By Robert INLAKESH

Western media have attempted to all but deny the existence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, alleging that Russia’s goal to de-Nazify Kiev is not possible because Ukraine’s president is Jewish. But what is to be made of an Israeli Jew openly calling himself the co-founder of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion?

Kiev’s infamous Azov Battalion, officially part of the National Guard of Ukraine, has been widely acknowledged as a neo-Nazi volunteer paramilitary force. It has also been connected with foreign white supremacist organizations. In addition to this, the far-right, neo-Nazi and white-nationalist members in its ranks have even been criticized by the likes of Human Rights Watch and the United Nations for human rights abuses.

Despite the well-documented history of racially motivated crimes and attacks on Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ community, the battalion has been indirectly and continually armed by Western powers. In June 2015 the United States and Canada banned the support and/or training of Azov by their forces, specifically citing its neo-Nazi connections. However, the following year the U.S. lifted its ban owing to pressure from the Pentagon. In 2019, The Nation magazine published an article in which it was stated that “[p]ost-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces.” All of which is to say that Azov can conclusively be labeled neo-Nazi. This may be why reports are now emerging of White Supremacists and far-Right militia members flocking to Ukraine, to fight alongside extremist forces in the country.

Israeli support of and involvement in the Azov Battalion

Prior to Azov becoming an integrated part of the Ukrainian military, the group was funded primarily by Ukrainian oligarchs, the most well known of whom was Igor Kolomoisky. Kolomoisky is of Jewish heritage and is an Israeli citizen and well-known billionaire businessman. Despite his being a Jewish Israeli, he had no problem pouring money into neo-Nazi volunteer militias such as the Azov and Aidar, among other far-right groups that feature elements hostile to Jewish people.

Although the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is often held up by mainstream Western media as proof that there is no problem with neo-Nazis in Ukraine, he himself received financial backing from the same oligarch – Igor Kolomoisky – who was financing neo-Nazis. Zelenskyy’s presidential bid in 2019, which saw him win 73% of the vote, was successful on the basis that he was running in order to combat corruption and create peace in the country but, as the leaked documents known as the Pandora Papers revealed, he himself was storing funds in offshore bank accounts. Zelenskyy’s campaign was at the time boosted and bankrolled by the Israeli-Ukrainian-Cypriot billionaire Kolomoisky – who was himself accused of stealing $5.5 billion from his own bank.

The nerve of it . The BBC’s first response to my formal complaint about their failure to report the presence of neo-Nazis, in a news item about Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/kl88gR5sY0

— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) February 21, 2022

It may come as a shock, but there are actually many Israeli Jews who fight with ultra-nationalist Ukrainian groups and who coordinate closely with, or even belong to, neo-Nazi groups such as Azov. Konstantyn Batozsky, for example, who stated that he worked as a political consultant in Donetsk for the Azov Battalion between 2014-15, even defended Azov members who had tattoos of Nazi symbols.

“They were soccer hooligans and wanted attention, so yeah, I was shocked when I saw guys with swastika tattoos,” Batozsky said of Azov Battalion members he personally got to know. He then followed that statement by saying. “But I talked with them all the time about being Jewish and they had nothing negative to say. They had no anti-Jewish ideology.” Another Jewish Israeli, Daniel Kovzhun, claims that “there were Orthodox Jews in Azov,” which he claims came down to all members being Ukrainian nationalists and therefore Jewishness was not an issue.

Muslims however, seem to be a major issue for the Azov Battalion. The Islamophobia present not only in Azov, but also in the National Guard of Ukraine, came through strongly on social media as the official National Guard site glorified the Azov Battalion as they dipped their bullets in pig fat. The video was directed at Muslim soldiers from Chechnya who are fighting on the side of Russia and were described as “orcs” by the National Guard on Twitter. In the video, one of the Azov fighters can be heard saying: “Dear Muslim brothers, in our country, you will not go to heaven.” It is a belief shared by some white supremacists that if they kill a Muslim with a bullet coated in pig fat, the Muslim will not enter heaven.

Although little is published about this fact in English, according to the BBC, an Israeli-Ukrainian named Natan Khazin claims to have co-founded the Azov Battalion. In an interview conducted by BBC Ukraine in 2018, which attempted to downplay the claims of rising antisemitism in Ukraine, Khazin is quoted as saying: “I can say that, despite the difficult situation in Ukraine and the war, the level of antisemitism is not growing. Someone in the West simply does not understand the real state of things in Ukraine in this area.”

In The Forward, a Jewish news outlet, Khazin is described as a “yarmulke-wearing … veteran of the Israel Defense Forces and an ordained rabbi.” The description continues:

[He is] representative of many young Ukrainian Jews who are Zionist, religiously observant and at the same time strong Ukrainian patriots. Some of them refer to themselves humorously as Zhido-Banderists — a fusion of the pejorative term for “Jew” with the name Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which fought for Ukrainian independence during World War II. The organization’s forces also participated in the massacre of Jews, so the term Zhido-Banderist is self-consciously ironic.”

During an interview, published in a condensed form by The Forward, Khazin is asked, “If it isn’t confidential, where did you serve [while  in the Israeli military]?” He answers:  “In the Gaza Strip. I know what it’s like to move down a street with people shooting, throwing stones or burning objects.”

All the above examples of Israelis actively collaborating with known neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine are of private Israeli citizens and there is no direct connection to the Israeli government. However, the Israeli government itself seems to have participated, much like the United States and other NATO nations, in supplying weapons to the Ukrainian military, which is considered by some as a form of indirectly arming the Azov Battalion and other ultra-right elements. In 2018, more than 40 human rights activists filed a petition with the Israeli High Court, in which they argued that the Israeli weapons were being sent to serve those who espouse neo-Nazi beliefs. They cited “evidence that the right-wing Azov militia, whose members are part of Ukraine’s armed forces, and are supported by the country’s ministry of internal affairs,” were using the weapons, according to a report published in Haaretz.

Although there is no concrete evidence of a direct Israeli government link with the Azov Battalion or other neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, there are clearly Israeli citizens who are directly aiding them. There are, however, reports that claim that Israeli forces have directly trained the Azov Battalion and Azov has been shown to possess Israeli-made weapons. When such a connection between neo-Nazi groups and Israeli Jews in Ukraine clearly exists, this in of itself should call into question the sincerity of Western media’s attempt to use President Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity in order to push to the side claims that there are hardline neo-Nazi elements inside Ukraine. Furthermore, these groups are clearly able to coexist beside Israeli citizens, so long as those Jewish Israelis are themselves Ukrainian nationalists. This is not to say that anti-Semitism does not exist in these groups, however.

Ukrainian police official requests list of Jews in the city of Kolomyya, western Ukraine:

For some reason, the extreme and very dangerous anti-Semitism in Ukraine (which has a very ugly history) gets little attention in the west. Wonder why:https://t.co/lfQHrg0IES

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 10, 2020

The propensity for right-wing Israelis to align themselves with right-wing Europeans has long been clear, and this propensity has even meant allying themselves with groups accused of antisemitism. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – a right wing German party condemned by World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder as being “a disgrace for Germany,” and frequently accused of antisemitism – has strong links to Israel. Interestly, figures regarded as being from the far-right – such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, France’s Marine Le Pen, Britain’s Nigel Farage, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán – are all on record as being pro-Israeli and have made efforts to align themselves with the Jewish State. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also made it clear that he would meet and align himself with figures accused of antisemitism, such as Orbán.

Netanyahu tried hard to cement Israel’s alliance with the Visegrad bloc — Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic — which Foreign Policy magazine described as forming “a common entity imbued with hostility to the values of the Enlightenment, to human rights, to the concept of a nation as a community of citizens, to the principle of equality, and, generally speaking, to foreigners.” Of course, when it comes to Israeli government endeavors, there is a pragmatic incentive for Israel, and such alliances with the far-right should not be taken as a purely love-bond relationship. But the fact that these relationships have existed, and continue to exist, should indicate that right-wing Israelis can readily coexist with the European far-right.

As for white supremacists in the United States, there are many who openly align themselves with Israel. One such example is White Nationalist leader Richard Spencer, who is an open supporter of Israel and came out in 2018 to back Israel’s Nation State Bill, which affirmed that  “the realization of the right to national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” The bill was widely pegged as racist and Spencer said of it that he has “great admiration for Israel’s Nation-State Law. Jews are, once again, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and sovereignty for the future, showing a path forward for Europeans.” Israel’s system of racial supremacy is viewed with great admiration by many white supremacists, who seek to model their own system along similar lines, according to people like Richard Spencer.

This sort of mentality, which aligns Israel and the Western far-right, cannot simply be ignored and demonstrates why it is not necessarily a valid point to say that the presence of Jewish individuals in Ukraine’s fight against Russia debunks the claims of neo-Nazi elements existing. As is demonstrated above, these groups not only exist in spite of Jewish individuals being present, but in some cases even feature Israeli Jews in their ranks.

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A seriously ill Palestinian teenage refugee boy, Amal Nakhleh, has brought Israel’s administrative detention system to the news headlines. Nakhleh, who is 17 years old and who suffers from a serious medical condition and who underwent an operation to remove a tumour from his ribcage prior to his detention by Israeli forces, has been held without charges in administrative detention since January 2021, and his latest extension was yet lengthened again this January until May 2022.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement that the Israeli authorities informed the parents that their son’s detention is considered a “confidential administrative case.” His case, according to the legal team, “is one of the most prolonged cases of administrative detention of a child that they have come across.”

Due to Nakhleh’s health condition, myasthenia gravis, which is a neurological condition requiring specialised medical care, the international community was perhaps particularly vocal in taking up the call for his release. However, the humanitarian grounds in this particular case should not overshadow the fact that administrative detention is a violation of international law.

Earlier in January, over 500 Palestinians incarcerated under administrative detention orders embarked on a collective protest boycotting their court hearings, noting that Israel is expanding its policy to also target women, children and the elderly.

The protest coincided with the deterioration of 40 year old Palestinian prisoner Hisham Abu Hawwash’s health, who was on his 141^st day of hunger strike to draw attention to his administrative detention order. Abu Hawwash is now set to be released in February.

Another lull would have happened within the international community had not Nakhleh’s case been made prominent. But the practice itself, which is employed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet as a coercive measure against Palestinians, needs to be brought to international attention as an international law violations. Anything less than full attention on the fact that Israel is breaking international law will not suffice.

Israel has maintained its colonisation policies based upon a purported state of exception which the international community has assimilated to. Administrative detention, which is directly related to incarceration matters, is one more policy which Israel justifies, based on its security narrative. By refusing to impart information regarding the arrests, as well as refusing a fair trial, Palestinians are completely prevented from accessing justice and forced to resort to extreme measures merely to bring attention to their plight.

The detainees who do manage media attention are either hunger strikers, or else suffering from serious health issues, which means that the majority of Palestinians in administrative detention remain in the background, their presence merely compiled in statistical data. With attention focused temporarily on the cases that capture mainstream media attention, political leaders, diplomats and human rights organisations are casting the rest of administrative detainees in perpetual oblivion, for once an immediate objective is reached, in this case the campaign for Nakhleh’s release, administrative detention is no longer a priority for the international community.

The absence of a persistent strategy to counter Israel’s human rights violations and to hold the settler colonial state accountable is of detriment to the Palestinian people, who remain shackled to humanitarian agendas. Israel’s administrative detention policy is political, just as its colonial expansion is political, yet the international community insist on treating the consequences from a paradigm of safety in terms of politics, and deprivation in terms of need.

Pointing out the need to release individual Palestinians from administrative detention does not even constitute a critique of Israel’s violence towards Palestinians. Rather, the tactic employs the usual process of chastising Israel and creating a spectacle out of release, knowing full well that the Israeli government’s decisions are political strategy designed to oppress.

By Robert INLAKESH

Despite President Joe Biden having claimed earlier this year that “diplomacy is back” and that he would end the war in Yemen, revive the Iran Nuclear Deal and settle several other issues, in reality his Middle East foreign policy has been just as detrimental to the region as was that of his predecessor.

“This war has to end…we’re ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales,” Biden said in early February during his first address to the U.S. public on his administration’s foreign policy approach. It was a speech that saw him showered with the praise of his supporters, yet we are now in late December and the war has only intensified, with UN experts estimating that the total death toll by the end of the year will be 377,000.

To make things even worse, as Saudi Arabia’s bombs target urban centers in Yemen’s capital Sana’a, including the country’s primary airport and a maternity hospital, the U.S. just approved another $650 million weapons sale to Riyadh. Instead of withdrawing their support for the Saudis’ “offensive actions” and ending weapons sales, the Biden administration has done the exact opposite – and took no action when the war escalated just weeks after the president’s statements, igniting an ongoing bloody battle for control of oil-rich Marib province.

Yemen is far from an isolated case of the Biden administration saying one thing and doing the opposite, but is perhaps the most urgent of all Middle East matters to resolve, given the sheer number of civilian casualties that await perpetuation of the status quo.

Afghanistan withdrawal and end of Iraq combat mission

Next on the list of this year’s Middle East catastrophes is Afghanistan, where Biden fulfilled his promise of withdrawal. But with the sudden collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government the country soon fell to the Taliban. In August, infamous scenes of Afghan’s falling to their deaths after holding on to departing U.S. planes, coupled with a helicopter lift spotted aiding U.S. Embassy workers, saw comparisons made with Washington’s infamous withdrawal from Saigon in 1975.

Violence by American troops was meted out against civilians during the early stages of the Taliban takeover and did not end until every last American soldier left. The most notoriously bloody incident was a drone strike that targeted and killed 10 Afghan civilians, seven of whom were children. Zemaray Ahmadi, a 36-year-old who worked for the California-based aid organization Nutrition & Education International (NEI), was killed in that drone strike, along with six of his nieces and nephews, symbolizing the lack of protection Afghans got even when working with the United States.

So how did the U.S. decide to close the chapter of the failed $2.26 trillion Afghanistan war? Did we punish those responsible for the murder of an aid worker and his family? You guessed it. Not only did our government defend its actions, it refused to hold anyone to account for one of the last war crimes it committed on Afghan soil in 2021. What then to make of U.S. attempts to righteously blame the Taliban for their human rights abuses when Washington itself refuses to hold its own forces to the high standards they expect of others?

Washington is also currently freezing approximately $9.5 billion in assets and loans, leaving the newly established government in Kabul unable to feed a starving population suffering under an economic crisis. This does not mean that the Taliban deserve a free pass here for the human rights abuses they are accused of committing, but neither is this a simple morality play of good and evil, black and white. What the Biden administration’s actions attest to is an environment of impunity that shielded coalition forces from accountability as Washington’s withdrawal proved both tactically and strategically disastrous.

Throughout his political career, Biden, whatever may have been his personal misgivings, supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, voting to launch the invasions and working under the Obama administration on a policy to continue what he now calls the “forever wars.” In Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, 2021 did not see the U.S. withdraw; instead it has pursued a policy of aggression and lawlessness, followed by an agreement with Iraq’s government that will guarantee a U.S. presence in the country for the foreseeable future, a move celebrated by many of Biden’s supporters.

The Biden administration did announce a supposed drawdown in Iraq, which was to be done under the guise of ending the U.S. “combat mission” inside the country. Despite claims that the combat mission has ended and that relevant troops were withdrawn, 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Iraq and are likely there to stay. The reality is that the U.S. has never stated it had ground troops in Iraq to begin with; it claimed to use only special-forces units, describing other troops as trainers and advisors to Iraq’s security forces. Therefore, the connotations ascribed to the phrase “ending the U.S. combat mission” are incorrect, for there hasn’t been a “combat mission” in the country for years.

In July, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and President Biden reached an agreement, which received some positive attention from Biden supporters on social media. But the truth was that  Al-Kadhimi was under immense pressure from Iraqis to do something about the American presence in his country, especially from the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and their supporters. The agreement to end the combat mission was simply political theater, geared towards quelling the unrest. This way, Al-Kadhimi could claim a diplomatic win with regard to addressing the highly unpopular presence of  U.S. troops in Iraq; Washington could claim it was de-escalating tensions; and the PMU would have something to show for its campaign of political pressure.

Airstrikes against at least five different countries

But what of the deadly predator drone program, which became infamous under former President Barack Obama? Biden has, since taking office, refused to comment on the practice of so-called “targeted killings and assassinations,” which overwhelmingly kill civilians and not combatants. It is also difficult to tell exactly how many were killed in drone strikes this year, owing to a Trump-era ruling that scrapped the need to report drone-strike deaths. Despite this, we do know that the Biden administration has used the “targeted killing” program in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

In Syria and Iraq, at least two separate airstrike campaigns were undertaken by the U.S. president, without congressional approval. The U.S. is still also illegally occupying a third of Syria’s territory, sitting on over 90% of the country’s oil resources, as well as its most fertile agricultural lands, going so far as to send poisoned seeds for Syrians to cultivate. When the Syrian government announced that it could not use the seeds because they would potentially destroy fertile soil, the U.S. insisted the seeds were good and refused to apologize. In the case of airstrikes in Somalia, a dangerous escalation occurred when the U.S. military ordered strikes against militants without even notifying the U.S. president, a move that Biden failed to condemn.

In Iraq, where Biden has claimed one of his few ostensible foreign policy wins, the U.S. repeatedly accused Iraq’s PMU – which, by Iraqi law, is an official part of the country’s military establishment – of firing drones and projectiles at American troops. In February, a previously unknown Iraqi armed group, calling itself Saraya Awliya Al-Dam, claimed responsibility for an attack on U.S. forces in Erbil. The Biden administration used this as an excuse to launch airstrikes against the PMU, which is in no way affiliated with Awliya Al-Dam. The U.S. military carried out these strikes before its official inquiry into the incident had even finished. The attacks were then pegged as retaliatory strikes on “Iranian-backed” groups, likely a tactic to pressure Iran during the latest round of the nuclear talks.

Working with Israel and weighing war with Iran

On the issue of Palestine, Biden has acted as expected; after all, he openly describes himself as a Zionist. When Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed from their homes in East Jerusalem so that illegal settlers could steal their properties, and racist lynch mobs attacked Palestinians around Jerusalem’s Old City, Biden remained completely uncritical of Israel’s policy of protecting the settlers and attacking Palestinian protesters.

In May, when the violence escalated into a war between Gaza and Israel’s military, during which Israel killed 270 Palestinians, the president repeated the age-old “Israel has the right to defend itself” line, a trope repeatedly used by Washington when Tel Aviv carries out what have become routine civilian killing sprees. Israel’s current prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is openly opposed to a two-state solution and has rebuffed American demands to halt settlement expansion. Yet Biden has yet to muster a word of criticism of his Israeli counterpart. Instead of reining in its ally, the U.S. approved a billion dollars of additional funding for Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ air defense system, to pay for what amounts to the inconvenience caused when killing Palestinians with U.S. taxpayer-funded bombs causes a reaction from the besieged Gaza Strip’s armed groups.

On Iran, Biden claimed he was going to differ from his predecessor Donald Trump, stating during his 2020 campaign that “we’ve lost our standing in the region” and vowing a change of tone and policy from Trump’s openly hostile stance. Since he took office though, Biden’s promises to force his way back into the Obama-era Iran Nuclear Deal were soon forgotten, and instead he has charged forward with Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign.” Instead of attempting to make peace, Biden has added even more sanctions to those levied by Trump, which were previously criticized by the International Court of Justice as a violation of international law.

Now that seven  rounds of negotiations in Vienna to salvage the Iran Nuclear Deal have failed to produce any positive outcome, the U.S. is openly working with Israel, threatening strikes against Iran that could ignite a regional Middle East War. In late November, the head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), General Kenneth McKenzie, revealed that the U.S. has prepared military options to be used in the event that diplomacy fails to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Biden has also carried on the conspiracy theories peddled by Trump that Iran currently operates a secret nuclear weapons program and is producing a weapon of mass destruction. In August, as he stood next to Israel’s prime minister, Biden said at a public press conference that if diplomacy fails to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, he “is prepared to turn to other options.” Of course the top cheerleaders for war against Iran have been the Israelis, who have claimed for 30 years that Iran is on the cusp of acquiring a nuclear weapon. In January, Israel’s top general, Aviv Kochavi, claimed that Iran was “months, maybe even weeks” away from getting nuclear weapons, a claim that has since been revised to be “5 years, tops.” Despite the evident falsehoods espoused about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons, Israel’s sway over the Biden administration’s hardline stance on Iran has been unchallenged.

The Biden administration’s first year of “diplomacy first” policy in the Middle East has closed as many veterans of U.S. elections predicted. By no means has voting blue meant a change for the better; in fact, the only real difference between Biden and Trump in terms of foreign policy is that instead of mean tweets, more respectful language is used to give the new president the veneer of respectability, while carrying on an all-too-familiar violent and imperialistic Middle East foreign policy.

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Those Americans who dare to challenge the strangle-hold that Israel and its friends have over US foreign policy will likely find themselves targeted even more aggressively in the upcoming year. Two weeks ago the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), widely reckoned to be the largest and most powerful component of the Jewish state’s lobby, declared that it will now begin directly funding political candidates who are perceived as pro-Israel. Up until now, AIPAC has preferred to operate somewhat in the shadows, representing itself as a organization that is in part “educational” to justify its 501(c)3 tax exempt status which it uses to send all new congressmen on propaganda trips to Israel.

Of course, that has always been a bit of a fiction enabled by a Justice Department that is inclined to ignore all Israeli misbehavior. There are a number of reasons why AIPAC should be regarded for what it is, i.e. an organization that has as a priority the promotion of Israeli interests without any concern for the damage being done to the United States and its institutions. Under US law, specifically the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1937, AIPAC should be compelled to forfeit its special tax status and register, which would permit the government to have full access to its finances and also require a record of its frequent meetings with the Israeli Embassy in Washington as well as with senior Israeli officials in Israel. It would also have to report its significant and unparalleled lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill. AIPAC would deny that it is actually directed or possibly funded in part by the Israeli government, but its website somewhat puts the lie to that conceit where it describes itself as “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby” before elaborating how “We are proud to be a diverse movement of passionate pro-Israel Americans.”

The other lie promoted by AIPAC is that, up until now, it has not funded the political campaigns of its many friends both in Congress and in state and local governments. The reality is that AIPAC and some of its associated groups have aggressively vetted candidates for office at all levels. During its annual summit in Washington, politicians in attendance have routinely held fundraisers at hotels and restaurants not at the AIPAC event but often at hotels within walking distance. It is known that AIPAC publishes for-internal-use-only a candidates’ “scoring card” prior to elections reflective of views on Israel. As AIPAC is itself funded by Jewish billionaires and is in regular contact with them, the exchange of information on who is a “friend” and deserving of campaign money would be easily accomplished without having to use AIPAC as a conduit.

The new structure will consist of a regular political action committee (PAC) able to contribute $5,000 maximum donations to identified candidates per race, and a super PAC, which can raise unlimited money for an individual candidate. AIPAC PAC will be the name of the regular PAC, while the super PAC has not yet received a label.

AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittman sent out an email explaining the changes. In perhaps one of the most chilling statements that I have read recently, Wittman asserts that “The creation of a PAC and a super PAC is an opportunity to significantly deepen and strengthen the involvement of the pro-Israel community in politics.” Given Israel’s current dominance of Congress, the White House and the mainstream media one fears what might come next if stronger “involvement of the pro-Israel community in politics” becomes a reality. Jews constitute less than 2% of the US population and they already are hugely overrepresented in elite professions and politics while at the same time reserving to themselves perpetual victimhood to justify the preferential anti-democratic policies that they actually promote. Will Joe “I’m a Zionist” Biden’s cabinet be required by law to be 100% Jewish? Will Congress require a Jewish majority? Will the government be setting up gulags somewhere out west for people like me who oppose such dominance and the “Israel Project”? Where does this ever end to satisfy the Jewish lobby?

One might well ask why AIPAC is changing its platform to make itself even more accessible since it would seem that the shift to PACs does not much change what happens behind closed doors when politicians come begging for money. The answer may lie in the perception by Jewish groups and the Israeli government that Zionism is in trouble due to the accumulation of egregious human rights violations and war crime attacks on neighbors. The world view of Israel is increasingly negative. So the response is to open the door a bit to visibly dangle more money, which the Israeli Lobby has plenty of, to take on critics.

Israel and its friends are particularly concerned over the handful of progressives in Congress who have expressed reservations about the blind approval of Israeli crimes against humanity. The PACs will enable a more robust response by providing readily available money to run pro-Israel candidates against them to bring about their removal from Congress. The Zionists also worry about the growing support for the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which seeks to put the same kind of economic pressure on Israel that once brought about change in South Africa. Already Israel advocacy groups at the state level have succeeded in passing legislation in 27 states that in one way or another punishes anyone one who supports “boycotting” Israel. AIPAC would like that number to become 50 and it is also pushing hard on Congress for “hate legislation” that creates harsh criminal and civil penalties for anyone who questions the holocaust or criticizes Israel, which will be defined by the legislation as anti-Semitic acts.

Hand in hand with the moves at the state level, Jewish groups are rewriting text books to include more on the so-called holocaust, to sometimes include mandatory holocaust instruction at grade school and high school levels. In one bizarre incident in Washington DC, students were made to reenact “scenes” from the holocaust including mass executions and burials. One student was made to portray Adolph Hitler and instructed to include a simulated suicide at the end of the exercise.

This overreach all comes packaged together with alarming reports, put out inevitably by Jewish groups, regarding a surge in what it chooses to label as anti-Semitic crimes. Such “crimes” include numerous no-victim incidents like scrawled graffiti on walls or display of posters defending the Palestinians. The Anti-Defamation-League (ADL), which leads the pack in its constant cries of anti-Semitism, hypocritically claims blandly that it is working to “Combat Extremism and Hate.” That definition apparently does not include the treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of its co-religionists in Israel.

Indeed, the tendency of the Israel Lobby to overreach because it has become so arrogant due to its power is perhaps the key to bringing it down. A recent exchange in Florida demonstrates how the ADL, sensitive to any possible slight, actually reacted harshly to someone who was actually on its side. Five weeks ago, rabidly pro-Israeli Governor Ron DeSantis’ Press Secretary, Christina Pushaw tweeted a sarcastic comment stating that there was “no weird conspiracy theory stuff here” about press reports regarding the Republic of Georgia’s Prime Minister meeting with Rothschild & Co about investment opportunities. The ADL Florida Regional Director Sarah Emmons took offense and responded with the following:

“The belief that the Rothschilds manipulate currency and influence global events for personal enrichment and world domination is a staple of antisemitic conspiracy theorists. It’s deeply disturbing to see these kinds of conspiracies promoted by a member of Governor Ron DeSantis’ staff. Conspiracy theories, especially those with antisemitic origins, don’t belong in Florida’s highest office — or anywhere in the Sunshine State. We’ll be reaching out to the governor’s office to voice our concerns and discuss the issue.”

Jews and banking in the same sentence? Must be an anti-Semitic trope, as the expression goes. What if Pushaw had actually been bold enough to say something more to the point, like “Israel is trying to drag us into an unnecessary war with Iran”? In any event, the Zionists are preparing their offensive and we of the Israel-as-ally-agnostic community will find the upcoming year to be even more trying as the Jewish state and its friends tighten the screws to eliminate and even criminalize all criticism. Be prepared!

unz.com

Yet another non-binding UN General Assembly has passed, granting Palestinians permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, even as Israel has absolute dominion over their territory. The draft resolution, titled “Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources,” is a perfect example of how the UN glosses over Israel’s colonial violence by refusing to take action, preferring to enact non-binding resolutions which do nothing to protect the Palestinian people’s political rights and their territory.

The resolution demands Israel ceases its exploitation and theft of Palestinian land, while noting all other Israeli violations on Palestinian territory, such as the Apartheid Wall, settlement expansion, destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, as well as the impact of Israel weapons in Gaza. With the passing of such a detailed resolution, it would stand to reason that the UN takes measures against Israel’s colonial violence, rather than call upon Israel to halt its damage. The latter is a futile request, and the UN knows Israel will not abide by the non-binding resolution, in which case it is pertinent to ask why the international institution keeps score of each violation only to mete out some symbolic recognition of Palestinian rights which has so far failed to translate into political value for the Palestinian people.

Palestine’s Permanent Observer to the UN Riyad Mansour described the resolution as confirming the international community supporting full rights for Palestinians. Similarly the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki declared that the resolution affirmed Palestinian people’s rights over their territory and called upon the UN to implement international resolutions. Which is where Palestine, as usual, will hit a dead end. The UN’s complicity in Israel’s colonial expansion is the primary reason why non-binding resolutions have taken the place of political resolution for Palestinians.

Does the UN need reminding of how it failed Palestinians since the passing of the 1947 Partition Plan? Or of how its defence of Israel’s security narrative directly ties in to the Palestinian people’s experience of loss, to the point that non-binding resolutions are necessary to remind the world that Palestinians have political rights? Only the periodic reminders mean nothing if the UN refuses to face Israel’s war crimes and international law violations.

Unfortunately, the PA has long supported this disastrous status quo, in which the gap between non-binding resolutions and Israel’s expansion is becoming irreconcilable.

EU diplomats recently visited occupied East Jerusalem, in a visit organised by the Israeli non-governmental organization Ir Amin. The NGO explained the consequences of Israel’s settlement expansion, including forced displacement and the rupture between Palestinian villages and Jerusalem, which is Israel’s next aim.

Yet, at an international level, Israel’s violations are considered separately, with barely ever a connection between one violation and its precedents. If the UN was truly against human rights violations, it would put its research to good use, as well as consistently draw attention to the fact that the earlier colonization process is ongoing.

The PA is also guilty of the same process, preferring to focus on each violation separately rather than take into account how Israel’s actions are collectively contributing to Palestine’s territorial loss.

While shedding light on the cumulative effect of Israel’s violations, the recent UNGA non-binding draft resolution holds no sway over international chastisement of Israel, let alone enforcing punitive measures. Israel’s impunity has been crafted by the UN, in a parallel manner to how the UN facilitated Palestine’s territorial loss. The resolution is no cause to celebrate; rather it is an affirmation of how the international community’s complicity resulted in these belated affirmations that do nothing to reinstate the Palestinian people’s political rights.

There are several powder kegs around the world, among them the South China Sea where the Pentagon’s surface warships, surveillance submarines and electronic warfare aircraft try to provoke China to take action against their aggressive operations, to the Baltic and Black Seas in which U.S.-Nato armed forces confronting Russia have the same objective. But in the Middle East, the leaky powder keg that will soon attract an igniting flash is the State of Israel which indulges in equally provocative behaviour. In regard to Palestinians and the Iranian nation the government of Naftali Bennett has been every bit as inhumane, barbaric and confrontational as any of its predecessors.

The attitude of the western world to Israel’s excesses varies from the mildly critical to the entirely tolerant, and there is no question of any action being taken that might alter the Israeli government’s deep-seated determination to rid the country of the Palestinians to whom most of it belongs, and to destroy Iran, preferably by having the United States perform another Iraq-style blitzkrieg. In furtherance of its objectives, Israel continues to persecute Palestinians and carry out clandestine operations that will encourage U.S. action against Iran.

The voices of such as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, are lost among the roar of bulldozers as they destroy Palestinian villages and olive tree plantations. His statement that “I am deeply concerned by continued Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. I reiterate that all settlements are illegal under international law, remain a substantial obstacle to peace, and must cease immediately” was a call to exert pressure on Tel Aviv to abide by what Mr Biden continually refers to as the “rules-based international order.”

But nobody took any action.

A recent example of Israel breaking international law with complete impunity was the announcement that 1,355 new Israeli houses are to be built in seven settlements in the West Bank area, adding to the 2,000 units announced in August. The housing minister, Zeev Elkin, declared that this vast amount of construction is necessary, because “strengthening Jewish presence is essential to the Zionist vision”.

The “Zionist vision” is alarming, and the Jewish Voice for Peace notes that it, as an organisation, is “guided by a vision of justice, equality and freedom for all people. We unequivocally oppose Zionism because it is counter to those ideals.” It continues that “Palestinian dispossession and occupation are by design. Zionism has meant profound trauma for generations, systematically separating Palestinians from their homes, land, and each other. Zionism, in practice, has resulted in massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed, families who live just a mile away from each other separated by checkpoints and walls…”

On October 29 the European Union voiced disapproval of Zionist settlement expansion, with foreign policy chief Josep Borrell declaring that “settlements are illegal under international law and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace between the parties.” And Tel Aviv’s Zionist plans for yet more settlements continue as if he had never said a word.

Recently there have been two incidents that define the attitude of the western world to Israel and its policies. In the first, as reported by Euronews, “Israeli police kick Palestinians out of the al-Yusufiye cemetery near the Lion’s Gate entrance to the Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem as construction of the Jewish National Park continues. Many graves in the cemetery have been bulldozed, causing outrage. Palestinian mother Ola Nababteh whose son is buried in the cemetery says she ‘had to move bones around so that she could reach her son’s grave,’ a day after she was dragged away by Israeli police as she tried to cling to her son’s grave.” If there had been such disgusting behaviour by police in Cuba or Venezuela or China or Russia the headlines of the U.S. mainstream media would have been flashing with righteous indignation. Reports and comment pieces would have reached deluge point.

But a search for ‘Ola Nababteh’ in the New York Times or the Washington Post comes up with nothing at all. The dragging by Israeli police of a Palestinian mother from her son’s graveside is regarded as a non-event by western news-controllers.

On the other hand the media considered it important to place on record the fact that Israel’s Energy Minister was unable to attend some proceedings at the COP 26 gathering in Glasgow. As the New York Times reported, “Karine Elharrar, who has muscular dystrophy, arrived at one of the entrances to the event’s compound but her vehicle was not allowed to enter, and the remaining distance was too far for her to go in her wheelchair, she told Israeli media. She waited for two hours and was eventually offered a shuttle to the site, but the shuttle was not wheelchair accessible, she said.” Anyone who suffers from such a disability deserves our deepest sympathy, but this incident was a total charade, because “others in wheelchairs have successfully gained access to the conference facilities, which include elevators, ramps and accessible bathrooms, and Ms. Elharrar was in attendance on Tuesday.”

Ms Elharrar told the BBC that “we can talk about accessibility and the rights of people with disabilities, but in life we need to implement all the conventions and all the regulations and that was an experience that showed that we need to pay attention to all the details everywhere.” Quite so. It is indeed necessary to pay attention to details everywhere, including the sites of Palestinian graves that are being bulldozed to expand construction of the Jewish National Park.

The Glasgow photo-operation was widely covered and CNN reported the comment by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, that “it is impossible to safeguard our future and address the climate crisis, without first and foremost caring for people, including ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities.” But while the Israeli government and the western media expressed righteous sympathy for a disabled rich Israeli whose motorised wheelchair could not access some ramps and lifts in a conference centre, there was scant expression of “care for people” following the killing by Israeli soldiers on November 5 of a thirteen year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammad Daadas, who had joined a protest against what the UN declares to be Israel’s illegal construction of settlements in the West Bank.

The Times of Israel carried a statement by Israeli Forces that “during the disturbance, rioters threw stones at Israeli soldiers. The troops responded with riot dispersal means and live fire.” There has not been one word of criticism in the western media of the fact that an Israeli soldier who had a stone thrown at him by a thirteen-year-old considered it his duty to shoot him in the stomach — and will not stand the remotest chance of facing action for murder.

In this period of illegal construction by Israel of yet more settlements on Palestinian land, the expansion of the Jewish National Park by bulldozing Palestinian graves and hauling away the mother of a buried son, the shooting to death of a Palestinian 13-year-old by an Israeli soldier, and a much-publicised problem with wheelchair ramps at a conference in Glasgow, there came news on November 2 in the U.S. military publication Stars and Stripes that a three-week exercise involving U.S. and Israeli military forces had begun with the intention of demonstrating the “long-standing relationship with Israel that is so vital to stability and security in the region.”

The sparks are moving inexorably towards the Israeli powder keg, encouraged by Washington’s casual acceptance of atrocities and continuing endorsement of its “long-standing relationship” with the nation that emphasises its “Zionist vision”. What is being ignored by the U.S. and Israel is that the refusal by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to talk with Palestinians opens doors to fundamentalist loonies to take direct action in the Middle East and even elsewhere — like New York or Florida or San Francisco. The Middle East powder keg will affect us all when that final spark ignites it.

On the 65^th anniversary of Israel’s brutal massacre on the village of Kafr Qasem, where 48 Palestinians were gunned down by border police, the colonial entity has still failed to formally acknowledge its responsibility for the killings. A bill presented at the Knesset by Arab Israeli MKs was once again voted down. The bill would have required educational instruction in Israeli schools about the massacre, as well as the publication of any classified documents.

The Kafr Qasem massacre is an example of Israel’s premeditated ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. On the same day it attacked the Suez Canal, along with its French and British allies, a curfew was placed on eight Palestinian villages and communicated late, to ensure that Palestinians travelling back home from work would be out after the time restriction. The massacre is one example of Israel’s ongoing Nakba, and one that targeted Palestinians in Israel. Through re-enactment of terror reminiscent of the Nakba, Israel was aiming at further Palestinian dispossession.

It was only 25 days after the massacre that the international community became knowledgeable of the killings, through a press release by Tawfik Toubi, which explained the gruesome massacres in detail. “In some cases, the police stomped on the heads of the dead and sunk their bayonets in the bodies of the women,” an excerpt from the press release included in Samia Halaby’s book, Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacres, reads.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog attended this year’s memorial. His presence was an example of Israel’s hypocrisy when it comes to Palestinian history as a result of colonial violence. Asking for “forgiveness”, Herzog stated, “For it is clear to all of us: the killing and injury of innocents are absolutely forbidden. They must remain beyond all political arguments!”

But Israel has never made the distinction of the innocent. All Palestinians are a target, since each Palestinian stands in the way of Israel’s colonial expansion. In the case of Kafr Qasem, however, Israel is not averse to making a distinction between this massacre and other previous bouts of ethnic cleansing. Why should Palestinians “forgive” Israel for the Kafr Qasem massacres when the colonial enterprise is failing to institutionalise its culpability? Furthermore, why ask forgiveness for Kafr Qasem and not for the earlier massacres which paved the way for Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing?

Herzog’s words attempted to steer clear of what he called “political argument”. At the commemoration, he declared, “This is our opportunity, as a human society, to empower what we have in common as citizens and as neighbours.”

There is no equality between what Herzog calls citizens and neighbours without decolonisation. The Israeli president spoke from a privileged position to Palestinians who have lost family members, knowing that the perpetrators faced only a charade of justice. The convicted officials responsible for the murders were released from prison by 1960, by means of reduced sentences or pardons, meaning that the Israeli justice system failed to recognise the severity of the crime and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Speaking about the massacres politically as well as in terms of criminal culpability is necessary to ensure that the Palestinian narrative emerges. It is well documented that Israel’s existence is rooted in massacres and Palestinians’ dispossession.

With Kafr Qasem, as well as with other massacres, Israel needs to set the record straight – it is a perpetrator, with intent, and with an entire political structure that has supported its ethnic cleansing for decades. There should be no dissociating from political accountability merely to ensure that Palestinian memory remains distinct from the history which Zionist colonisation perpetrated since the Nakba.

Some might recall candidate Joe Biden’s pledge to work to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was a multilateral agreement intended to limit Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. The JCPOA was signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, when Biden was Vice President, and was considered one of the only foreign policy successes of his eight years in office. Other signatories to it were Britain, China, Germany, France, and Russia and it was endorsed by the United Nations. The agreement included unannounced inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by the IAEA and, by all accounts, it was working and was a non-proliferation success story. In return for its cooperation Iran was to receive its considerable assets frozen in banks in the United States and was also to be relieved of the sanctions that had been placed on it by Washington and other governments.

The JCPOA crashed and burned in 2018 when President Donald Trump ordered U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, claiming that Iran was cheating and would surely move to develop a nuclear weapon as soon as the first phase of the agreement was completed. Trump, whose ignorance on Iran and other international issues was profound, had surrounded himself with a totally Zionist foreign policy team, including members of his own family, and had bought fully into the arguments being made by Israel as well as by Israel Lobby predominantly Jewish groups to include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Trump’s time in office was spent pandering to Israel in every conceivable way, to include recognizing Jerusalem as the country’s capital, granting Israel the green light for creating and expanding illegal settlements on the West Bank and recognizing the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.

Given Trump’s record, most particularly the senseless and against-American-interests abandonment of JCPOA, it almost seemed a breath of fresh air to hear Biden’s fractured English as he committed his administration to doing what he could to rejoin the other countries who were still trying to make the agreement work. After Biden was actually elected, more or less, he and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken clarified what the U.S. would seek to do to “fix” the agreement by making it stronger in some key areas that had not been part of the original document.

Iran for its part insisted that the agreement did not need any additional caveats and should be a return to the status quo ante, particularly when Blinken and his team made clear that they were thinking of a ban on Iranian ballistic missile development as well as negotiations to end Tehran’s alleged “interference” in the politics of the region. The interference presumably referred to Iranian support of the Palestinians as well as its role in Syria and Yemen, all of which had earned the hostility of American “friends” Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Israel inevitably stirred the pot by sending a stream of senior officials, to include Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to discuss “the Iranian threat” with Biden and his top officials. Lapid made clear that Israel “reserves the right to act at any given moment, in any way… We know there are moments when nations must use force to protect the world from evil.” And to be sure, Biden, like Trump, has also made his true sentiments clear by surrounding himself with Zionists. Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland have filled the three top slots at State Department, all are Jewish and all strong on Israel. Nuland is a leading neocon. And pending is the appointment of Barbara Leaf, who has been nominated Assistant Secretary to head the State Department’s Near East region. She is currently the Ruth and Sid Lapidus Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is an AIPAC spin off and a major component in the Israel Lobby. That means that a member in good standing of the Israel Lobby would serve as the State Department official overseeing American policy in the Middle East.

At the Pentagon one finds a malleable General Mark Milley, always happy to meet his Israeli counterparts, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, an affirmative action promotion who likewise has become adept at parroting the line “Israel has a right to defend itself.” And need one mention ardent self-declared Zionists at the top level of the Democratic Party, to include Biden himself, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?

So rejoining the JCPOA over Israel objections was a non-starter from the beginning and was probably only mooted to make Trump look bad. Indirect talks including both Iran and the U.S. technically have continued in Vienna, though they have been stalled since the end of June. Trita Parsi has recently learned that Iran sought to make a breakthrough for an agreement by seeking a White House commitment to stick with the plan as long as Biden remains in office. Biden and Blinken refused and Blinken has recently confirmed that a new deal is unlikely, saying “time is running out.”

And there have been some other new developments. Israeli officials have been warning for over twenty years that Iran is only one year away from having its own nukes and needs to be stopped, a claim that has begun to sound like a religious mantra repeated over and over, but now they are actually funding the armaments that will be needed to do the job. Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has repeatedly said the IDF is “accelerating” plans to strike Iran, and Israeli politicians to include former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have regularly been threatening to do whatever must be done to deal with the threat from the Islamic Republic. Israeli media is reporting that $1.5 billion has been allocated in the current and upcoming budget to buy the American bunker buster bombs that will be needed to destroy the Iranian reactor at Bushehr and its underground research facilities at Natanz.

In the wake of the news about the war funding, there have also been reports that the Israeli Air Force is engaging in what is being described as “intense” drills to simulate attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. After Israel obtains the 5000 pound bunker buster bombs, it will also need to procure bombers to drop the ordnance, and one suspects that the U.S. Congress will somehow come up with the necessary “military aid” to make that happen. Tony Blinken has also made clear that the Administration knows what Israel is planning and approves. He met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on October 13^th and said if diplomacy with Iran fails, the U.S. will turn to “other options.” And yes, he followed that up with the venerable line that “Israel has the right to defend itself and we strongly support that proposition.”

Lapid confirmed that one of Blinken’s “options” was military action. “I would like to start by repeating what the Secretary of State just said.  Yes, other options are going to be on the table if diplomacy fails.  And by saying other options, I think everybody understands here … what is it that we mean.” It must be observed that in their discussion of Iran’s nuclear program, Lapid and Blinnken were endorsing an illegal and unprovoked attack to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon that it is apparently not seeking, but which it will surely turn to as a consequence if only to defend itself in the future.

In short, U.S. foreign policy is yet again being held hostage by Israel. The White House position is clearly and absurdly that an Israeli attack on Iran, considered a war crime by most, is an act of self-defense. However it turns out, the U.S. will be seen as endorsing the crime and will inevitably be implicated in it, undoubtedly resulting in yet another foreign policy disaster in the Middle East with nothing but grief for the American people.  The simple truth is that Iran has neither threatened nor attacked Israel. Given that, there is nothing defensive about the actions Israel has already taken in sabotaging Iranian facilities and assassinating scientists, and there would be nothing defensive about direct military attacks either with or without U.S. assistance on Iranian soil. If Israel chooses to play the fool it is on them and their leaders. The United States does not have a horse in this race and should butt out, but one doubts if a White House and Congress, firmly controlled by Zionist forces, have either the wisdom or the courage to cut the tie that binds with the Jewish state.

An intriguing though fragmentary espionage story made headlines eleven days ago and then disappeared abruptly, suggesting that some folks in high places in the government and media were fearing that the full tale would prove to be embarrassing to someone. I am referring to the report of the arrest made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service of an American government employee who worked in nuclear engineering. Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana apparently had stolen highly sensitive information on nuclear propulsion systems and the stealth hull designs of the next generation U.S. Navy Virginia class attack submarine fleet and had been caught after several times seeking to sell their wares to what they thought to be a foreign power.

Two days after the arrest, the Toebbes appeared in court in Martinsburg West Virginia and were ordered to remain in jail as they were considered a flight risk. So far, so good but the interesting part of the story is that the intended purchaser was apparently not obvious adversaries like Russia and China, but rather an ostensibly friendly country, which was not identified. The Toebbes clearly thought they were offering their technology to a foreign country’s intelligence service, one presumes, but they were in fact in contact with the FBI, which allowed them to arrange dead drops in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia and paid them to continue providing new material on small digital computer cards before closing the trap and making the arrest.

And how the FBI learned about the Toebbes is another interesting part of the story. Apparently in April 2020 the couple had mailed a package containing manuals and other material relating to the propulsion systems to a foreign country, together with an offer to establish a covert relationship in return for payment in cryptocurrency. The package somehow wound up in someone’s hands in the foreign postal system or government and eventually made its way anonymously eight months later to the FBI legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy. It included a note that read “Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax.”

One has to suspect that the material actually had reached the foreign intelligence agency that it had been sent to where it was considered too hot to handle, so it was forwarded on to the U.S. officials anonymously to get rid of it.

The documents involved relating to the arrest and the alleged crimes committed by the Toebbes are heavily redacted, far beyond the identity of the foreign country involved, so it is somewhat difficult to reconstruct exactly what happened. Toebbe, a former naval officer, has held senior positions in the Navy bureaucracy, up to and including serving on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, which would have given him access to beyond top secret codeworded details of next level submarine technology. It is information that is only shared with Great Britain and, in a recent policy move, with Australia, both U.S. allies that will deploy nuclear powered submarines in the Pacific to deter China. The documents the Toebbes reportedly stole and tried to sell were produced by a little-known U.S. government facility the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin Pennsylvania.

One of the most interesting aspects of the case is the question of who might have been the potential buyer of the stolen technology. Building nuclear submarines is not exactly high on the priority list of any but a small handful of countries that have global or regional pretensions that might be supported by having cruise missile nuclear weapons capable ships that can stay under water for months at a time. Germany could conceivably build such vessels but has no defensive needs that require such an expedient. So could France, presumably. Japan and South Korea are perhaps more plausible recipients, particularly as they have the industrial and scientific bases that could benefit from and use the technology if they chose to go that route, and both are threatened by China.

And, of course, there is always Israel, which frequently tends to come up when there are stories of espionage committed by a friendly country against the United States. In this case, of course, the Israelis, if targeted by the Toebbes, apparently did not seek the approach and that may be why the information sent in the package possibly to Mossad was sat on for over six months. Nevertheless, there is a definite resemblance to what the Toebbes set out to do with the Jonathan Pollard case of the 1980s. Pollard, a non-practicing Jew and Navy analyst, stole a whole roomful of top-secret defense materials. He was in it for the money and tried to sell the intelligence to several foreign governments before he “got religion” and found a buyer in Israel. He became the most damaging spy in the history of the United States. After being caught, tried, convicted and spending twenty-eight years in federal prison, he was released on parole but not allowed to travel. The Donald Trump administration did not renew the parole in 2020 and he moved to Israel, where he was met at the airport by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who presented him with his citizenship papers. He is regarded as a hero in Israel and he has a city square named after him. So, the question becomes, was history repeating itself with the Toebbes?

Against that speculation is the fact that Israel already has an established nuclear deterrent more than capable of eliminating its regional enemies if needs be. It has no use for an expensive submarine with abilities that are not required in the goldfish bowl of the Middle East, unless of course if the United States were to gift Jerusalem with such a new military bauble. It would also have no need to get involved in something that might ultimately have tremendous blowback if exposed, potentially severely damaging the relationship with Washington.

My own theory is that Israel was indeed the target of the Toebbes’ scheme. It is widely known that the Jewish state is the most aggressive and successful “friendly” nation spying on Washington and it is backed up by a host of wealthy and powerful co-religionists who work hard to both “help” it and cover-up for its crimes. I suspect that if Israeli intelligence were interested in collecting on the submarine technology they would eschew potential screwballs like the Toebbes and instead work their other sources in Washington to collect the information independently, accounting for the time lag between the mailing of the package and the forwarding of it to the FBI. When Pollard was active, his Israeli Embassy handler would sometimes ask him for specific files by number, indicating they had other high level agents at work, and it must be assumed that that is still the case. Far too many in Congress and the Pentagon are very happy to have a lunch with that nice young man or woman from the Israeli Embassy and maybe share a secret or two.

But, that speculation aside, perhaps the strongest indicator that Israel was the planned recipient of what the Toebbe’s stole is the silence over who the target might have been. When the media and the federal government are silent on a foreign policy or national security issue it often means that Israel is involved, directly or indirectly. Will we the American public ever learn “who was it?” Probably not. Just one more secret.

Much has been said about the Biden Administration’s re-joining international institutions, after former U.S. President Donald Trump broke away from the standardised participation in international agreements and consensus. Notably, the international community singled out the U.S. under Trump for the so-called “deal of the century”, which veered away from the two-state paradigm that has steered international diplomacy on Palestine and Israel for decades.

Trump’s decision to quit the UN Human Rights Council in 2008 was described by former U.S. envoy to the UN Nikki Haley as determined by the body’s “unending hostility towards Israel.” Echoing Haley, the former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the council “a protector of human rights abusers.” Perhaps Pompeo had conveniently forgotten the U.S.’s own track record of backing military coups which disappeared tens of thousands of political opponents. The same goes for the correlation between U.S. financial aid and human rights abuses – the countries which benefit from U.S. aid uphold similar political trajectories to the U.S.

Not much difference has been articulated in terms of U.S. President Joe Biden deciding to re-join the UNHRC in 2022. U.S. Secretary of State Ned Price stated his “concerns” about the organisation. “We will vigorously oppose the council’s disproportionate attention on Israel, which includes the council’s only standing agenda item targeting a single country.” The Trump administration’s departure from the international community was based on the same alleged premise.

Agenda Item 7, which focuses upon Israel’s violations, is a permanent fixture at the UNHRC and the source of much criticism and allegations of “anti-Israel bias” – a term popularised during the Trump era and extended now through the Biden administration. At the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also accused the body of being anti-Israel and the U.S.’s return to the international fold as working in Israel’s benefit.

The UNHRC is just as farcical as the UN. Whether the U.S. re-joins or decides to boycott, nothing changes in terms of human rights violations. A U.S. seat on the UNHRC will not alter Biden’s foreign policy, nor will it impede the U.S. from warfare and violence. In 2020, the U.S. military spending increased by 4.4 percent from 2019, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The U.S. is the largest military spender globally, making up 39 percent of the global expenditure in 2020. Anyone rejoicing at the U.S. decision to re-join the UNHRC might do well to consider the political violence it is applauding.

Neither Trump nor Biden have portrayed a stance based on human rights values. The same can be said for previous administrations. However, much has been lost in terms of the significance with which Trump exposed and applied U.S. foreign policy.

As long as international institutions exist, and human rights rhetoric remains the only threshold in terms of purported accountability, the mainstream narrative will not take stock of the fact that the U.S., like international organisations, operates from within a manipulation of the human rights and democratic framework. The result is a cycle of violations which are then isolated in terms of the oppressed and the oppressor, to forge a collective concern about human rights. Having a few permanent scapegoats, such as Cuba, for example, which has faced decades of dead-end international support against the U.S. illegal blockade, allows the U.S. to preside over the democratic debacle, even as it annihilates democratic expression throughout the world.

With or without the U.S., the human rights debacle will continue unabated. If, according to the U.S., Cuba does not deserve a seat at the UNHRC, what has the U.S. done to deserve it? In the same vein, given the U.S. inclusion, what values is the UNHRC seeking to impart?