent of Israel’s population. Since the country was founded in 1948, Arabs have been encouraged to run for political office, and in the last election an amalgamation of four Arab-led parties known as the Joint List became the third-largest faction in the Knesset.

But that arrangement broke down, leading to two separate slates. The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) joined with the Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta’al), and the National Democratic Assembly (Balad) joined with the United Arab List (Ra’am). Recent polls project Hadash-Ta’al to win nine seats in the 120-seat parliament and Balad-Ra’am around five.

The Central Elections Committee decision to ban Balad-Ra’am and Cassif came hours after it rejected a petition submitted by left-wing parties and a recommendation by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to stop Otzma Yehudit leader Michael Ben Ari from running.

Translated as “Jewish Power,” Otzma Yehudit includes followers of the extremist U.S.-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose original party, Kach, was outlawed in Israel and is designated as a terrorist organization in the United States.

To widespread criticism Netanyahu last month reached a deal with the group, paving the way for it to gain at least one seat in the Knesset.

Hadash party leader Ayman Odeh said it was ironic that “Kahanists, who believe Israel should be only for the Jews and that the Arab population should be forcibly transferred, are now seen as legitimate, while those who advocate for peace are not allowed to run for the Knesset.”

While the case for Balad-Ra’am and Cassif will be heard next week by the Supreme Court, some Arab politicians are worried that the electoral committee’s decision will further sideline Arab citizens and discourage them from going to the polls.

Balad candidate Heba Yazbak said that Arab voters already felt marginalized and that if the ban on her party is not reversed, calls to boycott from within her community would be magnified.

“What is happening in Israel today is very dangerous,” she said. “And we are worried that the coming government will make us feel even more excluded from this country.”

SOURCE

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Related Post from Mondoweiss (Click on link)

Kahane in, Arabs out: Israeli election panel disqualifies Palestinian party calling for equality, approves racist Jewish Power leader

IN TOONS ~~ NO FREEDOM FOR CATALONIA

Franco’s ghost rears its ugly head in time for Halloween

Images by Carlos Latuff

OUR VOTES MATTER NOT

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ALL WE WANT IS INDEPENDENCE AND FREEDOM

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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invades Catalonia on the back of a tank

And finally, from Israel

‘THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST’ (HA!)


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DISRESPECTING APPROVAL RATINGS ….

First watch these videos ….

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Bottom line is ….. 

Sixty-seven percent disapproval rating.
The handwriting is on the wall.

 

IS REMOVING HATE SITES FROM THE WEB A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY?

I say NO! It PRESERVES Democracy!

Obviously, I’m NOT a LIBERAL

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Stormfront has been described by the anti-hate group Southern Poverty Law Center as the “murder capital of the internet”. The group pointed out that “registered Stormfront users have been disproportionately responsible for some of the most lethal hate crimes and mass killings since the site was put up in 1995. In the past five years alone, Stormfront members have murdered close to 100 people.”

Stormfront: ‘murder capital of internet’ pulled offline after civil rights action

Web.com pulls support for one of the oldest and largest neo-nazi hate sites following campaign by Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

One of the oldest and largest neo-nazi sites on the internet, the white supremacist chatroom Stormfront, has been thrown off the open web by its hosting provider.

Stormfront has been described by the anti-hate group Southern Poverty Law Center as the “murder capital of the internet”. The group pointed out that “registered Stormfront users have been disproportionately responsible for some of the most lethal hate crimes and mass killings since the site was put up in 1995. In the past five years alone, Stormfront members have murdered close to 100 people.”

As of Tuesday morning, Stormfront.org was unavailable, with the site’s domain registry recording that its hosting provider Network Solutions had issued a “hold” on the address.

Stormfront’s removal comes a week after a letter, informing Network Solution’s parent company Web.com of the neo-nazi site’s infractions of the its usage policy, was sent by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a civil rights organisation formed at the request of John F Kennedy in 1963.

The group, which has been writing to Web.com repeatedly since early July, repeated its request of the company to take “immediate action” against Stormfront.

Becky Monroe, the director of the group’s Stop Hate project said: “Since its creation, Stormfront has been consistently recognised as a site for racial hatred … a representative sample of posts on the site refer to interracial couples by slurs, share racist caricatures, or otherwise dehumanises minorities by referring to them as ‘creatures’ or ‘ethnics’.

“It is clear that Stormfront’s reason for existing is to advance hateful racist ideologies in undeniable persistent violation of the acceptable use policy of Web.com.”

The letter closes by giving a deadline of August 28, the same day Stormfront lost its site.

“Especially in the wake of tragic events in Charlottesville and the spike in hate crimes across the country, Stormfront crossed the line of permissible speech and incited and promoted violence,” said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The move follows the downfall of the Daily Stormer, a far-right news site which was dropped by multiple service providers after it published an article smearing the victim of a far-right terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. Eventually, the site was forced to move to the so-called dark web due to the lack of companies willing to work with it publicly.

As with the withdrawal of the Daily Stormer’s domain by GoDaddy, the decision of Web.com to pull its support for Stormfront will likely prompt a game of cat and mouse for the site, as it attempts to re-register its domain name with new registrars, many of whom will also choose to refuse to serve the forum.

Don Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who has operated stormfront.org since 1995 said that he was seeking counsel and that: “I can switch to another domain, but it might wind up the same way.”

It will also prompt a new round of debate over just how critical private companies are to free speech on the internet – even when the free speech is on the part of white supremacists and neo-nazis.

“This is a really terrible time to be a free speech advocate,” Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Guardian on Monday.

Web.com did not reply to a request for comment.

SOURCE

IT’S OFFICIAL ~~ ISRAEL IS ON THE ROAD TO FASCISM

First a flashback to the 60’s …. There was a joke circulating that went something like this … An American and a Soviet were having a discussion. The American said “I live in a Democracy, I can call President Kennedy a bastard and nothing will happen to me”. The Soviet responded, “I too live in a Democracy, I can also call President Kennedy a bastard and nothing will happen to me”.

Now, a look at ‘The Only Democracy in the Middle East” ….

U.S.-born Jeff Halper, cofounder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, was held after leading a tour of the E1 area across the road from the Israeli settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

Police Detain Prominent Israeli Activist for Alleged Possession of BDS Material
Yotam Berger

Police detained prominent left-wing activist Jeff Halper last Wednesday at the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, for suspected incitement, saying they acted on a complaint he had “materials related to BDS” in his possession.

Halper, who moved to Israel from the United States in 1973, was picked up after leading a tour of foreigners to the E1 site across the road from the settlement and transported by police van to a nearby station then released without being placed under arrest.

Police officers photographed the posters and maps he was holding before freeing him. Halper denies handing out any material related to BDS during the tour, or even discussing the boycott movement.

Handing out such materials would not have been in violation of the law, even a 2011 anti-boycott law according to which a person or an organization calling for the boycott of Israel, including the settlements, can be sued by the boycott’s targets without them having to prove that they sustained any damage.

The law also denies a person or a company that declares a boycott of Israel or the settlements eligibility to bid for government tenders. A separate law passed this month entitles Israel to deny entry to pro-BDS activists.

Halper, cofounder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, told Haaretz he was on a tour with foreign visitors in the territories last Wednesday. He took the group of 15 to a lookout over Area E1, near Ma’aleh Adumim.

“It’s a good place to show them this context of where Ma’aleh Adumim is located relative to Jerusalem. It’s a regular stop on our tours, this wasn’t the first time I was taking a group to this spot,” Halper said.

After the tour the tourists boarded a bus headed north and he headed to catch a bus to Jerusalem, but “as I ran toward a bus, I saw police in the area, and I saw them talking and contacting the group. I called the Palestinian driver (of the bus transporting the tourists) and he said he had heard a rumor that we were distributing BDS material.”

“Suddenly the bus came to a stop in the Middle of Maaleh Adumim, after two stops, the police boarded the bus and told me, you are being detained, and they took me off the bus,” Halper said.

Halper was questioned about the material he had.

“They didn’t tell me why I was being detained; they said something about BDS, but no details. They put me into a van, which is unpleasant as it is. They drove me in the direction of the police station. Just when we got to the station they stopped and asked me a few questions about what I had in my bag and whether I had any BDS material in the bag.

“We got out of the vehicle and they threw my maps on the van, the maps were of Jerusalem and the greater Jerusalem area. There was also something on which it was written BDS for BDS, it’s something that I use. I say that we have no solution to offer and I propose a binational democratic state, so I have the slogan that goes BDS for BDS. It’s not a sticker or flyer, but just a map with those words on it.

“They found it and took it, wrote up a summons or something like that, and released me,” Halper said.

Halper said the police refused to give him a copy of the ticket or explain what he was suspected of.

In response to a query from Haaretz, the Samaria regional police said:
“There is no investigation into this matter. There was information checked by a patrol once it became clear he committed no violations, he was freed.”
Police spokespeople said the suspicion against him is “incitement” but he was released after questioning, and no further investigation was expected to take place.

Jeff Halper from his Facebook page. Credit Facebook

Also this weekend ….

British pro-BDS activist barred from entering Israel

Week after Knesset passes law banning foreign nationals who call for boycotts, ex-chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Hugh Lanning denied entry

Full report HERE

Israel is quickly getting there …

ILLUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY

More than 200 European legal scholars have signed a statement affirming that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality represents “a lawful exercise of freedom of expression.” 

I see democracy hanging on by a mere thread in most places where democracy is claimed to be exercised.

I see democracy hanging on by a mere thread in most places where democracy is claimed to be exercised.

The West’s Comforting Illusions Of Democracy — But Without Any Significant Political Representation

by William Hanna
Despite legal recognition of that fact, however, the BDS movement as it gathers momentum and becomes more effective, is having its activities criminalised while being increasingly attacked — in order to discredit its lawful and peaceful support for the legal and human rights of the Palestinian people — for allegedly promoting discrimination and/or anti-Semitism.
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A recently released Ekos poll has, however, discovered that 46 percent of Canadians, including a majority of those supporting every party except the Conservatives, had a negative view of Israel. The Canadian government was regarded as having a pro-Israel bias by 61 per cent of respondents, while 91 percent did not think criticism of Israeli government policies was necessarily anti-semitic. The results suggest that Canada’s major political parties are out of step with the Canadian people on those issues. Furthermore, during almost 18 months in office, the Trudeau government had voted against no less than sixteen UN resolutions critical of Israel.
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The apparent discrepancy between how people view Israel’s Apartheid policies and the unconditional support provided for such policies by their elected representatives is not a conundrum requiring  exceptional powers of deduction: the answer is simply “blackmail, bribery, and bullying.”
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In his insightful book, They Dare to Speak Out, Paul Findley stated that during J.F. Kennedy’s campaign for president in 1960, he had a meeting with some prominent Jews. Kennedy was very insulted when one of the Jews said they knew Kennedy’s campaign was in financial difficulty and that he and his Jewish friends would “help and help significantly” John Kennedy’s campaign if, as president, Kennedy “would allow them to set the course of Middle East policy over the next four years.”
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That meeting convinced JFK that he should seek a law that would have the U.S. Treasury pay a set and equal amount for all politicians running for president who secured a to be determined percentage of signatures of the people supporting their campaign. In his 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Seymour Hersh stated that Kennedy  “saw this as the only way to prevent the nightmare of today, which has not only the President, but the overwhelming majority of people in Congress bought and paid for by the very powerful Israeli lobby.”
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Such brazen subversion of American democracy by the Jewish lobby had already been ongoing long before the 1960s because shortly after his inauguration in March 1913 as the 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson was visited in the White House by Ashkenazi Jew, Samuel Untermyer, of law firm, Guggenheim, Untermyer, and Marshall. Untermyer tried to blackmail Wilson for $40,000 with regards to an affair Wilson had with a fellow professor’s wife at Princeton University. As Wilson did not have the money, Untermyer offered to pay the $40,000 himself to the woman in question on condition that Wilson promised to appoint a nominee recommended by Untermyer to the first available vacancy on the United States Supreme Court which subsequently occurred when Louis Brandeis became the first Jewish Justice on the highest U.S. federal court.
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Brandeis then became active in the Federation of American Zionists thereby providing the nascent American Zionist movement with a most distinguished man in American life and a friend of the next president; devoted a great deal of his time, energy, and money to championing the Zionist cause; and was elected president of the Provisional Executive Committee for Zionist Affairs which was established after the outbreak of World War One in Europe when the divided allegiance of the World Zionist Organisation’s membership had made it impotent. As the leader and spokesperson of American Zionism from 1914 to 1918, Brandeis embarked on a speaking tour in the fall and winter of 1914–1915 to trump up support for the Zionist cause by emphasising the goal of self-determination and freedom for Jews through the development of a Jewish homeland. Similar self determination and freedom, however, are concepts forbidden to the American people with the ghost of Brandeis  — in the form of the Louis D. Brandeis Centre — actively supporting Apartheid Israel while working tirelessly to oppose the effectiveness of BDS.
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Unlike most American Jews at the time, Brandies felt that while the re-creation of a Jewish national homeland was one of the key solutions to antisemitism and the “Jewish problem” in Europe and Russia, it would also be a way to “revive the Jewish spirit.” He explained the importance of Zionism in a famous speech to a conference of Reform Rabbis in April 1915 in which he also felt obliged to mention that Zionism and patriotism were compatible concepts and should not lead to charges of “dual loyalty.” Nonetheless — it was felt by many Americans — that his first allegiance was not to “we the people” of American democracy.
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“The Zionists seek to establish this home in Palestine because they are convinced that the undying longing of Jews for Palestine is a fact of deepest significance; that it is a manifestation in the struggle for existence by an ancient people which has established its right to live, a people whose three thousand years of civilisation has produced a faith, culture and individuality which enable it to contribute largely in the future, as it has in the past, to the advance of civilisation; and that it is not a right merely but a duty of the Jewish nationality to survive and develop. They believe that only in Palestine can Jewish life be fully protected from the forces of disintegration; that there alone can the Jewish spirit reach its full and natural development; and that by securing for those Jews who wish to settle there the opportunity to do so, not only those Jews, but all other Jews will be benefited, and that the long perplexing Jewish Problem will, at last, find solution.”
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Finding the solution to that “long perplexing Jewish problem,” has unfortunately come at a colossal cost not only to U.S. taxpayers with hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in aid to Israel, but also to the Palestinian people whose almost seven decades of ethnic cleansing has included the barbaric obliteration of their heritage, history, and human rights by a mighty military machine subsidised by the U.S. government on behalf of the American people despite the fact that 46 percent of them support imposing sanctions on Israel because its defiant settlement policies.
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It would appear America’s subjugation by the Jewish lobby was also a source of amazement to the Jewish lobbyists themselves who could not believe the ease with which the goyim were hoodwinked and manipulated. In a 1976 confidential and controversial interview, Harold Wallace Rosenthal — a Jewish administrative assistant to one of America’s ranking senators, Jacob Javits R-NY — after admitting Jewish dominance in all significant national programs, said “it is a marvel that the American people do not rise up and drive every Jew out of this country.” Rosenthal added that “we Jews continue to be amazed with the ease by which Christian Americans have fallen into our hands. While the naive Americans wait for Khrushchev to bury them, we have taught them to submit to our every demand.”
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When asked how a nation could be taken over without their knowing it, Rosenthal attributed success to the absolute control of the media. He boasted of Jewish control of all news with any newspaper refusing to submit to Jewish control of news being brought to its knees by withdrawal of advertising. Failing in that, “It’s a very simple matter,” the Jews wouldstop the supply of news print and ink. As to the question of men in high political office, Rosenthal replied that no one since 1976 had achieved any political power without Jewish approval. “Americans have not had a presidential choice since 1932. Roosevelt was our man; every president since Roosevelt has been our man.”
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Whether or not the current occupant of the White House is “Israel’s man” is of no real consequence because Donald Trump’s innate racism, deranged tendencies, and undisguised promotion of Islamophobia are in any case compatible with Israel’s arrogant and arbitrary policies of barbaric discrimination, displacement, and destruction. The one potentially positive aspect of Trump’s presidency, however, is that his self obsessed insanity might hopefully wake up the otherwise somnambulant American people; alert them to the dangers threatening their fundamental rights as prescribed in the U.S. Bill of Rights; and prompt them to rise up with a righteous indignation that forcefully demands Congressional removal of a dangerous and deluded demagogue.
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In the meantime European nationals must shed their fear of being stigmatised as anti-Semites and finally take responsibility for ensuring that their political leaders — who as “Friends of Israel” are invariably susceptible to pro-Israel lobby blackmail, bribery, and bullying — refrain from their usual mealy mouthed hypocrisy regarding the “only democracy in the Middle East” and its right to “defend itself” with the “most moral army in the world,” and instead start representing both the interests of their own countries and the sovereignty of the people who elected them.
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Sovereignty exists within and flows from the people of a country. Their collective right to choose their governmental, political and electoral systems is a vital aspect of their self-determination. The authority of government also derives from the will of the people who having chosen those systems have a right to participate in their government through genuine elections that determine who will legitimately occupy governmental offices.
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Such precepts are incorporated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in modern constitutions the world over where they formed the basis for the well known formulation that democratic government is “of the people, by the people and for the people.” In essence, that means that governments, governmental processes, and elections, all belong to the people. There can be no democracy without citizen participation which is consequently both a right and a responsibility of the citizens in establishing and developing a sustainable democracy wherein a free press must go hand in hand with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
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“Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretence — the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammelled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.”
William E. Borah (1865 – 1940), prominent Republican attorney and longtime U.S. Senator known as “The Lion of Idaho.” 
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William Hanna is a freelance writer with published books the Hiramic Brotherhood of the Third Temple, The Tragedy of Palestine and its Children, and the forthcoming Hiramic Brotherhood: Ezekiel’s T.emple Prophesy Purchase information, sample chapters, other articles, and contact details at:
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BILLBOARD OF THE DAY ~~ BOYCOTT ISRAEL-STOP APARTHEID

Kudos to the Lamar Advertising Agency for refusing to bow to zionist pressure

Chicago billboard: ‘Boycott Israel, stop apartheid’

In response to massive online protest, Lamar Advertising agency refuses to apologize for anti-Israel sign.
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Boycott Israel sign (illustration) Miriam Alster / Flash 90

Boycott Israel sign (illustration) Miriam Alster / Flash 90

A storm is brewing in the Windy City, as a massive anti-Israeli Chicago billboard has sparked a massive campaign calling for it to be taken down – but the advertising company adamantly refuses to apologize for the discriminatory sign.

“Lamar has been in the billboard business for over 100 years and we have developed a strong commitment to supporting the First Amendment right of advertisers who wish to use our medium to promote legal products and services or to convey noncommercial messages such as the one in Chicago. We do not accept or reject copy based upon agreement or disagreement with the views presented. We think SEAMAC has a right to present their views and would also support the right of those who disagree with SEAMAC. We welcome your comments.”

Full report HERE

#WitchHunt ~~ McCARTHY COMES TO ISRAEL

Delegitimizing a political opponent is a sickness; informing is poison. No one is a plant, not a leftist organization that receives money from the European union, and not a right-wing organization that receives money from evangelicals or other suspect sources.

Joseph McCarthy. A danger to democracy, then and now. (Photo: Getty Images)

Joseph McCarthy. A danger to democracy, then and now. (Photo: Getty Images)

Israel’s McCarthys 

Op-ed: As Im Tirtzu’s supporters saw last week, the fervent quest to implicate others as traitors can quickly go too far. Israel’s witch hunters need to stop now, before it’s too late.

“Let there be no hope for informers”, says the Shemoneh Esrei prayer. That harsh saying has many different and interesting religious interpretations, but when I was young, me and the other kids at a secular school in Tel Aviv took it literally: Bad things are in order for people who inform on their buddies. We wrote the words on a large piece of cardboard paper, and hung it on the wall next to the principal’s office.

Since his office was near the restrooms, one child made a slight change to the sign, switching the Hebrew words to mean “Let there be no hope for those who pee.” It created a small controversy, one of many. The school itself closed down years ago. Its restrooms now service the coffee shop that has since opened nearby. Whenever I schedule a meeting there, I make sure to give that wall a respectful visit. Not because of the restroom: Because of the informers.

Today’s Israel perhaps shows no hope for informers, but it provides plenty of work for them. Right-wing organizations are tracking left-wing organizations, digging into their garbage cans, sending undercover members to infiltrate them, grabbing quotes from Facebook and Twitter. The funding for all this usually comes from outside, from foreigners, or from the state treasury, through a chain of intermediary channels. The stated intention is to display these leftist organizations’ activists as foreign agents, and their activities as treasonous. That’s just the official story. The real point is to eliminate any internal criticism of the status quo in the Palestinian territories. Anyone who raises their head shall see it lopped off.

Im Tirtzu is but one of the organizations that make a living off of informing on leftist organizations, perhaps the one with the most nerve. There are others, some of whom put on a respectable front – half academic, half journalistic. In fact, they all strive for the same exact goal. The all swim in the same filth; they all inform on all the rest.

Last week, Im Tirtzu went a step further in its witch hunt: It published the names of authors, creators, and artists whom its people believe to have sinned by showing support for human rights organizations. These people are referred to as “plants,” meaning traitors, foreign agents. The list featured the cream of the Israeli cultural crop, the nation’s most precious assets in that area, multiple recipients of the Israel Prize.

This time they went too far. The publication was heavily criticized by other right-wingers, and the Im Tirtzu director general was forced to take a half step back. Next time he’ll be more careful. He wasn’t the only one who was frightened: Ben-Dror Yemini – who is conducting an impressive anti-leftist-organization campaign on many platforms (including this website) – saw that there was a problem as well. “I must repent,” he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth last Friday, “I could have been wrong.” The mistake he’s willing to admit is that he did not understand that the shaming he used against Amos Oz, David Grossman, and others might lead to censorship and the cutting of funds by the state.

Sadly, he still doesn’t understand. Yemini attacked Oz with the Im Tirtzu method: Oz’s great sin is that he’s registered as a member of the B’Tselem public council. According to Yemini, the same council has in it an Arab member who supports Israel’s destruction.

That technique is called shaming – targeting by way of association. If someone who sits with you in the same room, was in the same discussion as you, is a suspect – then so are you. That’s the method Joe McCarthy used to tarnish American democracy in the 1950s. McCarthy also thought he was clensing the state of traitors, that he was fighting for its existence against its foes worldwide. He made the American society paranoid. McCarthy was tossed out of politics shamefully, but the virus he spread wreaked havoc on US society for years after he was gone.

The lesson from the Im Tirtzu affair is simple: Delegitimizing a political opponent is a sickness; informing is poison. No one is a plant, not a leftist organization that receives money from the European union, and not a right-wing organization that receives money from evangelicals or other suspect sources.

The reliance on foreign money is angering; it weakens the moral strength of right- and left-wing organizations, perhaps also corrupts them from time to time. But it does not make them into traitors. It’s better to stop with the McCarthyist campaigns in advance – someone might start taking them seriously.

 

The above was an OpEd AT

Also see this ….. (Click on link)

The New McCarthyism

By Michael Rivero

WHAT IS AMERICA TO ME ~~ FOUR VIDEOS THAT SAY IT ALL

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America Yesterday

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America Today

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And if you try to change it you land in jail

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

A WHO AND WHY TO VOTE FOR IN ISRAEL

VOTE!
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vote_them_out
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Not voting is complicity. It is a stamp of approval of the present situation.
DON’T REMAIN SILENT!
VOTE for THE JOINT ARAB LIST
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 Gideon Levy agrees!

Those who hesitate because it’s an “Arab party” should remember the role that Jews played in the African National Congress during the apartheid era. They did not recoil because it was a black movement. They did not hesitate because it was not their battle, supposedly.

The ANC was the movement of the oppressed natives of South Africa, and the Joint List is the movement of the oppressed natives of Israel.

Why Israel’s Jews must vote for the Arab list

Those who hesitate because Joint List is an ‘Arab party’ should remember the role that Jews played in the African National Congress during the apartheid era.

A still from the Joint List's campaign video showing a girl holding up a sign reading 'March 17.'

A still from the Joint List’s campaign video showing a girl holding up a sign reading ‘March 17.’

The Joint List is the clear ray of light in this election season. It’s important for many Arabs to vote for it, and no less important for many Jews to do likewise. There is no more appropriate way for anyone who is guided by moral and ethical standards to demonstrate empathy and register protest.

Those who hesitate because it’s an “Arab party” should remember the role that Jews played in the African National Congress during the apartheid era. They did not recoil because it was a black movement. They did not hesitate because it was not their battle, supposedly.

The ANC was the movement of the oppressed natives of South Africa, and the Joint List is the movement of the oppressed natives of Israel.

There were a few South African Jews with a conscience who not only supported the ANC but also fought, were injured and were banned alongside their black comrades.

Denounced as traitors then, today they are a great source of pride – to Jews as well. Joe Slovo, the commander of the ANC military wing who went on to become a cabinet minister in the post-apartheid government; Ronnie Kasrils; Albie Sachs, who became a justice in South Africa’s Constitutional Court; and Ben Turok, who became a member of parliament – these were among many who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the oppressed blacks, despite or perhaps because they were white Jews who enjoyed all the privileges of the apartheid regime.

Less is being asked of Jews in Israel, for now. They are called upon to identify with a new party that offers a promise of something new. There is no need to ignore its failure to put more Jews on its slate, and it is okay to be upset that it did not sign a surplus votes agreement with Meretz. One can be skeptical of the future relations of its various components, but anyone who dreams of genuine change, not about replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Isaac Herzog, must vote for the Joint List.

What better option is there for the Israeli voter who can no longer bear the occupation in the territories and the ultranationalism within Israel, of the ruse that Israel is both Jewish and democratic, of the injustices of present-day Zionism, and who perhaps has reached the conclusion that the two-state solution is dead? Who will they vote for?

Are there many other party heads as impressive, eloquent and refreshing as Ayman Odeh? Are there many other MKs as outstanding as Ahmad Tibi, Jamal Zahalka, Dov Khenin and even, yes, even Haneen Zoabi? Is there another party that does not demand “support for Israel Defense Forces soldiers” at the start of every pointless war?

If the overwhelming majority of Arabs vote for them, they will, for the first time, enter the heart of the political dialogue in Israel – to the annoyance of nearly all the other parties.

If many Jews also vote for it, we can begin to speak of a “game changer,” and perhaps even of a good omen.

Just imagine: The Joint List is the third largest party in the Knesset. The coalition belongs to Netanyahu, Herzog and Yair Lapid. Odeh is selected leader of the opposition – the heir of Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Shamir, Ehud Barak, Netanyahu, all prime ministers who held the position at one point.

The prime minister is obligated to brief him on security and diplomatic matters, “no less than once a month,” by law. The law requires him to address the Knesset after every speech by the premier. Foreign heads of state meet with him and listen to his views. As a symbol of government, he is protected by the Shin Bet security service. Perhaps for the first time in its history, Israel has a true leader of opposition.

A few stereotypes will be shattered in a single, not-imaginary act that might also usher in a deep change in consciousness.

Odeh could surprise us yet, as he already surprised many Israelis who were not even aware of the existence of the combinations “Arab and impressive,” “Palestinian and charming.” His party must get a lot of votes for this process to begin. His friends must support him and many Jews must choose the Israeli ANC, which could yet prove it has what it takes to prevent the establishment of a second apartheid state, the apartheid state of the Land of Israel.

WOULD YOU SUPPORT A LAW DECLARING AMERICA TO BE THE LAND OF THE PROTESTANT PEOPLE?

Is this what you want for America?

Is this what you want for America?

If you would oppose such a law had it been proposed in your own country, how can you support it when proposed in another country? If you would have objected to such a law because it would discriminate against you as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, how can you possibly support such a law when it is being put forward in your name, with you as the would-be member of Israel’s Jewish majority?

If America Had Laws Like Israel

By Avital Burg 

Thinkstock

A new proposed bill, supported by senators on both sides of the aisle, will finally define and determine the United States of America as the land of the Protestant People, the largest religious constituency in the U.S. and the group out of which America’s founding fathers and ruling leadership emerged.

The new law aims to anchor Protestant values in the laws of the land, inspired by the spirit of the American Constitution. Furthermore, the bill proceeds to state that the U.S. will continue to uphold a fundamentally democratic character. According to the new law, the United States will be fully committed to the foundations of Freedom, Justice, and Peace, in light of our Lord Jesus Christ.

At the same time, the bill suggests, the right to implement a national self-definition will be exclusively reserved for the Protestant People. According to the new bill, Protestant values will serve as inspiration to lawmakers and judges at the different levels of the United States’ legislative and judicial branches. In cases where a court of justice encounters difficulties in ruling over issues that have no readily available answers in the Law, in the Christian Canon, or in logical reasoning, it will then rule according to the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace stemming from the Protestant heritage.

In addition, the national emblems of the United States, such as its flag and national anthem, will be drawn directly from the tradition of the Protestant Church, and the official calendar of the U.S. will follow the Protestant liturgical year. Finally, the United States will further act to preserve and entrench the Protestant historical and cultural tradition and to cultivate it in the U.S. and abroad.

Any reader who has gotten this far would probably note that such a law could not be passed or even seriously proposed by the United States legislature. In Israel, however, it could become a fundamental law, on a level equivalent to a constitutional amendment in the United States.

The different clauses listed above are not a free interpretation of the bill or wild projections of what this bill could imply; they are the clauses of the original Hebrew bill, translated into the U.S. political context. I have simply replaced the phrase “the Jewish People” and its associated traits with the “Protestant People” and its associated traits, such as “Protestant values” and “the Christian Canon.”

There are currently close to 8 million people living in Israel, more than 20% of which are Palestinian citizens. After years of de facto discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel in various aspects of daily life, this new law, if passed, will make such discrimination official: Palestinians will become formally, legally, second-class citizens. And this is without even mentioning the Palestinians who still live under the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

If you would oppose such a law had it been proposed in your own country, how can you support it when proposed in another country? If you would have objected to such a law because it would discriminate against you as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, how can you possibly support such a law when it is being put forward in your name, with you as the would-be member of Israel’s Jewish majority?

WATCH LIVE ~~ ISRAELI ‘DEMOCRACY’ IN ACTION

If the sandal fits, wear it!

If the sandal fits, wear it!

Duly elected Israeli officials can say whatever they want to on the Knesset Floor …..

UNLESS IT’S THE TRUTH!

Watch below the name calling drama yesterday …. it’s in Hebrew but an explanation follows VIA

Watch the video above from the 2:05 mark.

A Palestinian Knesset member, Jamal Zahalka (Balad), was forcibly removed from the podium and dragged out of the Knesset plenary today after he called Moshe Feiglin (Likud) a fascist.

Some parliament members have protested against the move. They stood up, yelling at Feiglin, who served as the Speaker of the Knesset for the day and made this call. When Zahalka was nearly outside of the plenary, Feiglin said he only meant for him to be removed off the stand. Zahalka was still escorted out but got back in a brief moment later to join the protest that had erupted and resulted in chaos.

Zahalka’s speech was about the new nationality law which, if passed, would define the state of Israel primarily as “the national homeland of the Jewish people” instead of “Jewish and democratic.”

Zahalka, chairman of the Balad party, quoted the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt and said that she criticized the idea of a national homeland for the Jewish people in 1941 when she argued that this would make the Palestinians second-class citizens.

After Feiglin, who refuses to acknowledge there are Palestinian people, interrupted with questions about his sources and exact terminology, Zahalka told him: “I suggest you read her. Of course you are in an opposite world from hers… She was anti-Nazism, anti-fascism — and you are a fascist.”

Feiglin ordered him to end his speech promptly, and when Zahalka refused, Feiglin called the security guards.

PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM MUST GO A FEW STEPS FURTHUR

President Obama has turned the Dream into a nightmare

President Obama has turned the Dream into a nightmare

But, in a positive move, this year’s Presidential Medal of Freedom went to 3 slain Civil Rights workers more than 50 years after they were brutally murdered by the very same US government that honours them today.

IRONIC! …

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman Win Highest Civilian Honor

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman Win Highest Civilian Honor

But what about the activists of TODAY? What about the brave people of Ferguson who are literally putting their lives on the line daily in an attempt to restore Freedom and Democracy.

What about ALL those involved in the Occupy Wall Street Movements to restore Democracy and Civil Liberties to America and the world at large.

There are scores of others who are worthy of the honour but are either overlooked or ignored. It is time for President Obama, who promised change, to honour those that are ACTUALLY WORKING for that change.

Presented below is a Reuters report of this year’s recipients …

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3 Slain ‘Mississippi Burning’ Civil

Rights Activists Will Get Medal of

Freedom

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman Win Highest Civilian Honor

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Three civil rights workers slain in Mississippi in 1964 will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, joining actress Meryl Streep and singer Stevie Wonder among the 19 recipients of America’s highest civilian honor this year, the White House said on Monday.

The posthumous honorees include James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were killed as they participated in the “Freedom Summer” drive to register black voters in Mississippi.

Their deaths helped galvanize support for civil rights legislation and inspired the film “Mississippi Burning.”

“From activists who fought for change to artists who explored the furthest reaches of our imagination; from scientists who kept America on the cutting edge to public servants who help write new chapters in our American story, these citizens have made extraordinary contributions to our country and the world,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Other recipients to be honored at a White House ceremony on Nov. 24 are the late dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey, physicist Mildred Dresselhaus, Native American writer and activist Suzan Harjo, former judge and congressman Abner Mikva, former U.S. Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink, the late Mexican-American congressman Edward Roybal, actress Marlo Thomas, and economist Robert Solow.

Also to be honored is Ethel Kennedy, the widow of slain U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy. Other recipients include television newsman Tom Brokaw, novelist Isabel Allende, composer Stephen Sondheim, veteran U.S. Representative John Dingell, and Charles Sifford, who helped desegregate the U.S. professional golf tour.

CONTRADICTION EXTRAORDINAIRE ~~ FASCISM STILL ILLEGAL IN ISRAEL

The following news item in today’s ziopress came as a pleasant surprise. Despite Israel’s apparent move to the far right, kahane and company are still considered illegal here, unlike in Canada.

Hopefully this trend will continue and Democracy and sanity establishes themselves here one day soon.

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Activists Arrested Putting Up Posters for Rabbi Kahane Memorial

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Flier for Rabbi Meir Kahane memorial (file)Nati Shohat/Flash 90

Flier for Rabbi Meir Kahane memorial (file)Nati Shohat/Flash 90

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Binyamin police arrested three activists last night (Thursday) as they were putting up posters at area ‘trempiadas’ (hitchhiking stations) in anticipation of a memorial for Rabbi Meir Kahane, which encouraged the event to take place on the Temple Mount. The suspects were brought in for destructionof public property, and at the end of the investigation, were released on bail.

One of the organizers of the memorial event has stated that the arrest waspolitically motivated, and that the Samaria-Judea police should be there to defend the region’s residents, not to persecute them.

ISRAELI DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

Image by Bendib

Image by Bendib

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Here’s how it works in ‘The Only Democracy in The Middle East’

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The Israeli 'NO STATE SOLUTION'

The Israeli ‘NO STATE SOLUTION’

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Israel moves to outlaw Palestinian political parties in the Knesset

Jonathan Cook FOR
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Haneen Zoabi argues with Israeli police as she attempts to enter al-Aqsa mosque during a protest outside Jerusalem’s Old City on 15 October. (Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)

 

The Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly last week to suspend Haneen Zoabi, a legislator representing the state’s large Palestinian minority, for six months as a campaign to silence political dissent intensified.

The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, voted by 68 to 16 to endorse a decision in late July by its ethics committee to bar Zoabi from the chamber for what it termed “incitement.”

It is the longest suspension in the Knesset’s history and the maximum punishment allowed under Israeli law.

At a press conference, Zoabi denounced her treatment as “political persecution.”

“By distancing me from the Knesset, basically they’re saying they don’t want Arabs, and only want ‘good Arabs.’ We won’t be ‘good Arabs,’” she said.

The Knesset’s confirmation of Zoabi’s suspension comes as she faces a criminal trial for incitement in a separate case and as the Knesset considers stripping her of citizenship.

But Zoabi is not the only Palestinian representative in the firing line. Earlier this year the Knesset raised the threshold for election to the parliament, in what has been widely interpreted as an attempt to exclude all three small parties representing the Palestinian minority. One in five citizens of Israel belong to the minority.

In addition, it emerged last week that a bill is being prepared to outlaw the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, the only extra-parliamentary party widely supported by Palestinian citizens.

Along with Zoabi, the Islamic Movement’s leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, has been among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies, especially over the al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem.

Death threats

Zoabi was originally suspended after legislators from all the main parties expressed outrage at a series of comments from her criticizing both the build-up to Israel’s summer assault on Gaza, dubbed “Operation Protective Edge,” and the 51-day attack itself, which left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians.

In particular, fellow members of Knesset were incensed by a radio interview in which she expressed her disapproval of the kidnapping of three Israeli youths in the occupied West Bank, but refused to denounce those behind it as “terrorists.” The youths were later found murdered.

Zoabi faced a wave of death threats and needed to be assigned a bodyguard for public appearances.

During the Knesset debate on her appeal against the suspension, Zoabi said: “Yes, I crossed the lines of consensus — a warlike, aggressive, racist, populist, chauvinist, arrogant consensus. I must cross those lines. I am no Zionist, and that is within my legal right.”

Under attack

Zoabi, who has come to personify an unofficial political opposition in the Knesset against all the main parties, is under attack on several fronts.

Last week she was informed that the state prosecution service had approved a police recommendation to put her on trial for criminal incitement for “humiliating” two policemen.

She is alleged to have referred to the policemen, who are members of the Palestinian minority, as “collaborators” as she addressed parents of children swept up in mass arrests following protests against the Israeli assault on Gaza over the summer.

Faina Kirschenbaum, the deputy interior minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, has also drafted two bills directly targeting Zoabi.

The first would strip someone of the right to stand for the Knesset if they are found to have supported “an act of terrorism,” while the second would strip them of their citizenship.

Because ministers are not allowed to initiate private bills, the task of bringing the measures to the floor of the parliament has been taken up by the Knesset’s Law, Constitution and Justice Committee.

Intentional subversions

Zoabi further infuriated fellow members of Knesset this month when she compared the Israeli army to the Islamic State, the jihadist group that has violently taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq and has become notorious for kidnapping westerners and beheading them.

In an apparently intentional subversion of Netanyahu’s recent comparison of the Islamic State and Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, Zoabi described an Israeli Air Force pilot as “no less a terrorist than a person who takes a knife and commits a beheading.” She added that “both are armies of murderers, they have no boundaries and no red lines.”

Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, was among those who responded by calling Zoabi a “terrorist.”

“The law must be used to put the terrorist — there is no other word for it — the terrorist Haneen Zoabi in jail for many years,” he told Israel Radio.

A poll this month found that 85 percent of the Israeli Jewish public wanted Zoabi removed from the Knesset.

“There is a great deal of frustration among Israeli politicians and the public at their army’s failure to defeat the Palestinian resistance in Gaza,” said Awad Abdel Fattah, the secretary general of Balad, a political party representing Palestinians in Israel. “At times like this, the atmosphere of repression intensifies domestically.”

Silencing all political dissent

The initiatives against Zoabi are the most visible aspects of a wider campaign to silence all political dissent from the Palestinian minority.

Last week, Lieberman instructed one of his members of Knesset, Alex Miller, to initiate a bill that would outlaw Salah’s Islamic Movement.

The legislation appears to be designed to hold Netanyahu to his word from late May. Then, the Israeli media revealed that the prime minister had created a ministerial team to consider ways to ban the movement.

At the same time, the Israeli security services claimed that Salah’s faction was cooperating closely with Hamas in Jerusalem.

After Israel barred the Palestinian Authority from having any presence in Jerusalem more than a decade ago and expelled Hamas legislators from the city, Salah has become the face of Palestinian political activism in Jerusalem.

Under the campaign slogan “al-Aqsa is in danger,” he has taken a leading role in warning that Israel is incrementally taking control of the most sensitive holy site in the conflict.

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Sheikh Raed Salah in Umm al-Fahm earlier this year. (Omar Sameer / ActiveStills)

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Last month it emerged that the Knesset is to vote on legislation to give Jewish religious extremists greater access to the mosque compound. Already large numbers of Jews, many of them settlers, regularly venture on to esplanade backed by armed Israeli police.

They include Jewish extremists that expressly want to blow up the al-Aqsa mosque so that a replica of a Jewish temple from 2,000 years ago can be built in its place.

Last week, Yehuda Glick, a leader of one of these extremist groups, was shot and wounded in Jerusalem. In response, Israel shut down al-Aqsa for the first time since the outbreak of the second intifada fourteen years ago. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, called it a “declaration of war.”

According to the text of Lieberman’s bill, the northern wing of the Islamic Movement “subverts the State of Israel’s sovereignty while making cynical use of the institutions and fundamental values of the Jewish and democratic state.”

It also blames the movement for “an eruption of violence and unrest among the Arab minority in Israel, while maintaining close relations with the terrorist organization Hamas.”

Raising the threshold

The attacks on Zoabi and the Islamic Movement come in the wake of legislation in March toraise the electoral threshold — from 2 percent to 3.25 percent — for a party to win representation in the Knesset.

The new threshold is widely seen as having been set to exclude the three Palestinian parties currently in the Knesset from representation. The minority’s vote is split almost evenly between three political streams.

Zoabi’s Balad party emphasizes the need for the Palestinian minority to build its own national institutions, especially in education and culture, to withstand the efforts of Israel’s Zionist institutions to strip Palestinian citizens of their rights and erase their identity. Its chief demand has been for “a state for all its citizens” — equal rights for Jewish and Palestinian citizens.

Balad’s chief rival is the joint Jewish-Arab party of Hadash, whose Communist ideology puts a premium on a shared program of action between Jewish and Arab citizens. However, its Jewish supporters have shrunk to a tiny proportion of the party. It too campaigns for equal rights.

And the final party, Raam-Taal, is a coalition led by prominent Islamic politicians.

The three parties have between them eleven seats in the 120-member Knesset, with one held by a Jewish member of Knesset, Dov Chenin, for Hadash.

Abdel Fattah said his Balad party had been urging the other parties to create a coalition in time for the next general election to overcome the new threshold.

So far it has faced opposition from Hadash, which is worried that an alliance with Balad would damage its image as a joint Jewish-Arab party. A source in Hadash told Israeli dailyHaaretz in late September: “Hadash is not an Arab party, and there’s no reason it should unite with two Arab parties.”

Abdel Fattah said Hadash’s objections were unreasonable given that both Balad and the Islamic faction believed it was important to include Jewish candidates on a unified list. “Eventually they will have to come round to a joint list unless they want to commit political suicide,” he remarked.

Falling turnout

Balad has been under threat at previous general elections. The Central Elections Committee, a body representing the major political parties, has repeatedly voted to ban it from running. Each time the decision has been overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court.

In 2007 the party’s former chairman, Azmi Bishara, was accused of treason while traveling abroad and has been living in exile ever since.

But the representation of all the parties is now in danger from the raised threshold. Over the past thirty years, turnout among Palestinian citizens has dramatically fallen to little more than half of potential voters, as the minority has seen its political demands for equality greeted with a wave of laws entrenching discrimination.

Among the anti-democratic measures passed in recent years are laws that penalize organizations commemorating the Nakba, the Palestinians’ dispossession of their homeland in 1948; that provide a statutory basis to admissions committees, whose function is to prevent Palestinian citizens living on most of Israel’s territory; and that make it impossible for most Palestinian citizens to bring a Palestinian spouse to live with them in Israel.

Uncompromising stance

Last week, Balad MKs boycotted the opening ceremony of the Knesset, following the summer recess, in protest at Zoabi’s treatment.

At a press conference in the parliament, her colleague, Basel Ghattas, warned: “The day is approaching when Arab MKs will think there is no use participating in the political sphere. We are discovering more and more that we are personae non gratae at the Knesset.”

On Facebook, Lieberman responded that he hoped the Arab MKs would “carry out this ‘threat’ as soon as possible.”

The increasingly uncompromising stance towards all the Palestinian minority’s political factions marks a shift in policy, even for the right.

Although no Israeli government coalition has ever included a Palestinian party, and the Nasserist al-Ard movement was banned in the 1960s, Jewish politicians have generally viewed it as safer to keep the Palestinian parties inside the Knesset.

Analyst Uzi Baram observed in Haaretz that even Menachem Begin, a former hardline prime minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party, believed it would be unwise to raise the threshold to keep out Arab parties. If they were excluded, Baram wrote, it was feared “they would resort to non-parliamentary actions.”

“Paving the way toward fascism”

Zoabi petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against her suspension from the Knesset in early October. However, the judges suggested she first use an arcane appeal procedure before the Knesset’s full plenum to demonstrate she had exhausted all available channels for lifting the suspension.

Israeli legal scholars have noted the irregularities in the ethics committee’s decision to impose a record-long suspension on Zoabi. The committee’s task is to regulate parliament members’ behavior inside the Knesset, not political speech outside it.

Aeyal Gross, a constitutional law professor at Tel Aviv University, warned that the Knesset’s treatment of Zoabi was “paving the way towards fascism and tyranny.”

Gross noted the extreme severity of the committee’s punishment of Zoabi, contrasting it with that of another MK, Aryeh Eldad. In 2008 he called for Ehud Olmert, the prime minister at the time, to be sentenced to death for suggesting that parts of the occupied territories become a Palestinian state.

Eldad was suspended for just one day, even though it was a clear example of incitement to violence in a country where a former prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered by a right-wing extremist, citing similar justification for his actions.

Tyranny of the majority

The Supreme Court, which has shifted rightwards in recent years, may not be sympathetic to Zoabi’s appeal against her suspension.

In September the court jailed Said Nafaa, a former MK from her Balad party, for one year after he was convicted of visiting Syria in 2007 with a delegation of Druze clerics and meeting a Palestinian faction leader in Syria.

The crime of making contact with a foreign agent is the only one in Israeli law in which the defendant must prove their innocence.

The court may also be wary of making unpopular rulings at a time when it is under concerted attack from the Israeli right for being too liberal.

Ayelet Shaked, of the settler Jewish Home party, which is in the government coalition, has introduced a bill that would allow a simple majority of the Knesset to vote to override Supreme Court rulings.

Human rights lawyers warned that the bill would further erode already limited protections for minority rights.

Debbie Gild-Hayo, a lawyer with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, warned thatprotections for minorities from the tyranny of the majority would be in severe jeopardy as a result. “These proposals wish to break down the checks and balances that are fundamental to democracy,” she said.

Zoabi remained defiant. She noted that, while she was being hounded, the legal authorities had ignored genocidal remarks made by Jewish politicians against Palestinians during the summer attack on Gaza.

“They’re putting me on trial over a trivial, meaningless matter, while ministers and MKs who incited to racism and incited to violence and even to murder aren’t being investigated, even after complaints were filed against them.”

She added: “If I am indicted, I’ll turn the hearings into the most political trial in Israel’s history.”

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All of the above summed up in one sentence …(by one who should be sentenced 😉 ) 

quote-and-israel-is-not-only-our-ally-it-is-a-beacon-of-what-democracy-can-and-should-mean-if-the-hillary-clinton-220053

ONLY BY VOTING TOMORROW CAN YOU CHOSE THE PICTURE YOU WANT FOR AMERICA

This One OR This One

From the Occupation to #OccupyWallStreet

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It’s so ironic that the Democrats chose Scarlett Johansson of SodaStream fame to act as their spokesperson ….

Here is a letter she sent out to Party members on behalf of the Democratic National Committee;

Friend —

I think you know by now how incredibly high the stakes are on November 4th, especially for women. And if we don’t want to wake up on November 5th and find ourselves on the fast track back in time on women’s rights, it’s critical that Democrats vote.

That starts with you.

Will you take a moment to confirm your polling place, and then forward this email to three of your friends?

http://my.democrats.org/Lookup

If the Republicans take back the Senate, one of the first things they will try to dismantle will be a woman’s right to make her own personal health care decisions. This year, I have been appalled again and again by decisions from the GOP and even the Supreme Court that attack a woman’s right to choose, and this is our chance to take action.

Our votes on Tuesday are all that can stop Republicans from doing even more damage.

So please, even if you remember your polling place, take a moment to confirm that it hasn’t changed, and check that your friends and family have a plan for where and when to vote.

Thanks for stepping up. And if you get your friends to vote, tell them thanks from me!

Scarlett Johansson

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Pretty sickening if you ask me!

Just remember this image when you cast your ballot.

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Enjoy the following …

LATUFF’S SPOOF ON PLAYING WITH FIRE IN HONG KONG

'Copyleft' by Carlos Latuff

‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

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Read the New York Times Report

 

Hong Kong Protesters Defy Officials’ Call to Disperse

LEAKED EMAIL FROM THE ADL REVEALS THEIR ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY ACADEMIC FREEDOM

In the ‘name of Democracy’, the following leaked email sent from the office of the ADL shows how they are attempting to defame Democracy itself ….

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'Copyleft' by Carlos Latuff

‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

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The leaked email … 

The ADL email is another indicator that there will be no let up this fall in Israel lobby efforts to use all repressive means available to stigmatize and punish, if not shut down altogether, campus criticism of Israel’s crimes.

It was sent by From: Brysk, Seth [mailto:SBrysk@adl.org] … you can write to him and tell him what you think.

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Dear …

We write to you today to provide information and recommendations about how to respond to conflicts that may arise on your campus due to the recent conflict in Gaza.

Over the last several years, we have seen individual students and student groups critical of Israel attempt to stifle dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by disrupting events on campus and refusing to work with pro-Israel and Jewish student groups. In the wake of the recent crisis, anti-Israel organizations are placing increasing pressure on academic institutions to engage in a “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) activities.

You should be aware that American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training and education to students and Muslim community organizations around the country, recently issued a statement calling for an “International Day of Action on College Campuses” on September 23. AMP advocates for a variety of BDS-related initiatives – all in an effort to isolate and demonize Israel and Jewish communal organizations. These efforts serve only to polarize students on campus, inflame existing tensions, and often isolate and intimidate Jewish students.

AMP’s call for a “Day of Action” –scheduled for the evening before the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah– urges the elimination of study abroad programs in Israel, a ban on university administrators traveling to Israel, and scholars to refuse to participate in research or conferences with colleagues from Israeli institutions. Such tactics disrupt campus life and stifle the ideals of inquiry, free expression, and the civil exchange of ideas – – precisely the foundation on which university communities are built.

The Anti-Defamation League is a strong advocate of free speech and we do not seek to censor or stifle opinions in the university community. We have a long history of fighting for the ideals of individual expression and the free exchange of ideas, even when we disagree with the ideas being exchanged. However, no university should countenance attempts to discourage and suppress free speech, or harass and intimidate Jewish and other students. When this occurs, as in the examples noted above, appropriate action should be taken.

To address these concerns, we urge you to consider implementing the following policies and practices in the coming academic year:

  • Be aware of the discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that takes place on your campus and the potential for escalation.
  • Review student codes of conduct to ensure that activity which is detrimental to the free exchange of ideas is not allowed on campus.
  • When an event takes place on campus where there is potential for disruption, ensure that adequate security is provided to prevent any dangerous escalation in the disruption and ensure the safety of the speakers, organizers and attendees.
  • Send a senior university official to potentially hostile events and prior to the start of the event have him or her remind those in attendance of university codes of conduct regarding free speech and civil discourse.
  • Remember the school’s obligations under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, particularly the responsibility of the school not only to investigate an incident, but to take prompt and effective steps to eliminate any hostile environment and to take proactive steps to prevent its recurrence.
  • If the actions of the protestors violate any university policies or codes of conduct, appropriately discipline those involved.
  • Use your own right to free speech to condemn actions which go against the ideals of the university.
  • Reach out to individual students and organizations who may have been negatively affected by an incident.
  • Provide educational opportunities on campus that foster an environment of inclusion, acceptance and respect.

As one of the country’s premier civil rights organizations, ADL has decades of experience in helping administrators and students on campus respond to bigotry and intergroup strife. We would be happy to discuss the challenges many campuses face today and to assist your efforts to ensure that your campus remains a place where all viewpoints can be discussed in an atmosphere of respect and civility. We encourage you to be in touch with us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Seth Brysk
Central Pacific Regional Director

Anti-Defamation League | 720 Market Street, Suite 800 | San Francisco, CA 94102 Phone: 415-981-3500 | Fax: 415-981-8933 | www.adl.org

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Full report HERE

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