Author: asa

Syrians in occupied Golan furious about Israel’s alliance with al-Qaeda

On the Druze rebellion against Israel’s alliance with al-Qaida in Syria:

This week, the highest level confirmation to date of Israeli aid to al-Qaeda-allied rebels came from none other than Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon. “Israel conditions its assistance to the Syrian rebels on its border on their commitment not to hurt the Druze minority in Syria,” Israeli media source i24 reported Yaalon as stating.

Perhaps inadvertently confirming what many already know, Yaalon was under pressure from Israel’s own Druze minority who have been up in arms about both Nusra’s massacres of their co-religionists in Syria, and Israel’s aid to those very same violent fanatics.

Read the whole article over at MEMO.

The Likudnik Saudi royals

On the continuation of the Israeli-Saudi counter-revolutionary alliance:

The alliance is become so open, that other commentators have started to take notice.

Last year, in the midst of the brutal Israeli war against Gaza the editor of Middle East EyeDavid Hearst called it an “alliance forged in blood”. He pointed to reports that Israel had specified a “role for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the demilitarisation of Hamas” – that is that Saudi and Emirati funds would be “used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged”.

Taking the Saudi lead, other Gulf tyrants too have forged ahead with commercial, intelligence and diplomatic links with Israel. Investigative reporter Rori Donaghy in December revealed regular semi-covert flights on private jets between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. And in February he detailed how an Israeli company had been contracted to install a huge spy system in the Gulf emirate.

In April, Robert Parry, the reporter who broke much of the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, claimed that, drawing on an anonymous US source, the Saudis have given the Israelis $16 billion over the last two and a half years in order to cement this anti-Iranian alliance.

Read the rest over at MEMO.

Israel punishes Palestinian teens to deter protest

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On young Palestinian political prisoners:

According to Israel’s own figures, 99.7 percent of Palestinians brought before Israel’s ridiculous military courts system are convicted. Hence Khattab was sent down and spent months in jail.

It is well worth noting the reason the military judge gave for refusing to release this brave teen, whose only “crime” was protesting Israeli injustice against her people.

According Miriam Barghouti, another young Palestinian activist unjustly imprisoned by Israel, the judge refused to even consider releasing her to house arrest, stating: “looking at her, I can see the characteristics of a leader”.

Read the rest over at MEMO.

Israel’s new war against BDS

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On the new phase in Israel’s campaign to sabotage BDS:

As Israel ramps-up its fight against BDS, the increasingly shrill nature of the warnings coming from Jerusalem raise serious concerns about potentially fatal actions Israel could may begin to take against BDS activists (especially Palestinians). If that sounds alarmist, consider the words of new Likud member of parliament Anat Berko. She is a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, and this week formed a lobby in the Knesset specifically to target BDS. In an interview she said that the “BDS movement against Israel is also a weapon. It is a form of terrorism and it should be fought against just like we fight against terrorism.”

Implicit in that ludicrous description of the purely non-violent BDS movement as “terrorism” is a threat to assassinate and kidnap leaders of the BDS movement. After all, that is how Israel treats Palestinian resistance fighters – those it terms “terrorists”. This designation of BDS as “terrorism” is another proof that when Israel terms Palestinian resistance as terrorism, it is not a serious description, but an opposition to any form of basic Palestinian human rights or existence.

Read the rest over at MEMO.

Why is Israel aiding al-Qaida in Syria?

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At the risk of becoming a broken record, here is another article I wrote on the Israeli-al-Qaeda alliance in Syria:

Why are they doing this? Has Israeli suddenly converted to Wahhabism? Have they suddenly developed an affinity for the theories of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri? Do they seriously consider credible the promises last week from Nusra Front leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani not to use Syria as a base from which to attack the West?

Of course not. Indeed, it is precisely in Israel’s self-interest for civil war in Syria to continue for as long as possible.

Divide and rule is the classic imperial strategy, one that the British and French empires ruthlessly pursued in the region for decades, and America has continued as the current imperial hegemon (particularly during its direct occupation of Iraq). And despite occasional important differences with the United States, Israel is, in many respects, the spear tip of imperial interests in the region.

Read the rest over at Jacobin magazine.

I talk to Antiwar Radio about Israel’s alliance with al-Qaida

I talked to Scott Horton, the host of Antiwar Radio in the US. I can’t seem to embed the audio play, but you can just follow this link to stream or download the segment. The main article I wrote about the topic, which I refer to in the interview, is here.

Egypt in the hands of a death-sentence regime

On the Egyptian military regime’s spree of death sentences:

Since then, the coup regime has only felt itself more empowered to entrench its control, imprisoning dissidents and critics on the flimsiest of pretexts. These have included many Muslim Brotherhood leaders, but also secular and leftist critics like Alaa Abd El Fattah, who an Egyptian court outrageously sentenced to five years in jail earlier this year for the crime of organizing protests.

More recently, feeling more and more emboldened by tacit support from its American sponsors, the coup regime has been on a grotesque spree of handing out death sentences to many of its imprisoned critics. Egypt is now in danger of becoming a death sentence regime.

Read the whole thing over at MEMO.

Why is the media ignoring Israel’s alliance with al-Qaeda?

Summarizing all we have learned so far about Israel’s alliance with al-Qaida in Syria, along with the latest revelations:

In the video, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Itzik Malka claims of the 1,600 wounded he said have arrived in Israel from Syria, “the majority are women, children and elderly people” (my emphasis). That’s another implicit acknowledgement that Israel is treating wounded militants from Syria (the majority of whom in that area are al-Qaeda). And Ben Yishai himself in the article accompanying the footage states that “wounded Syrians have been arriving almost daily to the security fence, seeking medical help. It is likely that most if not all of these nationals are rebels from the rival jihadist Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups”.

Read the whole thing over at MEMO.

The new annual conference for Israeli warmongers

On the Shurat HaDin conference:

The Jerusalem conference, focused on “lawfare”, was titled “Towards a new law of war” and was organized by Shurat HaDin, the so-called “Israel Law Centre”. As documents leaked by whistle-blower Chelsea Manning revealed, and as I reported in 2013, Shurat HaDin is in fact a proxy group for the Mossad, Israel’s deadly global spy agency.

The Mossad, and other Israeli intelligence and military agencies, utilise Shurat HaDin to pursue cases in global courts that it may be politically inconvenient to do so directly.

Read the whole thing over at MEMO.

Hamas is keeping ISIS at bay in Gaza

On the lie of Israeli “Hamas = ISIS = al-Qaida” propaganda:

ISIS (which began as a branch of al-Qaeda before going off on its own tangent) by way of contrast envisions an “Islamic” supra-state which would stretch over the whole Levant, or Greater Syria region, as well as Iraq.

Al-Qaeda, despite the historic rhetoric from Osama bin Laden about the plight of the Palestinians, has long condemned Hamas as apostate movement for its nationalism, and for participation in democratic elections. ISIS seems to be following along the same path, and is now stretching these rhetorical attacks into armed attacks,

Since 2007, Hamas, elected to power in 2006, has had a firm grip on the coastal strip in terms of security. It has met and bested several security challenges over the years from different sources.

Read the whole thing over at MEMO.

The Saudi War on Democracy

My latest piece for Jacobin Magazine; on Yemen.

So if Iranian influence isn’t the overriding factor, what is really behind the Saudi war on Yemen? The former United Nations envoy to Yemen, who was responsible for negotiations in the country until recently, revealed that the warring factions were on the brink of a power-sharing deal just before the war began. The Saudi-led war on the country aborted those talks.

As Jamal Benomar told the Wall Street Journal, “When this campaign started, one thing that was significant but went unnoticed is that the Yemenis were close to a deal that would institute power-sharing with all sides, including the Houthis.”

…

According to an anonymous diplomat speaking to the Wall Street Journal, “the Saudis also intervened to prevent a power-sharing deal that would include the Houthis and that would give 30% of the cabinet and parliament to women.”

Hadi, on the other hand, came to power in an election in which he was the only candidate.

Read the whole thing here.