Category Archives: Apartheid

Israeli diplomat who plotted against MPs also set up political groups | World news | The Guardian

An Israeli embassy official who plotted to “take down” MPs regarded as hostile has also set up a number of political organisations in the UK that operated as though entirely independent.Shai Masot was filmed covertly as he boasted about establishing several groups, at least one of which was intended to influence Labour party policy, while appearing to obscure their links to Israel.The disclosure comes as Labour demanded the government launch an immediate inquiry into “improper interference in our democratic politics”. A former Tory government minister also called for an inquiry into the Israeli embassy’s links with two organisations, Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).

Source: Israeli diplomat who plotted against MPs also set up political groups | World news | The Guardian

When betrayal becomes a perspective. So called Syrian opposition as an example | nadiaharhash

When I think of regimes that oppress their people, I can by no mean compare it with a system that is occupying another people. Because if you work on yourself as a nation, you can at some point get to a level where you can bring change to your own regime. But you cannot bring change to a regime that is not part of you. A regime that made its existence on yours.As the image of Syrians hosted in the Hebrew university continue to flash in my memory, I cannot but feel ashamed… ashamed of humanity that has really lost its face.When I see Israel suddenly becoming humanist, when the people of Gaza who were displaced as the result of the fiercest aggression that humans can face, while these people in thousands are still displaced and actually freezing to death in the nakedness of the harshness of the aggression that never seem to end.These same people refuse to see the children of Gaza, the displaced families. The poverty, the oppression that befell on them as a result, and decide that children of Aleppo who the Assad regime has regained (mind you here … Assad regime is Syrian in Syria!!!), and host the opposition, and treat the fighters of Nusra (whom Israel in some occasions decide they are terrorists) then one cannot but say. This is a nasty face of evilness disguised in human shapes.Should I remind us of what the Hebrew university did during the war on GAZA to the Palestinian students? Or to the support they showed to the army that was brutally and savagely killing Palestinian women and children ?I am just disgusted of those Syrian so called opposition who not only destroyed Syria , but also destroyed the fabrics that was once made of Arab nationalism.Somehow…. Somewhere deep in me …I would not be surprised to see a day when Israel occupy the Arab world.. and when this happen , I may think.. well .. enjoy the democratic state of Israel …Of course, then , we Palestinians will be consultants for the new paradigm !!!

Source: When betrayal becomes a perspective. So called Syrian opposition as an example | nadiaharhash

Coachella owner denies donating to anti-LGBT groups amid outrage | Music | The Guardian “Talking from both sides of mouth – he uses funds from Coachilla to fund Trump supporters!”

A major Republican donor, Anschutz gave more than $1m to conservative candidates and political fundraising groups in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog. Employees of the Anschutz Corporation also leaned heavily toward Republican candidates. The businessman has attended political events hosted by the Koch brothers, the billionaire scions of an oil fortune and also Republican donors, and Anschutz has donated to their political group Americans for Prosperity, which opposes climate change research and regulations. Anschutz’s natural gas company has also sued small towns in pursuit of fracking rights, and the businessman has invested heavily in a gigantic Wyoming wind farm.

Source: Coachella owner denies donating to anti-LGBT groups amid outrage | Music | The Guardian

‘I’m an American and I was racially profiled in Berlin 23 times’ – The Local

Nine months later and she had been stopped and checked by police a total of 23 times – while going to a museum, going to the U-Bahn station, or while out to socialize, being picked out of a group of white friends.“It really makes you feel like an outsider. I have never felt so much like an outsider as I have in Germany,” Kambhampati says.“I don’t feel welcome and that bothers me the most because I think about especially the large number of refugees that are coming in and being welcomed into the country… I’ve heard from some that have said they were racially profiled and don’t feel at home. They should feel at home.”But since she’s a journalist who came to Berlin to work for investigative news initiative Correctiv, Kambhampati didn’t let her feelings of frustration stop there.She met with Berlin police department’s press spokesman, who apologized and said the checks could be seen as illegal. But he also noted that officers wouldn’t search a “blond, German-looking person,” before later saying this wasn’t what he meant.Kambhampati first wrote about her experiences in an in-depth article for Vox last month, which can be read here. And now she’s working on an investigation with her colleagues at Correctiv, looking to find others who have had similar experiences.Different histories, different discussionsGrowing up in New Jersey and studying in Ohio, Kambhampati said she had encountered discrimination in the US as well, and similar issues of racism exist in both places. But the different immigration histories of the two countries also seems to have affected how people act today.“In Germany, many people assume I’m from India based on my skin colour rather than considering that I could be from somewhere like the US,” she explained.“I’ve gotten that before in the US, but not as much. Maybe it has to do with the way that different people have come to the US for generations now.“Some people that I’ve spoken to who have experienced racial profiling have been living in Germany their whole lives… and they still don’t feel like they are welcomed into the German society. And that’s largely in part because they’re stopped and asked questions like this.”

Source: ‘I’m an American and I was racially profiled in Berlin 23 times’ – The Local

Italy boat migrant numbers surge 20% in 2016 – The Local – “This is what greed, fear, war, hate, sexism, racism, profiteering brings all over the world!”

Migrants and refugees wait to be transferred from Malta’s Topaz Responder ship after being rescued off the coast of Libya on November 5, 2016.

Source: Italy boat migrant numbers surge 20% in 2016 – The Local

The annexation of Palestine could be closer than you think | +972 Magazine

Bennett’s desire to incrementally annex parts of the West Bank are neither new nor secret. The chairman of the Jewish Home party has run on a platform of annexation since he first ran for office in 2013 and in every election since. Through short videos and aggressive sound bites, the Israeli education minister has attempted shift the public discourse, in Israel and around the world, toward his annexationist aims.

Source: The annexation of Palestine could be closer than you think | +972 Magazine

Chilean court imposes heavier sentences on German cult leaders | News | DW.COM | 31.12.2016 “Wonder, how many more have not been identified? And who frequents them?”

A court in the Chilean capital, Santiago, has lengthened by one year sentences already imposed on three Germans found guilty of forming a criminal organization at “Colonia Dignidad,” a German colony located in the Andean foothills.The three men – Kurt Schnellenkamp, Gerhard Mücke and Karl van den Berg – were among the leaders of the commune, now called “Villa Baviera,” where systematic child abuse took place between 1961 and 1997. They have now been sentenced to five years and one day in prison.The 15,000-hectare (37,066-acre) settlement, sealed off from the rest of the world, was also used as a secret detention and torture center for political prisoners during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990. Several opponents of the Pinochet regime were murdered there. Paul Schäfer was arrested in Argentina in 2005The court also handed down similar sentences to former Chilean intelligence agents Fernando Gomez and Pedro Espinoza. Four other defendants were released.”Colonia Dignidad” was founded in 1961 by cult leader Paul Schäfer, an ex-Nazi corporal, who fled Germany for Chile with 250 followers after authorities in his home country began to investigate him for sexual abuse of children.Schäfer was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 for his role at the “Colonia Dignidad,” and died in prison in 2010, aged 88.

Source: Chilean court imposes heavier sentences on German cult leaders | News | DW.COM | 31.12.2016

Israel punishes the world after UN vote | The Electronic Intifada

Netanyahu is defending his measures as “a wise, aggressive and responsible reaction, a natural response that makes it clear to the nations of the world that what took place at the UN is unacceptable to us.”But his reaction is causing disquiet even among hardline supporters of Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies. Dov Weisglass, a former senior advisor to the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is notorious for saying a decade ago that Israel would restrict food to Gaza “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger. ”Now Weisglass is calling Netanyahu’s reaction to the UN resolution “ridiculous.”“The attempt to create symmetry between us and the rest of the world and to punish the 14 countries that voted against us is actually making the Palestinian dream of isolating Israel internationally into reality,” Weisglass said.Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, also expressed misgivings. She argued that rather than canceling diplomatic visits, Israel would be better off trying to explain its position to the world.“We need to get rid of this false term, the phrase ‘occupied territory.’ This is Israel’s territory — the Land of Israel,” Hotovely said in reference to the West Bank. Hotovely may not have noticed that Israel has been trying to do that for decades, with elaborate marketing and propaganda schemes. The vote in the UN showed that all Israel’s efforts to convince the world that it has the right to steal as much Palestinian land as it pleases have come to nought.Experience shows, however, that it is Palestinians who will feel the real brunt of Israel’s revenge: Israel is already vowing to build thousands more settler homes on Palestinian land in direct defiance of international law.The question is whether world governments, having provoked Israel’s rage, will have the courage at last to hold it accountable.

Source: Israel punishes the world after UN vote | The Electronic Intifada

Former US ambassador to Israel criticizes Netanyahu′s ′nasty′ UN reaction | News | DW.COM | 26.12.2016

Israel has also vowed to reassess its relationship with the United Nations.Kurtzer maintained that the past eight years, the relationship between Israel and the United States “is on very strong ground” despite a number of disagreements between the two countries.”But none of these differences accounts for the nasty language that’s being used,” Kurtzer said. “I think we have to find a way to get beyond this and try and deal with some of these differing views more privately.”

Source: Former US ambassador to Israel criticizes Netanyahu′s ′nasty′ UN reaction | News | DW.COM | 26.12.2016