https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG0cxAXksW0
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Israel lobby group deletes call to blackmail Lebanon using aid
Ali Abunimah Lobby Watch 10 August 2020
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-group-deletes-call-blackmail-lebanon-using-aid
On Sunday, various governments pledged almost $300 million in aid to Lebanon, following last week’s catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port.
The death toll has risen to more than 200 people.
As leaders gathered for the virtual pledging conference organized by France, one powerful Israel lobby group made clear its agenda.
“International donors are assembling an aid package for Lebanon. Assistance must be conditioned on the long-promised, long-avoided disarmament of Hizballah,” the American Jewish Committee tweeted.
“Unless the malignant role of Iran’s terror proxy is addressed, there will never be meaningful change for the people of Lebanon.”
I made a point of commenting on the tweet on Sunday.
But by Monday morning, the AJC had deleted its tweet:
Why?
After all, using the basic health and humanitarian needs of civilians as a weapon against them in violation of international law is a well-established Israeli policy, no more so than in Gaza.
Israel humiliated
Just as Israel hopes that depriving Palestinians in Gaza of their basic needs and rights will induce them to surrender, the same calculus undoubtedly applies in Israel’s approach to Lebanon.
Hizballah, it should be recalled, was founded in the early 1980s as a response to Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon and the siege of its capital.
A formidable resistance force, Hizballah expelled Israeli occupation forces and their collaborator militia from Lebanon in 2000 and humiliated Israel again when it invaded Lebanon in 2006.
Israeli forces, unable to effectively counter Hizballah’s well-trained fighters, resorted instead to indiscriminate bombing of civilians.
That strategy hasn’t changed. On 6 August, The Jerusalem Post’s editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz outlined what Israel would do if another full-scale war broke out: “This would mean bombing the airport, the soccer fields, the port, private homes, office buildings, schools and more.”
In an even more chilling sentence, Katz added that “the constraints we usually see in Gaza operations would have to be lifted.” Given Israel’s repeated mass destruction in Gaza, it’s difficult to know what “constraints” he is referring to.
Targeting Hizballah
Israel knows that while it can inflict untold suffering, it would pay a very heavy price for such an attack – precisely because of Hizballah’s deterrent capability.
So Israel, through its lobby, has been trying to achieve politically what it cannot do on the battlefield: defeat Hizballah.
Given the large number of attacks Israel has launched against Lebanon since the 1950s – including repeated attacks on Beirut airport and the many car bombs for which it was responsible since the 1970s – it is not surprising that many in the region and in Lebanon suspect Israel had a hand in last week’s catastrophe.
But even if Israel did not have any role in detonating the huge stock of ammonium nitrate warehoused at Beirut port, the explosion presents an opportunity that Israel and its allies are eager not to waste.
“The question for Israel now is can this unfortunate disaster be used to change the balance of power in Lebanon, and encourage/inspire the Lebanese people to turn against Hizballah and remove it from power,” The Jerusalem Post’s Katz observed.
The first stage, apparently, is a campaign of baseless rumors and outright lies that Hizballah was responsible for the port explosion.
This tweet, for instance, came from a propaganda organization linked to Israel’s strategic affairs ministry:
There is absolutely no evidence for its claim that “the explosion stemmed from a storehouse of Hizballah munitions.”
Israeli and pro-Israeli social media accounts have continued to spread similar propaganda:
Outlawing support for resistance
To be sure, Israel has allies within Lebanon and in the region: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both firmly on Israel’s side.
And European states – under Israeli and American pressure – are edging towards making it illegal to even support the notion that Lebanese people have a right to resist invasion and occupation by Israel.
When Germany recently outlawed what it claims is Hizballah activity on its territory, its interior ministry justified this by asserting that the group opposes “the concept of international understanding.”
Hizballah “openly calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist,” the ministry said.
In other words, disagreeing that Israel has a “right” to invade and occupy your country is now a thought crime in Germany.
Israel’s campaign to push for more political persecution of those who question its “right” to invade, occupy, colonize and kill as it pleases will continue.
And there is no doubt that European countries, especially France, will be partners in the effort to re-colonize Lebanon.
So why then did the American Jewish Committee delete its tweet?
According to a tweet it put out Monday, AJC claimed that the deleted tweet had not met the Israel lobby group’s “standard of nuance.”
It is more likely however that the tweet was simply too harshly honest about Israel’s agenda.
It was not in tune with the current propaganda message that Israel – which has killed and injured tens of thousands of people during its repeated efforts to destroy Lebanon – now only wants to help.
Israeli army again renews detention of BDS coordinator
Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 10 August 2020
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-army-again-renews-detention-bds-coordinator
An Israeli military court on Sunday extended for another eight days the detention of Mahmoud Nawajaa.
Nawajaa, the coordinator of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, was seized from his home near Ramallah by Israeli occupation forces in a night raid on 30 July.
Since then Israel has been holding him without charge or trial and is denying him access to a lawyer.
Addameer, the prisoners rights group whose lawyer is representing Nawajaa, said on Monday that it has filed a petition with Israel’s high court seeking to overturn the ban on him seeing a lawyer – which the military court extended until at least 11 August.
Previously, on 2 August, the Israeli military court extended Nawajaa’s detention for up to 15 days at the request of Israel’s Shin Bet secret police.
Prisoner of conscience
“This further extension of the illegal detention of Mahmoud by Israel’s military court system, which is notorious for its near 100 percent conviction rate of Palestinians, proves once more that only sustained international pressure, coupled with internal popular struggle, can help Palestinians achieve liberation from Israel’s apartheid and colonial system,” Stephanie Adams said on behalf of Palestine’s BDS National Committee.
The Ireland-based human rights group Front Line Defenders said on Monday that “Mahmoud Nawajaa’s family and colleagues are seriously concerned regarding his well-being as they have not heard from him since his arrest on 30 July.”
Last week, Amnesty International demanded that Israel release Nawajaa “immediately and unconditionally.”
“He has been detained solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association and is therefore a prisoner of conscience,” the group added.
While the European Union stopped short of demanding Nawajaa’s release, it said that his detention inside Israel is unlawful.
“Transferring a prisoner to detention facilities outside the occupied Palestinian territories is a violation of article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” the bloc’s spokesperson told The Electronic Intifada.
EU dithering
It is notable that the EU statement sent directly to The Electronic Intifada came a full eight days after Nawajaa’s arrest, and after repeated requests.
No EU social media accounts have shared the statement or expressed any concern about Nawajaa’s arrest.
As Mick Wallace, a member of the European Parliament from Ireland, noted, the EU’s silence is in sharp contrast with its swift response to the arrest in Hong Kong on Monday of Jimmy Lai, the billionaire media mogul who bankrolls US-backed protesters.
Despite the EU’s recalcitrance, there are growing calls from parliamentarians, trade unions and solidarity groups for Nawajaa’s release – many using the hashtag #FreeMahmoud.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is urging the government of Ireland to respond to Israel’s arrest of Nawajaa, including by imposing “lawful, targeted sanctions to end Israel’s regime of oppression of the Palestinian people.”
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