zaterdag 22 februari 2020

NYT Secret Sources

Moscow Mules: NYT Secret Sources Claim Russia Backing Trump Re-Election

Clearly the only way Trump can win, right?
The New York Times would like everyone to know that if Trump is re-elected in November, it wasn’t because of his accomplishments, the economy, or packed stadiums full of dedicated supporters.
Nope – Putin’s at it again!
In an unbelievable Thursday report, the Times claims that five anonymous sources leaked the details of a Feb. 13 briefing to House Lawmakers by intelligence officials warning that Russia has already been interfering in the 2020 election.
So – the Kremlin wants the president who, according to political analyst Ian Bremmer, has been tough on Russia – instead of, say, Bernie Sanders– the Democratic socialist who honeymooned in Moscow and would likely crash the US economy, thus weakening it, with his draconian socialist policies.
The Times report gets better; the House briefing reportedly angered President Trump so much that he berated outgoing director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, and that he was particularly irritated that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was included in the session. The report implies that Maguire was replaced with pro-Trump ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, as a result of the incident. 
During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that Mr. Trump has been tough on Russia and strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have avoided angering the Republicans.
That intelligence official, Shelby Pierson, is an aide to Mr. Maguire who has a reputation of delivering intelligence in somewhat blunt terms. The president announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and long an aggressively vocal Trump supporter. –New York Times
Moments after the Times report was published, CNN immediately picked it up for their dozens of viewers.


Democrats resurrect ‘Russiagate’

Democrats resurrect ‘Russiagate’ to go after both Trump and Bernie Sanders, hide their own election trickery

Nebojsa Malic
Nebojsa Malic
is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

Palestine Chronicle

Palestine Chronicle Newsletter | Feb 22-25, 2020

Ramzy Baroud - the real danger in the ‘Deal of the Century’ is not the actual stipulations of that sinister plan, but the fact that the Palestinian leadership is likely to find a way to co-exist with it, at the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people. 

(Read full article below)

Mother of a Palestinian prisoner in Israel was denied today the right to visit her son in prison. Her other son, Sami, died from cancer last November in an Israeli jail due to medical negligence.

(Read full article below)
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"Ramzy Baroud’s book of Palestinian prisoners’ stories is a remarkable work. With each story, there is a roll-call of the best of humanity: courage, struggle, determination, generosity, passion, humility and, above all, defiance of injustice. Everyone, especially those of us in the West subjected to unerring propaganda, should read this searing and beautiful book. Then understand all over again that peace and justice are not possible in the world until the Palestinians are free." CLICK HERE
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By Palestine Chronicle Staff - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday, during an election campaign tour in illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the construction of thousands of new settler homes at the outskirt of occupied East Jerusalem.

In a speech that he delivered in the illegal Jewish settlement of Har Homa, Netanyahu revealed that his government would revive a plan which would allow for the massive expansion of Israel’s colonial enterprise in the occupied Palestinian Territories. 

“Today I approved the construction in Givat Hamatos” of 3,000 homes for Jewish settlers, of which 1,000 would be marketed soon, Netanyahu said in a video he posted on social media.
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‘The Donald Trump I know’: Abbas’ UN Speech and the Breakdown of Palestinian Politics

By Ramzy Baroud

A precious moment has been squandered, as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, had the chance to right a historical wrong, by reinstating Palestinian national priorities at the United Nations Security Council on February 11, through a political discourse that is completely independent of Washington and its allies.

For a long time, Abbas has been a hostage to the very language that designated him and his Authority as ‘moderates’ in the eyes of Israel and the West. Despite the Palestinian leader’s outward rejection of the US ‘Deal of the Century’ – which practically renders Palestinian national aspirations null and void – Abbas is keen to maintain his ‘moderate’ credentials for as long as possible.

Certainly, Abbas has given many speeches at the UN in the past and, every single time, he has failed to impress Palestinians. This time, however, things were meant to be different. Not only did Washington disown Abbas and the PA, but it also scrapped its own political discourse on peace and the two-state solution altogether. More, the Trump administration has now officially given its blessing to Israel to annex nearly a third of the West Bank, taking Jerusalem ‘off the table’ and discarding the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Instead of directly meeting with leaders of the various Palestinian political parties and taking tangible steps to reactivate dormant but central political institutions such as the Palestinian National Council (PNC) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abbas preferred to meet with former Israeli right-wing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in New York, and to carry on regurgitating his commitment to a by-gone era.

In his UN speech, Abbas said nothing new which, in this instance, is worse than not saying anything at all.

“This is the outcome of the project that has been introduced to us,” Abbas said while holding a map of what a Palestinian state would look like under Donald Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’. “And this is the state that they are giving to us,” Abbas added, referring to that future state as a ‘Swiss cheese’, meaning a state fragmented by Jewish settlements, bypass-roads and Israeli military zones.

Even the term ‘Swiss cheese’, which was reported in some media as if a new phrase in this ever-redundant discourse, is an old coinage that has been referenced repeatedly by the Palestinian leadership itself, starting with the onset of the so-called peace process, a quarter of a century ago.

Abbas labored to appear exceptionally resolute as he emphasized certain words, like when he equated the Israeli occupation with the system of apartheid. His delivery, however, appeared unconvincing, lacking and, at times, pointless.

Abbas spoke of his great ‘surprise’ when Washington declared Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, subsequently relocating its embassy to the occupied city, as if the writing was not already on the wall and that, in fact, the embassy move was one of Trump’s main pledges to Israel even before his inauguration in January 2017.

“And then they cut off financial aid that was given to us,” Abbas said in a lamenting voice with reference to the US decision to withhold its aid to the PA in August 2018. “$840 million are held from us,” he said. “I don’t know who is giving Trump such horrid advice. Trump is not like this. Trump that I know is not like this,” Abbas exclaimed in a strange interjection as if to send a message to the Trump administration that the PA still has faith in the US President’s judgment.

“I would like to remind everyone that we have participated in the Madrid peace conference, and the Washington negotiations and the Oslo agreement and the Annapolis summit on the basis of international law,” Abbas recounted, signaling that he remains committed to the very political agenda that reaped the Palestinian people no political rewards whatsoever.

Abbas then went on to paint an imagined reality, where his Authority is supposedly building the “national institutions of a law-abiding, modern and democratic state that is constructed on the basis of international values; one that is predicated on transparency, accountability and fighting corruption.”

“Yes,” Abbas emphasized, as he looked at his audience with theatrical seriousness, “We are one of the most important countries (in the world) that is fighting corruption.” The PA leader, then, called on the Security Council to send a commission to investigate allegations of corruption within the PA, a bewildering and unnecessary invitation, considering that it is the Palestinian leadership that should be making demands on the international community to help enforce international law and end the Israeli occupation.

It went on like this, where Abbas vacillated between reading pre-written remarks that introduce no new ideas or strategies and unnecessary rants that reflect the PA’s political bankruptcy and Abbas’ own lack of imagination.

The PA President, of course, made sure to offer his habitual condemnation of Palestinian ‘terrorism’ by promising that Palestinians would not “resort to violence and terrorism regardless of the act of aggression against us.” He assured his audience that his Authority believes in “peace and fighting violence.” Without elaborating, Abbas declared his intention of continuing on the path of “popular and peaceful resistance,” which, in fact, does not exist in any shape or form.

This time around, Abbas’ speech at the UN was particularly inappropriate. Indeed, it was a failure in every possible way. The least, the Palestinian leader could have done is to articulate a powerful and collective Palestinian political discourse. Instead, his statement was merely a sad homage to his own legacy, one that is riddled with disappointments and ineptitude.

Expectedly, Abbas returned to Ramallah to greet his cheering supporters once more, who are always ready and waiting to raise posters of the aging leader, as if his UN speech had succeeded in fundamentally shifting international political momentum in favor of Palestinians.

It has to be said that the real danger in the ‘Deal of the Century’ is not the actual stipulations of that sinister plan, but the fact that the Palestinian leadership is likely to find a way to co-exist with it, at the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people, as long as donors’ money continues to flow and as long as Abbas continues to call himself a president.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
Bereaved Mother of Palestinian Prisoner Denied Visit to her Other Son in Israeli Prison

The mother of a Palestinian prisoner in Israel was denied today the right to visit her son in prison, reported WAFA correspondent.

Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint northwest of Ramallah stopped Amneh Abu Diak, from Silat al-Daher village, near Jenin, and told her that she could not proceed with the visit.

Amneh’s son, Samer Abu Diak, has served 15 years out of a life sentence, at Ramleh prison in central Israel.

Her other son, Sami, died from cancer last November in an Israeli jail due to medical negligence. From the prison, his last message was:

“I want to be in my last days and hours beside my mother and my loved ones, and I want to die in her arms.”

Around 5,700 Palestinians, including numerous women and children, are currently detained in Israeli prisons.

(Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)
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