Colluding in war crimes: Britain's unreported military alliance with Israel

The reality of British military and intelligence support for Israel, and how this facilitates Israeli aggression, is being ignored in the British media

Britain’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, recently visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pledging to increase trade and investment between the two countries, which already stands at a record $9bn.

While more than 230 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more injured by Israeli forces since March, London’s ties with Tel Aviv are growing ever stronger.

Yet, I cannot find a single article in the British “mainstream” media noting the depth of supportive UK policies towards Israel. This media blackout is allowing Britain to continue backing Israeli aggression in the occupied territories with impunity.

Arms as usual

In 2016 and 2017, when Theresa May has been prime minister, the UK sold £402m worth of military goods to Israel, including components for combat aircraft, tanks, drones and military communications. As Prince William visited Israel in late June, the UK approved export licences for 34 types of military-related equipment.

These arms exports have been authorised while Palestinians risk their lives in the Great March of Return demonstrations on the perimeter fence between Gaza and Israel. Some 33 children were among those killed, alongside more than 24,000 Palestinians injured. Dozens of people have had limbs amputated, including 15 children, while the UN reports that 1,200 patients will require long-term limb reconstruction.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/uk-support-allows-israel-commit-crimes-impunity-734227517

The world condemns Israel

My opinion of the terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu is well known and I have expressed it several times in my articles. Today I will refer back to the UN and six resolutions against Israel that were supported by the international organisation’s member states.

The most important resolution is related to Jerusalem and it rejects Israel’s sovereignty over the Holy City by 148 votes to 11, with 14 abstentions.

There was another resolution on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It was supported by 156 countries and opposed by eight with 12 abstentions. The resolution speaks of the Haram Al-Sharif and does not refer to the Temple Mount, as Israel calls it.

Israel dug under the Haram Al-Sharif and found neither a first, second or third temple. All of these are myths that are baseless in history and geography.

There was also a resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, which was backed by 99 countries with ten countries against and 66 abstentions.

The United States, Canada and Australia opposed these six resolutions, which are a part of about 20 resolutions against Israel adopted by the United Nations each year.

An Israeli UN representative attacked support for the resolutions against Israel and talked about the relationship of the Jews and Christians to the alleged Temple Mount. There is absolutely nothing related to the Jews in the Haram Al-Sharif, but the Christian presence is known and there is cooperation between the Christian churches in Jerusalem and the House of Fatwas against Israel’s lies.

The European Union voted in favour of the two main resolutions on Jerusalem but requested a change of wording regarding the holy sites.

I reiterate, perhaps for the thousandth time, that Christian and Islamic connections were written about within less than ten years of the miracles of Jesus Christ and the revelation that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), while the apparent Jewish links were written a thousand years later.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181207-the-world-condemns-israel/

The relentless censorship of anti-Zionist Jews

Tony Greenstein is slowly but surely being disappeared from the internet. A renowned anti-Zionist Jew who has long been active in the Palestine solidarity movement and on the wider political left, Greenstein is being censored by powerful American internet companies. In the latest incident, his account on Twitter has been “suspended”, the company’s misleading euphemism for “deleted”.

This means that not only is Greenstein no longer allowed to post on the influential social media platform, but also that everything he ever posted on Twitter is no longer available to view. Go onto Twitter now and type in @TonyGreenstein – his former “handle” – and you’ll see nothing but a cryptic message.

His forced disappearance is yet another reminder of the incredible power that a handful of Silicon Valley companies has over our de facto online public spaces. Increasingly, these near-monopolies side with the anti-Palestinian, pro-Israel apartheid narrative. That very much seems to have been the case with Tony Greenstein’s “suspension” from Twitter.

Writing for the US site Mondoweiss and in an interview with The Canary, Greenstein provided evidence that his opposition to Israeli war crimes was the reason for Twitter deleting his account. It started with his response to tweets by the Jewish Leadership Council, an adamantly anti-Palestinian group based in North London.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181206-the-relentless-censorship-of-anti-zionist-jews/

THREE whistleblowers hand over hundreds of documents 'showing the Clinton Foundation misused funds and made quid-pro-quo promises to donors about access to Hillary'

Mark Meadows, who is involved in a probe into the Clinton Foundation, says three people have come forward with hundreds of pages of potential evidence

Says they hint at a misuse of funds and quid-pro-quo promises made to donors

It was also revealed that another whistleblower gave 6,000 pages to the FBI

Investigative hearing will take place in the House of Representatives next week

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6470709/Whistleblowers-hand-hundreds-documents-Clinton-Foundation-wrongdoing.html

RAISING TAXES ON POOR IS A ‘GOOD THING FOR THOSE PEOPLE’ – BILLIONAIRE MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

Left leaning billionaire Michael Bloomberg says he would like to hike taxes on low-income citizens in his crusade against sugary drinks. He says it’s a “good thing for those people.”

Bloomberg says he wants to decide on what is good for low-income people. “The question is do you want to pander to those people? Or do you want to get them to live longer? There’s just no question,” he said.

“If you raise taxes on full sugary drinks, for example, they will drink less and there’s just no question that full sugar drinks are one of the major contributors to obesity and obesity is one of the major contributors to heart disease and cancer and a variety of other things,” he said at the IMF discussion panel talking to the IMF Chief Chrisine Lagarde.

The billionaire went on to compare the US army with the coal industry. “We have a lot of soldiers in the United States in the US Army, but we don’t want to go start a war just to give them something to do and that’s exactly what you’re saying when you say ‘well, let’s keep coal killing people because we don’t want coal miners to lose their jobs.’”

“The truth of the matter is that there aren’t very many coal miners left anyways and we can find other things for them to do. But the comparison is: a life or a job. Or, taxes or life? Which do you want to do? Take your poison.”

Bloomberg has been a fierce proponent of soda taxes. Last year, he spent $3 million on an advertising campaign that backs a Chicago-area soda tax. When he was a New York City mayor, he tried to ban super-sized sugary drinks in the city, but failed.

He has also criticized the recent tax cuts by US President Donald Trump. Bloomberg believes they are an “economically indefensible blunder” and will not lead to significantly higher wages and growth.

http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/raising-taxes-on-poor-is-a-good-thing-for-those-people-billionaire-michael-bloomberg/

Pax Americana: Pompeo tells UN, WTO, ICC to bow and comply with US-led world order

The US will lead a new liberal world order, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared. Organizations and treaties not fitting this picture must be scrapped or reformed, so that non-compliers could not use them against America.

The vision of the bold new and prosperous (for the US and its supporters) world was delivered by Pompeo in a keynote speech to the German Marshall Fund on Tuesday.

The senior member of the Donald Trump administration said a multilateral approach is failing to produce a world of unrestricted capitalism, so the US should rule supreme – sorry, assume a leadership role – to ensure that countries like China didn’t try to offer an alternative way.

China, as well as Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other nations on the US grudge list got their share of bashing in the speech, but its focus was more on international institutions, which Pompeo claimed to be incompatible with his grand vision.

The UN is a vehicle for regional powers to “collude” and vote in bad actors into the Human Rights Council. “Bad actors” are of course not Saudi Arabia. The World Bank and the International Monetary fund are in the way of private lenders. The EU is good, but Brexit should be a wake-up call for its bureaucracy, which doesn’t know how good nationalism actually is. The International Criminal Court is “rogue” because it attempts to hold Americans accountable for crimes in Afghanistan.

The Paris Agreement on climate change was bad for America, so it left. NAFTA was bad for America, so it forced a renegotiation. The nuclear deal with Iran didn’t make Tehran complacent, so it had to go.

But what organization was a good boy and doesn’t deserve a piece of coal from Uncle Sam? SWIFT was. The banking communications organization caved in to Washington and cut off Iranians from its system, so it has a place in the bright new world of US leadership.

Watch Murad Gazdiev’s report about Pompeo’s “new liberal order” to find out more.

https://www.rt.com/news/445731-new-pax-americana-pompeo/

Flynn Drops the Hammer on Washington Post Reporter: “You Are an Accomplice to a Crime” Against Trump

https://truepundit.com/flynn-drops-the-hammer-on-washington-post-reporter-you-are-an-accomplice-to-a-crime-against-trump/

60 Minutes Interview That George Soros Tried To Have Banned (Video)

OPEC countries agree to reduce oil production

VIENNA, December 7. /TASS/. After several hours of negotiations, OPEC countries agreed to reduce oil production in 2019, the Iranian agency Shana reported, citing a participant in the meeting.

"OPEC members have finally reached an agreement on reducing the total volume of production after hours of negotiations," the agency said.

According to Bloomberg, OPEC recommends reducing production by all OPEC + countries by 1.2 million barrels per day.

The price of futures contract for Brent crude for delivery in February 2019 on London’s ICE increased by 4.9% to $63.18 per barrel after the news about OPEC agreements to reduce oil production.Thus, the price of oil reaches $62.95 adding 4.6%.

Earlier it was reported that the meeting of the ministers of the OPEC + alliance has begun in Vienna. At the meeting the reduction of oil production will be discussed with Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries not included in the cartel.

Negotiations on the levels of production at OPEC + in Vienna are held from December 5.

According to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, "these are the hardest negotiations that have ever been."

The OPEC meeting on Thursday lasted six hours and ended without any specific agreements. However the main scenario still envisages a reduction of 1 million barrels per day for all OPEC participants +. October 2018 was preliminary chosen as the benchmark month.

The stumbling points at the meeting on Thursday include the determination of oil production cut quotas for OPEC countries as well as exemptions from oil cuts for such countries as Iran, Venezuela (both under sanctions), and Libya and Nigeria (both were able not to cut production in 2017).

Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who is now taking part in the meeting, earlier discussed Russia's participation in production cuts with President Vladimir Putin.

According to Reuters, Russia is already ready to cut production by 200,000 barrels, and not by 150,000, as previously reported. Before the OPEC+ meeting, Novak held bilateral meetings with Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Saudi counterpart Khalid al-Falih.

Earlier, Al-Falih said that under the baseline scenario, the parties are discussing a reduction in production by 1 mln barrels per day for all members of the alliance from the level of October 2018 for a period of more than six months.

http://tass.com/economy/1034945

NYT Reports U.S. Murder Rate for 2018 'On Track for a Big Drop,' Doesn't Mention Trump Ending 'War On Cops'

Apparently, it's just a coincidence that the murder rate is rapidly dropping after President Donald Trump ended Barack Obama's "War on Cops."

From The New York Times:

The murder rate in the United States in 2018 is on track for the largest one-year drop in five years.

The numbers obviously aren't final, and the F.B.I. won't formally report 2018's murder figures until September 2019.

But based on a comparison of 2017 data and 2018 data for 66 large American cities (population over 250,000), we can observe the trend as it is occurring and offer a reasonable forecast. (The 2018 data I've collected is available here).

Murder rose 23 percent nationally between 2014 and 2016 before leveling off in 2017. Major increases in murder in Chicago and Baltimore received much of the national attention, but the increase occurred throughout the country.

In the cities in which data is available, murder has been down about 7 percent on average this year relative to the same point in 2017.

It's just a coincidence those are the cities where the Black Lives Matter movement had the biggest impact.

If these big cities end the year down about 7 percent from 2017, and if big cities tend to overstate the national trend by about 2.4 percentage points on average, murder should be down by around 4 percent to 5 percent nationally this year.

So far this year, murder in Chicago is down 17 percent in 2018 relative to 2017, accounting for about a third of the drop in the sample. Murder is also down substantially in cities like Baltimore; Charlotte, N.C.; Louisville, Ky.; and Memphis, which all experienced large rises in murder from 2014 to 2016/2017.

According to the Times, the cause for the drop is an eternal mystery:

Tracking the change in murder nationally is far easier than explaining why it’s happening. There is still no consensus on why murder rose nationally in 2015 and 2016, though various theories have been proposed, including simple randomness. Similarly, a projected drop in murder in 2018 would not have an obvious cause. Employment of smarter technologies, expanded community intervention programs, and even colder weather could help explain year-to-year local changes.

No doubt it was "simple randomness!"

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=59509

Yemen Rivals Lash Out as Peace Talks Prepare to Open

Pro-Saudi forces reiterate demands for Houthis to disarm and surrender

Yemen’s high profile peace talks in Sweden are set to open, but already look to be on the brink of collapse, with both sides lashing out at one another, and Houthi officials openly questioning whether the talks are even serious and worth pursuing.

The big stumbling block is that, having finally gotten both sides to the table to discuss a settlement of the multi-year war, the pro-Saudi Hadi government reiterated the same demands they had at the start of the war, insisting that the Houthis unconditionally disarm, and cede the city of Hodeidah to them.

The Houthis are being a bit more modest in their goals, focusing on trying to get the Sanaa International Airport reopened to civilian traffic. They’d also like Hodeidah to remain open to aid, though that’s a matter the UN is already pushing hard for without them.

Though every side went into these talks expressing support for a peace process that would end the war, the Hadi government has continued to make it clear their demands are an unconditional victory, and as ever that is putting a roadblock in front of serious efforts to start making a permanent deal.

https://news.antiwar.com/2018/12/06/yemen-rivals-lash-out-as-peace-talks-prepare-to-open/