DEMO @ UNION SQ. IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE RIGHT OF RETURN MARCH
Photos © by Bud Korotzer
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And another demo against ‘Agent Orange’
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April 17, 2018 at 10:02 (Activism, Associate Post, DesertPeace Exclusive, International Solidarity, Palestine, Photography, Right of Return, Syria)
April 15, 2018 at 09:43 (Associate Post, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, False Flags, Israel, Syria)
Trump and his partners in (war) crimes UK/France decided to raise the body count in war-torn Syria, striking Damascus and guaranteeing that this long, savage imperialist conflict will remain claiming Syrian lives.
Images by Carlos Latuff
Report by Mazin Qumsiyeh
Today was the day that International inspectors arrived to examine the unproven claim by the US/Israeli backed terrorist rebels that chemical weapons were used in Ghouta (‘white helmets’ were known previously to have manufactured media events**). Today at 3 AM the US, UK, and France attacked targets in Syria with >103 missiles (71 of them were shot down by Syrian air defenses, old Soviet Era weapons). Russia, China, Bolivia, and Iran condemned the attack as a violation of the UN Charter and Russia is now considering supplying Syria and “other countries” (perhaps Iran and Lebanon?) with S-300 and other advanced air defense systems. Originally Russia said it will target missiles and their launch facilities which could have led to WWIII. It seems there was some sort of “understanding”: 1) US/UK/France target unused fields and facilities with no damage for domestic propaganda purposes (to appear tough and satisfy the Israel/Zionist lobbies who have been pushing for war like they did in Iraq, Yemen, and Libya and now pushing for war on Iran), 2) Russia and Syria also get a propaganda “win” having shot most of the missiles using “old” Soviet era weapons and Syria gets to get more advanced weapons. They lied to us about Yugoslavia, about Ukraine, about Iraq, about Libya and now they lie about Syria and Iran. If these lies continue, World War is the price not just bankruptcy of US taxpayers (already $21 trillion in debt) and millions of lives lost. Recent report of Chinese analysts being examined by Evgeniy Satanovskiy - Russian leading expert in the field of Middle East. British and American forces have been destroyed on a large scale in the Ghouta region, with the 22nd regiment of the SAS, those surviving the pinpoint Russian bombing, that is, having to flee on buses in disguise. This is the reason for skripal plan and the chemical weapons false flag.
We have no sympathy for the US, UK France Israeli governments’ position. These are governments that have used chemical weapons (e.g. agent orange in Vietnam, White Phosphorous in Gaza, last week nerve agents in Gaza) These are hypocritical governments that fount International law (e.g. supporting colonial occupation of the Syrian Golan and of Palestine) and support brutal regimes (e.g. “Saudi” Arabia and Apartheid “Israel”). While that does not mean we support any other governments (Syria, Turkey, Iran etc), we do support justice and human rights and oppose tyranny.
Trump and his partners in (war) crimes UK/France decided to rise the body count in war-torn Syria, striking Damascus and guaranteeing that this long, savage imperialist conflict will remain claiming Syrian lives
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February 12, 2018 at 14:24 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Iran, Israel, Syria)
In a rare public expression of support for Israel by a radical Islamist figure in Syria, a former leader in al-Qaeda’s Syrian militia on Saturday welcomed Israeli airstrikes against Syrian and Iranian targets in the country after an Iranian drone infiltrated Israeli airspace, and called on the Jewish state to quickly “uproot” Iran from its northern neighbor.
Full report HERE
Images by Carlos Latuff
In a Middle East plenty of collaborators, is refreshing to see an Arab country repealing an Israeli aggression, something I haven’t seen since Israel-Hezbollah War in 2006.
Waiting for some statement from Netanyahu and his far-right zealots about the Israel F-16 jet shot down in Syria airspace. What’s next? More airstrikes against “Iran targets”? Boots on the ground?
July 5, 2017 at 12:27 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Israel, Syria)
June 12, 2017 at 12:31 (Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Genocide, Iran, Middle East, Syria)
Meanwhile ….
Supreme Irony In Gulf — Latuff’s Cartoon This Week
April 13, 2017 at 14:50 (Collective Punishment, Syria)
Syrian sources claim the US attack Wednesday on ISIS targets struck poison gas supplies and released toxins which ‘killed hundreds’.
The Syrian army claimed that an air strike late yesterday by the US-led coalition hit poison gas supplies belonging to ISIS , and released a toxic substance that killed “hundreds including many civilians”.
The incident in the eastern Deir al-Zor province proved that ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked militants “possess chemical weapons”, a statement by the army publicized on Syrian state TV claimed, adding that these weapons had been obtained from “countries in the region which are well known.”
The report could not immediately be independently verified and the US has denied that it attacked any ISIS chemical weapons site.
Last week the US launched cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase , in response to a deadly poison gas attack in the west of the country that Washington blamed on President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Syria and its ally Russia deny that Damascus carried out any such chemical attack. Assad even claims that the US ‘fabricated’ the chemical attack, while Moscow has said the poison gas in that incident last week in Idlib province belonged to rebels.
The US strike on the Syrian air base last Thursday was the first time Washington has deliberately and directly targeted the Syrian government.
Don’t forget for one moment who ISIS is …
April 9, 2017 at 08:26 (Activism, Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, DesertPeace Exclusive, International Solidarity, Photography, Syria)
Image by Carlos Latuff
More HERE
Not everyone is swooning ……
HANDS OFF SYRIA DEMONSTRATION @ UNION SQ. NYC
Photos © by Bud Korotzer
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Mazin Qumsiyeh PhD, adds the following from Palestine …..
The attack on Syria by the United States while illegal per international law (not sanctioned by the UN Security Council and opposed by Russia and China) comes to remind as all of four basic facts of geopolitics: 1-US Presidents no matter how “unconventional” must always obey the rules set for them. Trump came to office opposing intervention in Syria and is now directly siding with the “rebels” and has accepted the 1990s neocon strategy of regime changes across Western Asia that are supposed to benefit "Israel". 2-As Henry Kissinger said: “all foreign policy is domestic policy”. With a strong Zionist lobby in the US and absence of any counter lobby that watches over US (let alone world) interests, we have a push for wars supposed to help apartheid Israel whether in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, or Syria. 3-Modern warfare kills far more civilians than military (the ratio now is >10 to 1). War is immoral, illogical, and criminal and has no “good side” or “bad side”. The only positive thing now is that countries that use wars as their main tools (Israel, US being the key ones) will lose because wars have now become also illogical in terms of achievement of policy. Just take as examples in the past 20 years: the US attack on Iraq and Israel’s attack on Gaza and Lebanon. It is now almost a given like the Newtonian laws of physics. 4-People still have the power to change things. Governments regularly lie to their own people (all governments). But their biggest tools are to a) create fear, b) create apathy (powerlessness). Getting people to be good consumers (of propaganda and products) is key to government “success” (short term as it may be and to enrich politicians and their backers). Key to human rights advocate success is getting people to be good involved and informed citizens. The conflict between the two (governments and people) is the real consequential conflict we face. It is between short term greed and long term planetary interests. It is an existential conflict for humanity.
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April 7, 2017 at 11:51 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Syria)
April 6, 2017 at 10:54 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Syria)
January 18, 2017 at 10:20 (Associate Post, Double standards, Syria, War Crimes, Yemen)
October 20, 2016 at 16:52 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Cold War, Syria, Turkey)
August 11, 2016 at 10:07 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Corrupt Politics, Google Attacks, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Turkey)
Images by Carlos Latuff
Erdogan’s First Day of School at Kremlin … Related report HERE
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Google blames a malfunction for removing the terms “West Bank” and “Gaza Strip” from its map of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
“There has never been a ‘Palestine’ label on Google Maps, however we discovered a bug that removed the labels for ‘West Bank’ and ‘Gaza Strip’. We’re working quickly to bring these labels back to the area,” said a Google spokesperson in an email to Mondoweiss.
The bug Google blames for the erasure of the labels set off a wave of outraged Tweets and Facebook posts in the last several days, although the deletion reportedly occurred as early as July 25th. The Palestinian Journalists Forum issued a widely circulated denouncement of the removal.
“The move is also designed to falsify history, and geography as well as the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland, and a failed attempt to tamper with the memory of Palestinians and Arabs as well as the world,” the PJF said, according to Turkish Radio Television (TRT).
Andrew Kadi, a co-chair of the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, told Mondoweiss that he feels Google is part of the problem when it comes to recognizing the occupation. Although the United States and United Nations have repeatedly in the past declared Israel’s military to be an occupying force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that obvious declaration has fallen out of style. Google’s omission of the word makes this amnesia possible.
“I just searched Palestine on Google Maps and it brings up Israel basically. Israel is labelled like Israel, like lots of different parts of what is now recognized as Israel, but you do not have a label that clearly states that the Golan Heights is occupied. You don’t have anything that clearly states that the West Bank is occupied. Although you have the Green Line you have nothing that indicates that East Jerusalem is militarily occupied. And these aren’t my definitions, these are the international definitions, recognized by every country including the U.S. So it’s odd,” Kadi said.
The debate over Google’s alleged bug “overlooks that Google has not been correctly labelling these areas correctly anyway.”
Kadi said that for someone unfamiliar with the history of the region, then these dashed lines, labelled in fine print “1949 Armistice Line,” don’t mean anything. If you wanted to fact check whether the Palestinian territories are occupied or not, Google’s map wouldn’t tell you much.
“If they want to be treated as a geographical information resource, then they have to take that more seriously. At a minimum, of meeting the international community’s definition of the Occupied West Bank, Occupied East Jerusalem and the Occupied Golan Heights,” he added.
Kadi also expects that Google’s investment in Israel, and its purchasing of Israeli navigation app Waze, might have inspired the “bug” to happen.
Bug or not, “Google is benefiting from the country that’s erased us,” said Kadi, who is Palestinian-American.
Waze, and human error, was at least partially to blame for a deadly incident this winter, when two Israeli soldiers wandered their vehicle into the Qalandia refugee camp, between Ramallah and Jerusalem, and ended up pinned down by a firebomb, Newsweek reported. In rescuing the wayward soldiers, Israeli forces killed a 22-year-old Palestinian man Iyad Amr Sajdiyeh. Citing a report in Haaretz, the March, 1 Newsweek article details how the Israeli military put in force “Hannibal” orders that allow for commanders to place Palestinian civilians in danger to prevent the capture of Israeli troops. Waze said the soldiers were not using the feature that prevents accidental navigation into Palestinian areas.
“Waze has and is continuing to work directly with the relevant authorities to decrease such mishaps from occurring, but unfortunately there is no ability to prevent them altogether as ultimately some prudence is in the driver’s hands,” Julie Mossler, a representative for the company, told the magazine.
The blindness of the tech industry to the mortal danger of occupation can endanger Palestinian and Israeli lives in other ways, the Daily Dot reports. Some roads are restricted to settlers solely. The author, Jonathan Brown, explains:
“If you’re Palestinian, to travel on Google-endorsed roads, you’ll need to secure a series of permits and agreements, which the Israeli authority now hands out less frequently with each passing year,” Brown wrote in 2014. “Exceptions might be made for a journey to Jerusalem, for prayers at Al Aqsa, but probably only during Ramadan. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) calls some roads in this network ‘sterile roads.’ For Palestinians, use [of] these are prohibited entirely.”
Imagine taking your Google Maps app back in time, to Mississippi in the 1960s, and driving as an African American person through a “sun down town,” where police would arrest people of color if discovered outside after dark. Unless Google wrote the grim reality of Jim Crow into your phone, you could be driving into a lynching. The same thing applies in for Palestinians under Israeli occupation, and living near settler neighbors who threaten them.
As Google labors to fix the bug, some observers of Israel/Palestine have noted that the erasure of the words “West Bank” and “Gaza” inadvertently reflect a reality that hardly gets mentioned in American discussions of the region: the huge degree of control Israel exerts over the West Bank and Gaza. The fact of military domination renders talk of a “two-state solution” divorced from the fact that Israel and its Occupied Palestinian Territories operate as an effectively single but deeply dysfunctional and unequal political entity.
Kadi said that one of his first reactions to seeing the words removed was how much it made Palestine/Israel look like a single country. The Oslo-mandated Palestinian Authority failing to coalesce under military occupation into a sovereign government, quelle surprise, has lead to a the popularity of a “rights-based” approach becoming more popular, Kadi said.
One prominent social media figure appeared to endorse a single, equitable state as the solution to Israel/Palestine’s woes.
Dena Takruri, a correspondent for AJ+, Al Jazeera’s digital first, Facebook news reel, reshared a previous video piece about the immensity of the Separation/Security/Apartheid Fence/Barrier/Wall, with this telling take:
“If only it was one state with equal rights for all, as Google’s maps suggest…” Takruri wrote.
August 2, 2016 at 08:00 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Refugee Crisis, Syria)
June 22, 2016 at 08:39 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Corrupt Politics, Refugee Crisis, Syria, Turkey)
Images by Carlos Latuff
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Related Report (Click on link)
June 21, 2016 at 12:16 (Cover Up, DesertPeace Exclusive, Humanitarian Aid Flotilla, Israel, Palestine, Refugee Crisis, Syria, Turkey)
Why is this not being reported as an act of terrorism?
Turkish border guards have killed at least eight Syrian refugees, including several children, as families were “fired on indiscriminately” after attempting to cross into the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said.
At least eight others were injured, according to the UK-based violence monitor, with the death toll likely to rise due to the number of people in “critical” condition.
Full report HERE
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Why was this not called an act of terrorism?
The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation by Israel against six civilian ships of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” on 31 May 2010 in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine activists were killed in the raid. The flotilla, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH), was carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, with the intention of breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Full report HERE
zionists even had the chutzpah to joke about this incident
So where do we draw the line and call it terrorism when that’s what it obviously is?
May 6, 2016 at 08:12 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Collaboration, Corrupt Politics, Syria)
Images by Carlos Latuff
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CNN: “U.S. announces ceasefire for Aleppo after talks with Russia” –
A ceasefire is in effect in one of the most war-torn cities in Syria, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday. The United States and Russia concluded arrangements for a cessation of violence in Aleppo and surrounding areas, according to a department statement.
The two countries ended talks Tuesday and are closely monitoring whether the ceasefire sticks. Violence has decreased but continues, according to State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner.
Foreign Policy: “MSF Blasts U.S., Russia, Syria, and Saudi for Hospital Strikes” –
In a stinging rebuke, the president of French medical relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres on Tuesday accused several governments, including the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, of either directly attacking medical workers or participating in coalitions that have done so.
Speaking in a special session of the U.N. Security Council on the protection of health care workers, MSF leader Joanne Liu said four of the council’s five permanent members — Britain, France, Russia, and the United States — “have, to varying degrees, been associated with coalitions responsible for attacks on health structures over the last year.”
Those coalitions, Liu said, were responsible for strikes on medical targets in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria. But the attacks on medical workers reach far beyond those countries, endangering health workers in Iraq, South Sudan, and Somalia. The world, Liu warned, is “facing an epidemic of attacks on health facilities, impeding our ability to do our core work.”
“Stop these attacks!” she urged the council’s big powers. “You … must live up to your extraordinary responsibilities and set an example for all states.”
The council’s meeting took place as medical workers have come under renewed attack in Syria, where [Russian-backed] government aircraft last week bombed a hospital in Aleppo, killing [55] people, including three children and one of the city’s few remaining pediatricians. On Tuesday, [US-backed] rebel rocket fire again struck a hospital and maternity clinic, killing three women, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency.
February 16, 2016 at 12:51 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Syria)
February 12, 2016 at 10:46 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Corrupt Politics, Egypt, Health Crisis, Syria)
December 25, 2015 at 10:38 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Syria)
December 23, 2015 at 08:29 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Genocide, Syria)