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Prepare For The Israeli Media Campaign In U.S. To Support Annexation

by Steven Woskow | May 17, 2020 | Blog

The new Israeli ambassador to the U.N. and U.S. Gilad Erdan is ready to defend annexation of parts of the West Bank to the world.

“We promised it to our voters,” Erdan said of annexation. “I believe in it with all my heart that we have a biblical and legal right to Judea and Samaria. It cannot be that the citizens of Israel who live there have to live under a military government just because the Palestinians have refused to reach a compromise with us for decades.

“That’s how I view the ‘Deal of the Century.’ As a politician, I say we have to aim to fulfill it.”

If Israel proceeds with annexation, Erdan expressed confidence that he can represent and defend the policy well.

This will include both defending the policy to governments and within U.S. civil society:

The soon-to-be ambassador said his attitude is that the job is “not just in the hallways of the UN and of governments.”

“It should also include civil society organizations, and I will continue the work I did to bring in networks of legal experts, digital-media experts and Jewish organizations,” he said. “This is the infrastructure of the Jewish world that helps and supports Israel. I see myself as a bridge between them and the government of Israel.”

Ariel Gold at Mondoweiss has more on Gilad Erdan

I began paying closer attention to Erdan in 2017 the Israeli Knesset passed a law, initiated by Erdan, enabling the country bar entry on the grounds of support for the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement. Erdan announced at this time his intentions to create a database of such people like me.

In December 2018, Knesset approved $72 million for Erdan’s anti-BDS, anti-free speech project. In January 2018, Erdan released a blacklist of 20 organizations, including CODEPINK, now officially banned from entering Israel. Expanding his mission to suppress dissent and freedom of speech, in June 2019, he took credit for the unconstitutional anti-BDS laws being enacted in U.S. states. “Our efforts are producing results. 27 US states now have counter-BDS legislation,” he gloated. “We must encourage investigations of terror-linked BDS groups and promote legislation that counters all forms of antisemitism including of course the antisemitic delegitimization of Israel,” he continued, calling for even further Israeli interference into U.S. policy.

A good time to go back and watch The Lobby:

Matt Taibbi: Democrats Have Abandoned Civil Liberties

by Scott Horton | May 16, 2020 | Blog

I know. It’s hard to believe the guys who hired the Delta Force to burn the Branch Davidians to death, banned AR-15s, voted for the PATRIOT Act, colluded with Bush on spying and torture and war, let Obama get away with deliberately murdering American citizens and launching wars without any sort of authorization at all would finally give up the pretense that they care about civil liberties just because of partisanship against Trump, but here we are.

(And hard disagree about Obama using FISA against Israeli agents in the U.S.. If it has a legitimate use, that’s it.)

Dave Smith Interviews Me About #Obamagate

by Scott Horton | May 16, 2020 | Blog

Florida Officer Fired For Hiding During Parkland Shooting Gets Job Back, With Back-pay!

by Scott Horton | May 14, 2020 | Blog

NY Post:

A sheriff’s sergeant fired for hiding behind his car during the Parkland school massacre has gotten his job back — along with at least $125,000 in back pay, according to reports.

Sgt. Brian Miller was one of four deputies terminated for “neglect of duty” after the 2018 slaughter at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 students and faculty members dead and another 17 injured.

Miller had been the first supervisor on scene — but put on his bulletproof vest and hid behind his car, not even going on his radio for 10 minutes, rather than taking command, a state commission investigation found.

“Miller failed to coordinate or direct deputies’ actions and did not direct or coordinate an immediate response into the school,” a report from the commission said at the time, calling his actions “ineffective.”

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office fired him last June — but an arbitrator has ruled that his due process rights were violated, the South Florida Sun Sentinel revealed late Wednesday.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down Wisconsin’s Stay-At-Home Order

by Scott Horton | May 14, 2020 | Blog

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ order shutting down daily life to limit the spread of coronavirus — marking the first time a statewide order of its kind has been knocked down by a court of last resort.

The state’s highest court sided with Republican lawmakers Wednesday in a decision that curbed the power of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration to act unilaterally during public health emergencies.

Cop Kills Man

by Scott Horton | May 13, 2020 | Blog

An Austinite. An innocent Austinite. Now they finally admit he had no gun at all, much less was threatening anyone.

I bet you $100,000,000 the guilty murderer cop gets away with it too.

Microchipped Children, Forced Testing, House Arrests; Welcome To The New World

by Steven Woskow | May 13, 2020 | Blog

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”—C.S. Lewis

Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that children should have a microchip sensor that would warn them when people are getting too close:

“While speaking at a press conference on Monday, Netanyahu suggested the Health Ministry use new technology to help Israel adjust to its new routine as the state is lifting the coronavirus lockdown. “That is, technology that has not been used before and is allowed under the legislation we shall enact,” he clarified.

“I spoke with our heads of technology in order to find measures Israel is good at, such as sensors. For instance, every person, every kid – I want it on kids first – would have a sensor that would sound an alarm when you get too close, like the ones on cars,” the prime minister said.”

And, in the “land of the free”, Washington Governor Jay Inslee has rolled out a plan for mandatory testing for coronavirus called “Contact Tracing: Box In The Virus. The plan is described in The Lynnwood Times. When asked by a reporter how it would be enforced this is his response:

“We will have attached to the families a family support person who will check in with them to see what they need on a daily basis… and help them. If they can’t get a friend to do their grocery shopping, we will help get them groceries in some fashion. If they need pharmaceuticals to be picked up, we will make sure they get their pharmaceuticals… That’s going to help encourage them to maintain their isolation too.

“As far as refusal, it just shouldn’t come to that, and it really hasn’t. We’ve had really good success when we ask people to isolate, and they’ve done so in really high percentages, so we’re happy about that, and we believe that will continue.”

Therefore, those individuals that refuse to cooperate with contact tracers and/or refuse testing, those individuals will not be allowed to leave their homes to purchase basic necessities such as groceries and/or prescriptions. Those persons will need to make arrangements through friends, family, or a state provided “family support personnel.”

And who are the contact tracers:

Tracers

H/t John Whitehead for the C.S. Lewis quote

Philip Weiss Interviews Rashid Khalidi: The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine A History Of Settler Colonialism And Resistance 1917-2017

by Steven Woskow | May 13, 2020 | Blog

Rashid Khalidi on why a century of settler colonialism with American support has failed to defeat Palestinians

The book is compelling for its understanding that Zionism and its friends have waged a century of aggression to secure an anachronistic settler-colonial project without being able to do so. And it tells a personal story. Khalidi chronicles the effort by his great-great-great uncle Yusuf Diya, a former mayor of Jerusalem, to convince Theodor Herzl to abandon his scheme in 1899 because Palestine was already populated. Herzl said not to worry, Palestinians will do fine thanks to the arrival of Jewish “intelligence” and “financial acumen”: “[N]o one can doubt that the well-being of the entire country would be the happy result.”

Khalidi relates his own work on the Madrid conference of 1991 that led to the Oslo accords in the 1990s. Khalidi was highly skeptical about the peace process then, and today deplores it as a delusion. The book describes meetings Khalidi had with Yasser Arafat in which he warned about Israeli control of the occupied territories. It also characterizes leading American peace processors as biased, having a “strong personal affinity for Labor Zionism.”