Britain hands over embassy to Israel’s war industry

David Cronin

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/britain-hands-over-embassy-israels-war-industry

Does Britain conceal the full extent of its support for Israel?

Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative politician, recently urged the prosecution of British citizens who fight for the Israeli military.

Warsi should be commended for raising an important issue – just as she did when resigning as a government minister over Britain’s refusal to condemn the 2014 bombing of Gaza.

Yet Britain provides more direct assistance to Israel than allowing Londoners and Mancunians join a foreign army.

One example of that assistance has avoided scrutiny: Britain’s embassy in Tel Aviv has hired senior players in Israel’s weapons industry.

Since 2011, the embassy has hosted an initiative called the UK Israel Tech Hub.

The initiative is chaired by Haim Shani, a civil servant-turned-entrepreneur. In 2012, Shani was appointed a director of Israel Aerospace Industries, a leading manufacturer of drones used in attacking Gaza.

The biographical note for Shani on the UK Israel Tech Hub website omits any reference to his post with the weapons firm.

It does, however, state that he is a former head of NICE Systems. No explanation is offered of how NICE, an Israeli corporation, has made surveillance equipment for police services and spying agencies around the world.

Shani is credited with overseeing a seven-fold increase in NICE’s revenues. Following his departure from the firm, its “cyber and intelligence” division was sold to Elbit, another supplier of drones to the Israeli military.

Parroting propaganda

I contacted the British embassy in Tel Aviv, asking why it is hosting an initiative led by a man with such strong connections to Israel’s war industry.

The embassy did not answer that question. Rather, a spokesperson replied that “Haim Shani is a well-respected Israeli businessman.”

The spokesperson claimed, too, that the UK Israel Tech Hub has “improved life” in Britain by facilitating cooperation with Israeli firms involved in health care and the environment.

Those comments indicate that the British embassy is parroting Israeli propaganda. Israel constantly boasts of innovations in water technology and medical treatment – as if such innovation cancels out Israel’s bombing of sewage treatment plants and hospitals.

Other members of Shani’s team also have strong connections to the Israeli war industry.

Naomi Krieger Carmy, director of the UK Israel Tech Hub, is described on the initiative’s website as an “8200 alumnus” – without any elaboration.

Unit 8200 is part of the intelligence corps in the Israeli military focused on technological research. Maor Chester, “digital solutions manager” at the hub, also states on her LinkedIn profile that she served in “an elite intelligence unit (8200)” of the Israeli military.

Amoral outlook

Every so often, the business press publishes articles celebrating how Unit 8200 has contributed to Israel’s “start-up nation” ethos.

Yet there is a far murkier side to its activities than helping to shape the Internet’s activities. Yair Cohen, a former head of the unit, has admitted that it has been involved in spying operations during all of Israel’s major offensives.

Those include activities by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

In 2014, three dozen Unit 8200 veterans and reservists revealed that the unit deploys its capabilities to collect intimate personal information on Palestinian civilians living under occupation that is “used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself.”

They charged that the unit’s activity against Palestinians “fuels more violence, further distancing us from the end of the conflict.”

The UK Israel Tech Hub was officially launched by George Osborne, then Britain’s finance minister, in 2011.

During a visit to the Middle East, Osborne rhapsodized about Israel’s “amazing economic achievement.”

The achievement is a byproduct of profound injustice.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has enabled its weapons-makers to test out their products. Palestinians have been used as specimens in sadistic experiments.

The British embassy is coy about how it is encouraging such experiments. Yet it does hint that Israel’s much-celebrated technology sector is inextricably linked to an army that denies Palestinian rights.

“Cyber security” has been identified as a priority for cooperation. “Israel is a global leader in the cyber field, with a robust ecosystem drawing on capacity developed in the military arena,” the embassy has noted.

Last year, the embassy arranged for businesspeople based in Britain to visit Israel’s “cyber security” industry. Lockheed Martin, a US military giant with investments around the world, was among the firms to take part.

Matthew Hancock, a British government minister who joined that trip, has said that he wished to study how the partnership between private firms and public authorities that was deemed essential to the success of Israel’s technology sector could be emulated in Britain.

His comments reveal the amoral outlook of the British ruling elite. That elite is impressed by how Israel has turned a military occupation into a business opportunity.

The admiration runs so deep that Britain has handed over part of its embassy to the profiteers of occupation.

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?

https://justicedemocrats.com/

The Senate is set to vote on the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch any day now. While Democrats are planning to filibuster, Mitch McConnell already has three Dem votes in his pocket. 


Joe Manchin (D-WV), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Connelly (D-IN) have all stated their intention to vote for confirmation. 


The GOP needs eight Democrats to get the 60-vote majority. Thanks to these three, they only need five more to put a hardline right winger into a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

It’s not only Manchin, Heitkamp or Connelly. Just days ago, California’s Diane Feinstein and Colorado’s Michael Bennet said they were on the fence about the guy who decided Hobby Lobby can deny their employees access to birth control on religious grounds.

How can you be undecided about a man with $10M in dark money backing his confirmation campaign (yes, SCOTUS nominees now have “campaigns”) while he dismissively refuses to explain his position on Citizens United? Maybe their indecision stems from Gorsuch having much in common with another corporatist, pro-Citizens-United judge, Merrick Garland.

We’ve already got dozens of nominees in West Virginia, North Dakota, and all these states. Next year, we’ll make sure the voters across the country have a real choice.

You know the only way we can defeat the corporate campaign cash machine is by leveraging millions of supporters just like you. You’ve helped us raise $1M and made our campaign a serious contender. But we will need to scale up in a massive way to run hundreds of candidates at once and truly transform Congress.

An idea this bold can only succeed if people like you believe in it. Together, we can change more than Congress. Together, we can change the game.

A message from The Justice Democrats

Why is this cop still in uniform?

https://socialistworker.org/2017/04/03/why-is-this-cop-still-in-uniform

Report: Todd Chretien

Todd Chretien recounts how one California police officer's thirst for brutality has crashed into the life of yet another innocent member of the public.

April 3, 2017

 

Killer cop Miguel Masso photographed by activists in downtown Oakland (Occupy Oakland)

ON JANUARY 28, 2017, Hollister Police Department officer Miguel Masso stopped Earl Malanado as he was driving home from a friend's house in this central California town. Masso claimed that Malanado's license plates didn't match his car's description, although he subsequently retracted the accusation.

Masso then issued Malanado citations for an out-of-date registration and for not having a paper copy of his proof of insurance in the car. When Malanado protested against the false reason given for the initial stop and stated that he had a First Amendment right to speak up for himself, Masso became agitated and announced that he was placing Malanado under arrest--supposedly for "interfering with a police investigation." He ordered Malanado to exit the vehicle.

In an interview with Socialist Worker, Malanado describes what happens next.

I didn't even get a chance to get out of my car and stand up. Masso grabbed my right hand in a submission hold, you know, like cops do, and knocked my phone, which was still recording, out of my hand. He really sent it flying. His attack was immediate and vicious, like a Ninja. I went to the ground like a rag doll.

Malanado didn't know yet, but he wasn't Masso's first victim.

On May 6, 2012, Masso shot and killed 18-year-old African American high school student Alan Blueford in East Oakland after racially profiling him and two friends. Masso later claimed that he had Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome from his time in Iraq and had "gone into autopilot" as he pursued Blueford.

Masso initially claimed that Blueford had shot him, but it was quickly learned that Masso shot himself in the foot in addition to fatally shooting Blueford.

Masso had a history even before the Blueford murder.

In 2007, Rafael Santiago filed a lawsuit against Masso and three other New York City Police officers for beating and repeatedly using a Taser on him while in custody. After the case was settled, Masso resigned from the NYPD and took a job as an officer in Oakland.

After Masso killed their son, Alan Blueford's parents Jeralynn and Adam spearheaded a high-profile activist movement organized under the name JAB--Justice for Alan Blueford. For months, community members and anti-police brutality activists occupied City Council meetings and brought business as usual to a halt.

The case made headlines in Oakland for more than two years. Although the Alameda County district attorney refused to press charges against Masso, the city of Oakland subsequently paid a settlement in a civil lawsuit filed by the Blueford family.

As was the case in New York, Masso resigned under pressure--only to be hired by a new department in August 2014, this time in Hollister, just 80 miles south of Oakland.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IF THE Hollister Police Department was aware of Masso's history of abuse, Malanado was not. Masso dragged the 50-year-old man from his car on January 28, and things quickly escalated out of control, Malanado:

Masso pinned my hands behind my back and threw me to the ground. While I was falling, he pulled my jacket up over my head so it was covering my face. I have COPD, which means I have trouble breathing. So he had my hands pinned behind me, with his left knee on the back of my kneesm and his right knee on my right arm, pushing my face into the ground, with my jacket covering my mouth and nose.

I kept yelling, "I can't breathe, my medication is in my jacket. I can't breathe." I started to panic and just kept screaming, "I can't breathe."

Luckily for Malanado, another Hollister officer arrived on the scene and took him into custody. "All I could think was that I wanted to get into the sheriff's custody and away from Masso," said Malanado. "When the second cop put me in his patrol car I told him I thought Masso was crazy."

Malanado was then taken to jail and processed by the sheriff's department. At no point along the way was he read his Miranda rights, and neither the Hollister Police nor the sheriff's departments took Malanado to the hospital for medical treatment.

Upon being released into his family's custody after midnight, Malanado returned home briefly and then went to the hospital. While at the hospital, a Hollister police officer entered Malanado's room and questioned him about the encounter with Masso.

"He just kept smirking and implying that everything was my fault," explained Malanado. Although no longer under arrest, the officer refused to leave Malanado alone. Hospital medical and security personnel eventually had to insist the officer exit the room.

Nearly two months later, Malanado is still feeling the effects of the assault.

My injuries are mostly bruises, on my knees and especially my right elbow. There were cuts on my wrist, and I had an x-ray of my elbow to see if there was a fracture. Now I have pains in my knee. I have a lot of trouble sleeping too. Not so much because of the physical pain, but because of the mental anguish. It's all I can think about so I can't sleep. I keep wondering, "What did I do? Why me? Why do I deserve this?"

Soon after Malanado's ordeal, a family member Googled Masso's name and learned about the Blueford case. Malanado quickly reached out to Alan Blueford's parents to find out what had happened in Oakland. He became convinced that he had to speak out:

I thought, "That's strike three." Of course, what he did to Alan was much worse than what he did to me, but somebody has to put a stop to this. I know some people are scared or don't have the means to speak out. But it's just not right.

I'm not out to ruin the guy's life, but he can't be in a position to have power over people. There's clearly a pattern here. I don't believe he's in police work to try to help people.