Israel never loses an opportunity to promote what it perceives to be its interests. That any nation would do just that most of the time should surprise no one, but Israel is perhaps unique in terms of how assiduously it works at creating situations that favor it through the use of corruption of foreign governments and subversion of existing institutions. For most countries, the actions of a minority that seeks to advance the interests of a foreign nation would face strong resistance, but Israel manages to get away with what it does due to the presence of powerful and wealthy diaspora communities, most particularly in the Anglophone countries, but also in France.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday his country will do "everything" to prevent arch-rival Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, during a visit by a senior Russian security official.

"Israel will not allow Iran, which calls for our destruction, to entrench on our border; we will do everything to prevent it from attaining nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said.

He was speaking alongside Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Moscow's powerful security council, whose visit followed weeks of simmering tensions between Tehran and Washington in the Gulf.

Gil Maguire has lately published a thriller titled “The Exodus Betrayal: A President Confronts Israel” as an answer to Leon Uris’s 1958 novel “Exodus” that along with the movie version by Otto Preminger starring Paul Newman was so important in shaping American attitudes towards Israel in the 1960’s. If “Exodus” dramatized the liberation of Jews from European persecution, “The Exodus Betrayal” imagines an American president freeing this country from its slavish support for Israel. President Hailey Hannagan refuses to cater to Israel and its domestic lobby when it attacks Iran, to the point that Israel and the U.S. exchange hostilities and the president’s life is threatened. The alternative narrative goes on to envision real negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, brought about by ultimatums to Israel. But we won’t give too much away.

Maguire has contributed articles and comments to our site; I asked him a number of questions about his story and he responded by email.

A few days ago the BBC reported on an extraordinary French identity theft scam. For two years starting in late 2015, an individual or individuals impersonating France's defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, scammed an estimated €80m from wealthy French patriots.

The victims of this fraud were tricked into believing that they were being contacted by France’s Defence Minister who was requesting money to help pay ransom for journalists held hostage by Islamists in the Middle East. Since France officially does not pay ransom to terrorists, the fake minster assured the victims that payments could not be traced and asked for the funds to be wired to a bank in China.

The BBC deemed the operation “one of the most outlandish and successful rackets of recent times.”

Over the weekend, the White House released “Peace to Prosperity,” the economic component of its so-called Deal of the Century.

It calls for $50 billion in “investments” spread over 179 projects. Half the money would be spent on Palestinian infrastructure over 10 years, with the rest spread between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

It will supposedly include a $5 billion transportation corridor between the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and another $2 billion in the Palestinian tourism sector.

Calls for the annexation of the Occupied West Bank are gaining momentum in both Tel Aviv and Washington. But Israel and its American allies should be careful what they wish for. Annexing the Occupied Palestinian Territories will only reinforce the current rethink of the Palestinian strategy, as opposed to solving Israel’s self-induced problems.

Encouraged by the Donald Trump administration’s decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israeli government officials feel that the time for annexing the entirety of the West Bank is now.

In fact, “there is no better time than now” was the exact phrase used by former Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, as she promoted annexation at a recent New York conference.

According to documents released by the White House, the economic aspect of Donald Trump’s peace plan between Palestine and Israel includes granting $9 billion to Egypt, half of which is in the form of soft loans.

The documents revealed that $50 billion will be dedicated to the economic part of the deal of the century, which will be invested in the revival of the Palestinian territories, as well as Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

The US President’s advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner will announce the details of the first phase of the peace plan during the workshop on “Peace for Prosperity” in Manama, Bahrain, on 25 and 26 June.

Hanna Issa, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Secretary-General for the Islamic-Christian Council for Jerusalem and the Holy Places, has announced that the number of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) has reached 503, with 474 located in the West Bank and 29 in East Jerusalem.

In a press release today, Issa also stated that the illegal settlers living in these settlements number over one million, adding that the settler population is increasing at a far higher rate than the population growth rate of Israel itself.

The number of rape and sexual harassment cases among Israeli soldiers has increased by 20 per cent during the past two years.

The Israeli military police opened 158 investigation cases related to physical and verbal sexual harassment in 2018, Shehab reported yesterday, citing a broadcast by Israel’s Army Radio.

In July 2018, Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post reported a 43 per cent increase in complaints related to sexual harassment among the Israeli army during the past five years.

To be sure, Thursday was meant to be the start of the US-Iran War which hawks have been trying to piece together for generations. Trump ordered the attack, but ultimately, called it off a mere 10 minutes from a strike.

What had been a subject of debate was now USA Today accusing Trump of “not following through.” As concerning as blundering into a huge war in the Middle East had been, the new talking point was Trump showing weakness, and per Kori Schake of the Atlantic, damaging “America’s credibility.”

America can, after all, usually be counted on to react hastily, and stumble into what are in retrospect unfortunate wars. That Trump managed to just barely avoid the siren’s song of war was outside the expectation of American allies, and now they don’t know what to think. NBC News was quick to accuse Trump of “indecision” and declared it would “embolden Iran.”

The British government licensed arms deals worth over £14m ($17.8m) to Israel last year even as Israeli soldiers were accused of intentionally firing on Palestinian protesters at the Gaza border in what the UN says may be potential war crimes.

Weapons approved for sale included ammunition, components for assault rifles, and other types of arms which could be used for repression, according to newly released details from the Department of International Trade (DIT), compiled by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

Israeli agent John Bolton is already in Israel conferring with Netanyahu. It is a safe bet that a more serious false flag attack is being planned that will force Trump to save face by attacking Iran.

Analysts have rebuked the economic part of the United States's Middle East peace plan for failing to address the main problem that has heavily curbed the Palestinian economy - the 52-year-old Israeli military occupation over the Palestinian territories.

The economic plan was released by the White House on Saturday and is set to be presented during a US-led workshop in Bahrain on June 25-26.

When the document was released, many noticed that the 40-page plan was void of any political context with the words "occupation", "freedom", "equality", "blockade" missing.

"The absence of those words is actually quite glaring and it's very indicative of what they see is the issue," Diana Buttu, a Haifa-based analyst and former legal adviser to Palestinian peace negotiators, told Al Jazeera.

SOURCE: RT

Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Sunday toured the West Bank with John Bolton, said he will listen to US peace proposals – but added that “any future agreement” with Palestine must guarantee an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley.
Footage posted on Sunday showed Israel’s prime minister and the US national security adviser overlooking the Israeli-occupied area from an aircraft and on the ground, with Netanyahu seen giving Bolton an excursion.

Speaking English on camera standing next to Bolton, the PM rammed the message home that Israel will not be leaving the area under any deal, saying it ensures “the minimal strategic depth and strategic height for the defense of our country.”

Netanyahu was also adamant that the Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley “guarantees stability and security for the entire region,” and that the IDF leaving the occupied Palestinian lands would result in “war and terror.”

The White House published the economic section of its peace plan for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dubbed the "deal of the century". The teased plan suggests investing $50 billion over 10 years to boost the Palestinian Authority's economy, but gives no hints about political solutions to the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has slammed the US for palnning to use secretely-developed ideas to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignoring the existing international agreements.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has welcomed Washington’s intentions to impose additional sanctions on Iran.

"Thanks to crippling American sanctions, Iran is facing unprecedented economic pressure as a result of its aggression. So I was pleased to hear President Trump make clear yesterday that pressure will continue and that pressure will increase", Netanyahu said during a joint press conference with US National Security Adviser John Bolton ahead of the security summit between the United States, Israel and Russia.

The statement comes after US President Donald Trump said on 22 June that new "major" sanctions would be imposed on Iran on 24 June.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Sunday toured the West Bank with John Bolton, said he will listen to US peace proposals – but added that “any future agreement” with Palestine must guarantee an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley.

Footage posted on Sunday showed Israel’s prime minister and the US national security adviser overlooking the Israeli-occupied area from an aircraft and on the ground, with Netanyahu seen giving Bolton an excursion.

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Tensions in the Persian Gulf are reaching a point of no return. In recent weeks, six oil tankers have been subjected to Israeli sabotage disguised to look like Iranian attacks to induce the United States to take military action against the Islamic Republic. Some days ago Iran rightfully shot out of the sky a US Drone. In Yemen, the Houthis have finally started responding with cruise and ballistic missiles to the Saudis’ indiscriminate attacks, causing damage to the Saudi international airport of Abha, as well as blocking, through explosive drones, Saudi oil transportation from east to west through one of the largest pipelines in the world.

Foxtrot, the movie that Israel doesn’t want you to see.

Since Donald Trump decided not to attack Iran Thursday, it has been stated again and again that the American people don’t want another war in the Middle East. NPR says so, PBS says so, the Washington Post says the Congress is “war-weary,” the Times notes the considerable support Trump has gotten from Republicans; and even Lindsey Graham has backed Trump’s decision. So do Democratic liberals and centrists and Nancy Pelosi.

Trump himself said a war with Iran is unpopular when he told his Orlando rally Thursday that great nations don’t fight “endless wars,” and he was removing troops and putting “America first.”

The reasonable question here is, Who wants a war with Iran, and why do they want it? The answer is, far-right Republicans like Adam Kinzinger, Tom Cotton, and Liz Cheney who say it’s a sign of weakness not to attack Iran. And the Israel lobby, which wants the U.S. to take on Israel’s regional rival.

The Jerusalem Center of Socio and Economic Rights, Monday, warned of the escalation of Israeli demolitions in occupied Jerusalem, noting it bears the nature of a collective form of punishment. The director of the center Zeyad al-Hamouree warned, in a statement, that the Israeli municipality and civil administration are carrying out demolitions in Qalandia, Sur Baher, Silwan and al-Bustan neighborhoods. He explained that Israel plans to demolish wide parts of Palestinian facilities to build Israeli facilities, noting the Israeli plans to establish the so-called National Park in Arrababh neighborhood. He stressed, according to Al Ray, that the next phase in Jerusalem is so difficult, especially regarding residential buildings. He said that dozens of demolition orders are carried out without warning.

A $50 billion plan for Palestine’s economy that hinges on peace with Israel has been revealed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. He calls it the “opportunity of the century” but a chorus of Palestinian groups disagrees.

Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Kushner dangled the multibillion proposal separately from the central –political– part of US President Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace deal plan. He said he did so on purpose to let people “digest” the “less controversial” side of the plan before the political details finally land.

Israeli military analysts are afraid that a weak US attack on Iran could provoke an Iranian attack on Israeli interests.

Currently, Israel is worried about ongoing US-Iranian tensions and is preparing for any possible escalation which could affect its own interests.

Israeli daily Ynet yesterday reported Israeli security officials as warning that US President Donald Trump might order a limited “surgical assault” to quell Iran’s provocations. However, these officials worry that, in return, Iran might attack Israeli interests via one of its proxies in the region.

The former chief of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, Shabtai Shavit, has said that Israel does not want peace and that, if it had, it would have made peace with the Palestinian Authority (PA) long ago.

Shavit gave his remarks to Israeli daily Maariv, reiterating that if Israel wanted peace it would have discussed it in economic and infrastructure terms that serve the interests of both parties, Arab 48 reported yesterday.

However, Shavit said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not see the PA as a negotiating partner and therefore refuses to develop relations with the authority. “Do you know any other head of an Israeli government who did not talk with the Palestinians?” he asked.

Shavit also claimed that Netanyahu stopped speaking to the PA under pressure from the Israeli right-wing, who he claimed “would lynch him in the city centre” if he opened discussions today.

Hamas yesterday stressed that the Palestinians have enough power and resilience to undermine Israel.

Marking the 63rd Friday of the Great March of Return, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanou said “our people have enough power, resilience and willingness to undermine all [Israeli] projects.”

He added: “The Palestinians are sticking to their land and are able to fight all plans aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.”

As is common practice during the summer after the election of a new House of Representatives, a group of freshman Congress members will take an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel in August. The list of Democrats currently stands at twenty-three, with two more indicating that they are trying to fit the trip into their schedules.

The trips will be sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), the nonprofit arm of the powerful lobbying organization, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The goal of the trips is to promote American support for Israel despite Israel’s violations of human rights, international law, U.S. law, and discrimination against Christians and others. Lawmakers are currently considering legislation that will give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next 10 years. This amounts to $7,230 per minute, or about $23,000 per Jewish Israeli family of four.

MARY JO KILROY was elected to Congress at the height of the financial crisis, in November 2008, to represent Columbus, Ohio, and the surrounding area. She landed a seat on the Financial Services Committee, where she had a chance to address the foreclosure crisis ripping through her state, as well as to push for tougher regulation of Wall Street.

As she learned to navigate Washington during her first term, one of the more unexpected pressures she faced was about a foreign trip. It wasn’t just any congressional sojourn, but rather a trip to Israel organized by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and sponsored by the nonprofit arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. “I would say that I was ‘strongly encouraged’ to take the Steny Hoyer AIPAC trip. ‘Everyone’ is going except you,” recalled Kilroy, who resisted the pressure, telling AIPAC that she didn’t want to go on a one-sided tour of the region.

Palestinian protesters carry a wounded boy during clashes with Israeli troops on the Gaza-Israel border, east of al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, on June 21, 2019. At least 81 Palestinians were injured on Friday afternoon during clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said.

The decision by the United States to exit the Iranian nuclear agreement – signed in 2015 by Teheran with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – causes a situation of extreme danger not only in the Middle East.

To understand the implications of such decision, taken under pressure by Israel that describes the agreement as “the surrender of the West to the axis of evil led by Iran”, we must start from a precise fact: Israel has the Bomb, not Iran.

For over fifty years, Israel has been producing nuclear weapons at the Dimona plant, built with the help mainly of France and the United States. It is not subject to inspections because Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, does not adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed fifty years ago.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has pledged $20 million to establish a foundation that will fight anti-Semitism and BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement). Kraft made the announcement while in Israel accepting The Genesis Prize, a $1 million award that Time Magazine has called “the Jewish Nobel.”

The award was presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the prize is administered in partnership with Israel’s government. Like President Trump, Netanyahu has been friends with Kraft for years. “Robert Kraft fights back,” said Netanyahu, “and he’s committed to fight BDS and the slanders against Israel and to stand up for the state of Israel.”

Channel 13 says Tehran has ruled out striking at US bases; quotes Arab sources saying some in IRGC want to hit Israeli targets, others warn of ‘suicidal’ risk of conflict with US

Saudi Arabia has bought $300 million worth of spy software from Israel as part of a large scale military deal.

Senior Arab sources told Al Khaleej Online that the deal was struck without a mediator, despite the fact that the two countries do not maintain formal diplomatic relations. The sources stressed that the Saudi intelligence services have sought to obtain advanced spyware in order to trace the Kingdom’s citizens – both in the country and abroad – amidst increasing criticism of the Saudi royal family.

Saudi Arabia therefore reached out to the Israeli market and struck a deal worth $300m with representatives of Israeli firms, the sources said, adding that both sides met and reached the deal in UK capital London.

Newly-appointed Israeli transportation minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared that one of his main objectives is to ‘Judaise the Galilee’, in light of the region’s number of Palestinian citizens.

In an interview with Israel Hayom, the notorious right-wing nationalist also vowed to boost settlement infrastructure in the occupied West Bank.

Smotrich, part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties, was given the transportation ministry by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of a transitional government between elections.

The health sector in the occupied Gaza Strip is still struggling to cope with injuries sustained by protesters in Great March of Return demonstrations, according to a new update from UN OCHA.

A recently published World Health Organisation (WHO) report noted that gunshot accounted for 210 of the fatalities between 30 March 2018 and 31 March 2019, and for 6,872 injuries, or 25 per cent of the total casualty caseload over the time frame analysed.

“Although any health system in the world would be overwhelmed if it had to manage a high influx of trauma casualties every week; the most pressing concern was the staggering number of gunshot wounds”, the WHO noted.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday that the Kingdom is aware of the arrest of a Jordanian national in Israel over his alleged communication with Iran. The ministry is following up on the issue through diplomatic channels with the aim of verifying the details, ministry spokesperson Sufian Qudah added.

Israel’s Shin Bet security agency announced earlier on Thursday that the Iranian intelligence service had recruited 32-year-old Tha’er Sha’afut, a Jordanian citizen originally from Hebron, south of the West Bank.

Decades of failed talks with Israel and internal divisions have left residents more desperate than ever, and the 'deal of the century' seems unlikely to change the status quo

14-year-old Palestinian boy was forced to undergo a leg amputation after an Israeli soldier shot him as he retrieved a football near the Separation Wall in the West Bank

Recent revelations confirming the involvement of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in efforts to actively disrupt the growing movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel did not come as a surprise to pro-Palestine activists.

Gilad Erdan, the Israeli strategic affairs minister and a senior figure in Israel's fight against BDS, met Mossad head Yossi Cohen to discuss "the struggle against the boycott", according to the politician's 2018 official diary.

Israeli daily Haaretz, which first reported on the matter, did not give further details about the meeting, but said that according to Erdan's schedules, which were made public by a Freedom of Information request filed by the Israeli Hatzlaha group, the minister had also met the head of the National Security Council, as well as a number of Jewish organisations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday called on the international community to support the United States against Iran as tensions between the two countries escalated after the downing of a U.S. drone by Iran.

“In the last 24 hours Iran has intensified its aggression against the United States and against all of us. And I repeat my call for all peace-loving countries to stand by the United States in its effort to stop Iranian aggression,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Israel stands by the United States on this.”

Hundreds of Israeli settlers stormed the occupied West Bank village of Kifl Haris, preventing Palestinian Muslims from conducting evening prayers at their local Mosque and vandalising property for hours.

The mayor of Kifl Haris, located in northeast of the occupied Salfit, Essam Abu Yaqoub, told The New Arab’s Arabic-language service that Israeli settlers, backed up by heavily armed forces stormed the village just before night prayers were due, preventing Muslims attending their local mosque.

Abu Yaqub said that the settlers stormed the village to pray at tomb of Joshua and Caleb, located inside the village. He added that settlers ransacked the village, and damaged properties and vehicles of the Palestinian residents.

Hamas' chief Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday accused Israel of dragging its feet in carrying out its obligations under an indirect cease-fire for the Gaza Strip, saying the fragile deal was in danger of collapsing.

Speaking to international journalists, Haniyeh said the 2 million residents of Gaza "have not felt" any improvement in their living condition, despite what he said were Israeli pledges to ease a crippling blockade on the territory. The unofficial truce was brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the U.N. after a round of heavy fighting in May.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton will travel to Israel at the weekend for "regional security talks" with top Russian and Israeli officials, the White House said Thursday amid spiking tensions with Iran.

Bolton will meet Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed by talks with his Israeli and Russian counterparts, Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, NSC spokesman Garrett Marquis said.

Bolton also will meet with the director general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission Zeev Snir.

Whereas the OCLA and the BCCLA (and the CCLA) are distinct and separate organizations, the OCLA nonetheless also opposes the international campaign to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is targeting all levels of government in Canada, as well as universities, police, and other authorities.

In this context, the OCLA opposes the “hate speech” provisions of the Criminal Code. The said provisions are distinct from the “threat of violence”, “harassment” and “coercion” provisions, are contrary to international law, remove the State’s onus to prove actual harm to any actual specific victim, and are incompatible with democratic values. Further, the said provisions are susceptible to erosion and practical abuse from political campaigns such as the IHRA campaign.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has recognized Palestine as a state by allowing it to join the body as an observing member, a move that drew fire from the Israeli regime.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Palestinian Ambassador to Vienna Salah Abdul Shafi signed an agreement on Tuesday that lets IAEA inspectors carry out safety checks on radioactive materials and fissile nuclear materials, such as uranium, that are stored in Palestine.

Palestine has no nuclear reactors, but there are medical equipment components of nuclear materials in physics departments in some hospitals and universities, according to reports by Israeli media.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the move by the IAEA amounted to a "violation of international conventions."

The Israeli occupation has left its physical and political mark within the historic walls, with most Palestinians barred from visiting Al-Aqsa

In an interview with the New York Times, Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris said she believes Israel meets international human rights standards “overall.” The declaration comes less than a week after Israel wounded ninety-two Palestinian civilians during a weekly protest at the Gaza border, including twenty-eight children and four medics.

Harris made the comments about Israel during a New York Times feature, in which the paper asked a number of the candidates twenty-one questions. One of those questions was, “Do you think Israel meets international standards of human rights?”

Harris: I think that Israel as a country is dedicated to being a democracy, and is one of our closest friends in that region and that we should understand the shared values and priorities that we have as a democracy, and conduct foreign policy in a way that is consistent with understanding the alignment between the American people and the people of Israel.

On 31 May, 2010, Israel carried out a deadly attack on human rights activists trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. After boarding the Mavi Marmara during a dawn raid whilst it was sailing in international waters, Israeli soldiers killed nine aid workers and injured several others; one of those injured succumbed to his wounds a few years later. The assault was met with international outrage, but nine years on the victims of the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla are still seeking justice. I was on board the Mavi Marmara on that day and witnessed the ordeal of my fellow passengers. Since then, as a lawyer, I have been working closely with the victims in their quest for justice.

If Greenblatt and Erdan discussed coordinating efforts between Israel and the United States to counter BDS, then Greenblatt may be assisting a foreign government to violate a little known provision of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).

According to this provision, if the president determines that a foreign country “engaged in a consistent pattern of acts of intimidation or harassment directed against individuals in the United States,” then “no letters of offer may be issued, no credits or guarantees may be extended, and no export licenses may be issued” for the export of US arms to that country.

The defense department, which oversees the implementation of the law along with the State Department, defines AECA as the “basic US law providing the authority and general rules for the conduct of foreign military sales and commercial sales of defense articles, defense services and training.”

Two infamous anti-Palestinian activists in London pleaded guilty to charges of harassment and threatening behavior on Wednesday.

Jonathan Hoffman, a former leader in the Zionist Federation, and Damon Lenszner changed their earlier not-guilty pleas in exchange for government prosecutors dropping related assault charges.

The incident took place in October last year when the pair attacked Palestine solidarity protesters calling for the boycott of a Puma store in Carnaby Street, central London.

Hendon Magistrates’ Court, in Northwest London, imposed a fine and costs totaling $350 on Hoffman, and about $300 costs and charges on Lenszner, whose lawyer said he was unemployed.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for combating anti-Semitism has called for an armed presence at Jewish institutions across the US, insisting synagogues, schools and community centers beef up on security.

The appointee, Elan Carr, said American Jews face a “time of danger” and must take steps to protect themselves from attacks and persecution, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“Any synagogue, every JCC [Jewish community center], should have guards,” Carr told an interviewer on Wednesday at a conference in Israel. “God willing, may they never be needed, but they should be there.”

By ROSS IBBETSON FOR MAILONLINE

The US Navy says mines used to carry out a Gulf tanker attack 'bear a striking resemblance' to those used by Iran, as investigators retrieve fingerprints from the ship.

The Navy today displayed limpet mine fragments and a magnet removed from a Japanese vessel, one of two oil tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman last Thursday.

'The limpet mine that was used in the attack is distinguishable and also strikingly bearing a resemblance to Iranian mines that have already been publicly displayed in Iranian military parades,' said Commander Sean Kido at the Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), near the Fujairah port in the UAE.

He added that fingerprints retrieved from the stricken Japanese vessel would be used to mount a criminal case.

With Israel seeking to purge public spaces of its critics, the decision by the New York Times to ban its publication of political cartoons entirely over alleged anti-Semitism, perhaps should not have come as a surprise.

Nevertheless, few expected the 168 year old paper, with 43 million Twitter followers and a reputation for championing liberal views, to cave in as easily as it did on such an important issue as free speech, which is heralded as a pillar of democratic societies.

The capitulation of the New York Times seems even more outrageous given political cartoons’ recent history and the efforts to defend this form of expression against those who seek to silence it.

When US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman commented on Israel’s “right” to annex land in the occupied West Bank — as a dutiful Zionist he called it “Judea and Samaria” — he provided the Palestinians with an important reason for resistance to the Israeli occupation. So too does Israel’s systematic annexation policy, which is basically ethnic cleansing because the state is trying to rid itself of the Palestinians in the areas taken.

There are now 20 synagogues in occupied East Jerusalem; there will probably be more. What’s more, the Israeli Supreme Court has approved a deal for the settler organisation Ateret Cohanim to buy three buildings from the Greek Orthodox Church located in the Christian quarter of occupied Jerusalem.

The Israeli international TV channel i24 News last week aired a call for the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

“There will never, ever be a two-state solution,” British far-right demagogue Katie Hopkins stated. “Israel will become the super force here. You will have to have a one-state solution.”

But she wasn’t talking about a single state with equal rights for all.

“There will not be peace in Israel until you remove the people who don’t belong there,” Hopkins asserted.

Palestinians are calling for a boycott of the German festival that disinvited American rapper Talib Kweli because of his support for BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

Earlier this month, the Open Source Festival in the western city of Düsseldorf dropped Kweli for refusing to denounce BDS.

PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, is now calling on other artists to cancel their performances to show solidarity with Kweli.

Is there any other country on Earth with which America would dare collude on such a scale? Forget the “special relationship” with the crackpots in Britain, or the New World coming to the rescue of the Old World in the Second World War.

There’s only one special relationship that matters right now – and we all know what that is. Having given its blessing to all Jerusalem as Israeli property and having now handed Golan to Israel as a possession – for “to annex” means “to take possession”, does it not? – Donald Trump has undermined the entire foundation of “land for peace” enshrined in Security Council Resolution 242. And Israel is happy. A gift for Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election, we are told.

Israeli forces Tuesday demolished a structure and uprooted a number of olive trees in the village of Qusra, near northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to local sources.

According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israeli forces demolished a structure used for agricultural purposes.

The agricultural structure was demolished last November and its owners rebuilt it again.

According to the UN, Israel has approved only 1.5 percent of the construction building permits requested by Palestinians.

In the first move of its kind, the US will sell state-of-the-art aerial re-fuelling planes to Israel, paid for using the military aid Tel Aviv receives from America.

Israel plans to purchase eight Boeing KC-46 Pegasus aircrafts from the US to replace the Israeli Air Force’s current fleet – which includes the aging KC-130 Hercules and converted Boeing 707s – the Times of Israel reported yesterday, citing a broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 News.

The US Airforce only received the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus aircraft earlier this year, meaning their sale to Israel will mark the first time the US has agreed to sell the technology to a third party.

Israel Police withheld potentially-crucial evidence and changed their timescale of events in a case against a West Bank Palestinian who is accused of raping an Israeli child.

Earlier this year, a seven-year-old Israeli girl from an ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement was brutally raped. The girl’s name and the exact location of the settlement are currently under an Israeli court gag order, but the attack is presumed to have taken place in Modi’in Ilit, a Haredi settlement near Israel’s illegal Separation Wall.

On Monday, 46-year-old Palestinian Mahmoud Katusa – who hails from the village of Deir Qadis, next to Modi’in Ilit – was charged with her kidnap and rape. Katusa reportedly worked at the girl’s school as a maintenance worker, with the indictment against him charging that he won the girl’s trust by engaging her in conversation and giving her sweets over a prolonged period of time.

Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan yesterday praised the role played by a controversial definition of anti-Semitism in the fight against the Palestinian-led boycott campaign.

Speaking at a conference he described as “the most important gathering of the pro-Israel and anti-BDS community”, Erdan hailed the efforts being made to undermine the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign, telling delegates: “We built the network to fight the network.”

“We do have a lot to be proud of tonight,” the minister declared. “We did what we said we were going to do: We moved from defence to offense and put BDS on the defensive.”

In front of a reported 300 pro-Israel activists and “legal experts” from over 30 countries, Erdan stressed the importance of attacking BDS as “anti-Semitic”.

Newly uncovered documents have revealed that Israeli authorities began looking for ways to encourage Palestinian emigration immediately after occupying the West Bank in 1967.

According to +972 Magazine, the discovery was made by Omri Shafer Raviv, a PhD student in the Department of Jewish History at Hebrew University. The study uses official government documents from the 1967 war and its aftermath that have only recently been declassified.

The documents uncovered by Shafer Raviv show that “mere weeks” after the Six-Day War, “Israel enlisted teams of academics in the country to find ways to encourage Palestinians to emigrate from the newly occupied territories”.

In November 2016, fresh off his electoral win, US President-elect Donald Trump boasted of his intention to end the Israel-Palestine conflict by striking what he called the “ultimate deal”.

Calling it “the war that never ends”, Trump told the Wall Street Journal: “As a deal maker, I’d like to do… the deal that can’t be made. And do it for humanity’s sake.”

A billionaire property tycoon and reality TV star known for his wheeling and dealing in the New York City real estate market, this was not the first time that Trump had framed the cause of peacemaking and diplomacy in terms of a business transaction.

Asked in March 2016 during his election campaign what the best deal of his life had been, he said it had been the creation of 6,000 housing units on the West Side of Manhattan.

His interviewer then asked him what would be the best deal he could make as president.

Israel, which routinely accuses Iran of trying to obtain nuclear weapons and pledges to use force to stop Tehran, maintains its own undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated at 80 to 90, according to the latest report by SIPRI.

There are nine nations in the world that currently have nuclear weapons, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its newly released yearbook on the state of armaments and international security. The world nuclear stockpile went from 14,465 at the beginning of last year to about 13,865 this year, the report estimates, as the US and Russia were delivering on their promises under the New START Treaty signed in 2010.

Richard C. Blum, the super-wealthy American investment banker and international do-gooder, gushes when you get him on the subject of Israel.

“I love the country,” he says. “How can you not?”

It is no accident that Israel was the first place he chose outside of the United States to host one of his centers for fighting global poverty, which was the reason for his visit to the Holy Land this week.

His fixation on all the good Israel has to offer the world might surprise those who know his wife: For almost 40 years Blum has been married to California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, currently the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate and an outspoken critic of this Israeli government. It is his second marriage and her third.

In a June 16 interview with Axios on HBO, South Bend Mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said he’d keep the US embassy in Jerusalem if he was elected. The comments came just one week after Buttigieg publicly denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to annex sections of the West Bank and said there were signs that Israel’s government was “turning away from peace.”

In December 2017, President Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that generated protests and criticism throughout the world. Prime Minister Netanyahu celebrated the decision, referring to Trump’s announcement as a “historic landmark.” In May 2018, the U.S. government moved its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. No other country has one in the city, as the international community does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the entire area.

Israel’s Supreme Court yesterday gave the green light for the state to demolish 13 apartment blocks built in “Area A” of the occupied West Bank, but which now lie inside the route of the illegal Separation Wall.

According to Haaretz, Palestinians say that the ruling “sets a precedent that will enable the demolition of thousands of buildings in the West Bank”.

The court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, backed the state’s argument that the buildings do not have the required permits, and thus can be demolished. The buildings contain roughly 100 apartments, 20 of which are already inhabited and the rest are under construction.

The buildings are in Wadi Hummus which is located on the edge of Sur Baher, in southeast Jerusalem. As described by Haaretz, “unlike the rest of the village, this neighbourhood lies beyond the city’s municipal boundaries, in the West Bank”. Most is designated “Area A”, under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report that despite maintaining a long-term policy of not commenting on its nuclear arsenal, Israel is believed to own between 80 and 90 nuclear warheads.

By the start of 2019, nine countries, namely the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea possessed as many as 13,865 nuclear heads, of which 3,750 are operational and an estimated 2,000 are being kept in a state of alert, the report added.

Israeli circles have demanded that a large-scale military naval operation be carried out in Gaza to respond to the growing military capabilities of Hamas, provided that it would surprise Hamas and exploit the soft belly of Gaza, specifically the western side of Gaza’s coast on the Mediterranean Sea.

I will discuss Israel’s warnings about Hamas’s growing naval capabilities, its readiness to confront them, the movement’s combative capabilities in the face of an Israeli maritime invasion, and Israel’s purposes for the marine operations.

Israeli reports are increasingly concerned about Hamas’ naval commando units, which have successfully developed strategic capabilities on the seafront. This is especially in the light of the lingering Israeli memories of Hamas’s infiltration of Zikim Beach, north of Gaza during the 2014 war.

Israel never loses an opportunity to promote what it perceives to be its interests. That any nation would do just that most of the time should surprise no one, but Israel is perhaps unique in terms of how assiduously it works at creating situations that favor it through the use of corruption of foreign governments and subversion of existing institutions. For most countries, the actions of a minority that seeks to advance the interests of a foreign nation would face strong resistance, but Israel manages to get away with what it does due to the presence of powerful and wealthy diaspora communities, most particularly in the Anglophone countries, but also in France.

A former Iranian diplomat claimed that Israel with responsible for Thursday’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, an Iranian media outlet reported.

Without offering any evidence, Hamid Reza Asefi, who served as Iran’s ambassador to France and Foreign Ministry spokesman, claimed the motive behind the attack was “clear.”

“I think the directing of such incidents in the region are done by the Zionist regime and this has no hidden dimensions,” Asefi told Iran Online in an interview cited by the Tehran Times.

Israel benefits the most from accusations against Iran, Asefi theorized, and therefore “logically the Zionist regime is the agent of this incident.”

Israeli PM had vowed to establish settlement in honour of US president after Trump recognised Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights

Every time you think the corporatocracy’s manufactured anti-Semitism hysteria cannot possibly get more absurd, they somehow manage to outdo themselves. OK, stay with me now, because this is a weird one.

Apparently, American Hitler and his cronies are conspiring with some secret group of “Jewish leaders” to stop British Hitler from becoming prime minister and wiping out all the Jews in Great Britain. Weird, right? But that’s not the weird part, because maybe American Hitler wants to wipe out all the Jews in Great Britain himself, rather than leaving it to British Hitler … Hitlers being notoriously jealous regarding their genocidal accomplishments.

When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag.

Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in September that he may struggle to win; and an attorney general who is widely expected to indict him on corruption charges shortly afterwards.

Mr Netanyahu is in an unusually tight spot, even by the standards of an often chaotic and fractious Israeli political system. After a decade in power, his electoral magic may be deserting him. There are already rumblings of discontent among his allies on the far right.

Given his desperate straits, some observers fear that he may need to pull a new kind of rabbit out of the hat.

Semiconductor exports to China up 80 percent, most produced by Intel's Kiryat Gat plant; Jerusalem pushing for deeper trade ties with Beijing, now its second-largest export market

Network of alleged smugglers accused of bringing in as many as one thousand people from Georgia over an extended period, some of whom paid up to $10,000 to gain entry to Israel

PM statement comes hours after Tehran announces it will break uranium stockpile limit set by nuclear deal in the next 10 days; Rouhani warns time running out to salvage nuclear deal in wake of Trump withdrawal

Israeli intelligence has joined the U.S.’s accusations that Iran carried out Thursday’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, an Israeli TV report claimed over the weekend, citing senior intelligence officials.

IF THE NATIONAL INTEREST MANDATES that the United States go to war to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East then we should have begun bombing Israel in the 1960s.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
Iran certainly isn't planning on backing down in the face of Washington's accusations about the country's role in last week's tanker bombings, and as a result, the possibility of a boots-on-the-ground military conflict in the Islamic Republic cannot yet be ruled out. Making an already tense situation infinitely more precarious, Iran on Monday reminded the world that it's preparing to violate the terms of the Iran deal during the next ten days.

By increasing its stockpiles of enriched uranium, Iran is bound to elicit accusations that it's once again working on a nuclear bomb.Tehran has always maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but American neocons like John Bolton have warned that this was merely a ruse, and that Iran could target American allies like Israel with a missile.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unveiled an illegal settlement in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights named after US President Donald Trump.

Netanyahu yesterday inaugurated the settlement – called “Ramat Trump”, Hebrew for “Trump Heights” – hailing the US President as a “great friend” of Israel. The development will extend the existing settlement of Bruchim, located in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights captured by Israel during the war of 1967.

Israel has been granted protection from its critics by the state of Florida in recent amendments to the Florida Educational Equality Act (FEEA), which includes provisions that suppresses free speech. Under new definitions of anti-Semitism adopted by the American state, limits have been placed on discussions of the plight of the Palestinian people and underscoring the brutality of Israel’s occupation.

The bill is likely to open the door for criminal charges to be levelled against human rights activists and critics that advocate a single democratic state in which Israeli Jews, Palestinians and all others are granted full, equal rights. Supporters of the Palestine cause face the prospect of being silenced on the grounds that calls for equality under a single democratic state is deemed to be an attempt to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination and that such a call for non-discrimination questions Israel’s right to exist.

A senior official of international charity World Vision remains on trial in an Israeli court, three years after he was first arrested, tortured, and charged.

According to a new report published by +972 Magazine, since 2016, Israel has not provided any evidence to Mohammad El Halabi or World Vision to prove its case, “and yet Halabi’s trial continues in an Israeli court, unresolved and with no end in sight”.

“This case is unprecedented in the Israeli legal system,” El Halabi’s lawyer Maher Hanna said. “Israel knows that Halabi is innocent. Some Israeli officials told me that.”

What exactly is happening in the Arab region? Events are running into each other with no end in sight. Everything is tangled and intertwined, as if there are invisible hands causing confusion and re-shuffling the cards to create conditions which will further their desires and interests. Those behind it all are the only ones benefiting from everything that’s going on.

How could those two oil tankers be attacked in the Gulf of Oman, causing a major explosion and fire, but the incident not be caught by the US satellites that monitor us all every minute of every day? How can the US, which found the passports of the 9/11 suspects in the ruins of the World Trade Centre almost immediately, not know who carried out the oil tanker attack?

US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt has stood behind comments made by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, in which the latter stated Israel has “the right” to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

Speaking yesterday at a conference held by Israel’s English language daily the Jerusalem Post in New York, Greenblatt said: “I will let David’s comments stand for themselves. I think he said them elegantly and I support his comments.”

Greenblatt was referring to an interview with Friedman in the New York Times last weekend, in which the ambassador claimed that, “under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank”. Friedman was understood to be referring to Israel’s illegal settlement blocs, several of which extend deep into the occupied West Bank and which Israel seeks to formally annex under any future peace settlement.

On 13 June, the Toronto Raptors won the National Basketball Association (NBA) Championship. A few days earlier, news had broken in the Israeli media that one of the team’s billionaire co-owners, Larry Tannenbaum, announced in April that if the team won, he would take them on a trip to Israel. Tannenbaum is one of the founders of the leading pro-Israel lobby group in Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) It is interesting to note how the Zionist lobby seamlessly merges Israel and Jewish. The reaction by progressive fans to this proposed trip was initially shock, and then a commitment to push back on such a blatant attempt to sports-wash Israel’s war crimes. The Canadian BDS Coalition started a petition on 14 June, calling on team members not to be part of such an infamy; it has already gathered over 3,000 signatures.

Is America preparing to go to war with Iran? This is the question dominating discussions around dinner tables as well as boardrooms. Confined not only to the Middle East, where heightened concerns about the fall-out for the volatile region’s future forms part of the focus of debates, this is also a major issue around the world. Europe, Central Asia, the Far East and Africa will not be immune from repercussions of such a war if the Trump administration — which is filled with neocon hawks – starts to bomb and then invade Iran.

Selling settlement products as “Made in Israel” may mislead consumers and stop them from making what they consider to be ethical buying choices, a senior European Union legal official says.

“Just as many European consumers objected to the purchase of South African goods in the pre-1994 apartheid era, present-day consumers may object on similar grounds to the purchase of goods from a particular country” because it pursues “policies which that consumer happens to find objectionable or even repugnant,” Gerard Hogan, advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union writes in an advisory opinion published last week.

The opinion specifies that consumers may object to buying goods from Israeli settlements “precisely because of the fact that the occupation and the settlements clearly amount to a violation of international law.”

The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR): On Friday, 14 June 2019, in excessive use of force against peaceful protesters on the 61st Friday of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege, Israeli forces wounded 92 Palestinian civilians, 28 of them were children and four were paramedics, including a female paramedic, in the eastern Gaza Strip. One of the wounded was a child, who was hit with a live bullet to the chest and sustained serious wound.

According to observations by PCHR’s fieldworkers, the Israeli forces who stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the protesters by firing bullets and tear gas canisters at them. As a result, dozens of the protesters were hit with bullets and teargas canisters without posing any imminent threat or danger to the life of soldiers.

Last week an Israeli investigative TV show called Uvda revealed that the private intelligence firm black cube was hired in 2014 by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer to smear Israel’s then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid. This is only the latest revelation about the covert actions that Black Cube has been undertaking. The company is also known to offer corporate espionage by using techniques that the Israeli Mossad and other security agencies have perfected. The company became famous when it was discovered that movie producer Harvey Weinstein had hired black cube to spy on women who filed complaints against him for sexual assault. Weinstein allegedly received the recommendation for contracting Black Cube from former Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak. Weinstein apparently believed that former Mossad agents would be able to get him off the hook for sexual harassment, assault, and rape allegations.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT UK
EU foreign ministers remained unconvinced by US allegations that Iran was behind last week’s attack on two Gulf tankers as they arrived at a meeting on Monday.

There was strong support among EU countries for an independent UN investigation and calls for more evidence – with the UK relatively isolating in its support the Trump administration’s line.

One foreign minister invoked the spectre of US misuse of intelligence over Iraq as a reason for scepticism, as representatives of the 28 countries arrived at the council meeting.

The ministers will discuss the incident in the Gulf of Oman over lunch, with Sudan, trade policy with Cuba, and the situation in Venezuela also on the main agenda.

Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, said the EU states “continue to gather information” while Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said the Netherlands was “interested in any clarifications that can be made available”.