Thursday, June 25, 2020

1199 EU Office in Geneva shows Antifa flag on its official Twitter account

EU Office in Geneva shows Antifa flag on its official Twitter account

Newsletter published on June 21, 2020

(1) EU Office in Geneva shows Antifa flag on its official Twitter account
(2) The UN declares its support for Antifa on social media
(3) ‘Defund the UN’? World body blasted after tweeting defense of Antifa
(4) UN Human Rights Council orders report on systemic racism in the wake
of George Floyd death
(5) Ulysses Grant statue toppled in San Francisco
(6) Seattle police probe deadly shooting in activist-run CHAZ
‘autonomous zone’
(7) George Floyd was high on Fentanyl; this may have contributed to his
breathing difficulties
(8) Pandemic paralysis and ongoing Social Unrest show the Empire is in
decline

(1) EU Office in Geneva shows Antifa flag on its official Twitter account


U.N. Shares Antifa Flag, Tells U.S. Antifa Has Right to ‘Freedom of
Expression’, ‘Peaceful Assembly’

KURT ZINDULKA

20 Jun 2020

United Nations "experts" slammed President Donald Trump’s call to label
Antifa as a terrorist organisation, claiming it will undermine Antifa’s
right of "peaceful assembly" — despite many instances of violence by the
far-left anarcho-communist group.

On Friday, the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) posted the flag of
Antifa on their official Twitter account, saying that a group of human
rights "experts" at the globalist organisation had expressed "profound
concern over a recent statement by the U.S. Attorney-General describing
Antifa and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying
it undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful
assembly in the country."

One expert cited in the statement from the United Nations was Fionnuala
Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of
human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, who
also works as the Board Chair of the Open Society Foundations Women
Program — OSF being the plaything of left-liberal billionaire activist
George Soros.

UN Geneva @UNGeneva UN #HumanRights experts express profound concern
over a recent statement by the US Attorney-General describing #Antifa
and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying it
undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly
in the country.

"International human rights law protects the right to freedom of
expression, association and peaceful assembly," said Ní Aoláin, adding
that it was "regrettable that the United States has chosen to respond to
the protests in a manner that undermines these fundamental rights."

The support from the UN for the far-left group came in response to U.S.
Attorney-General William Barr’s statement that violence committed by
Antifa "is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly".

Though there has been no legal action taken since President Trump’s
announcement that the U.S. will designate the group as a terrorist
organisation, Ní Aoláin said that "the loose use of terrorism rhetoric
undermines legitimate protests and dampens freedom of expression in the
United States, which has been a hallmark of U.S. constitutional values,
and a beacon far beyond its shores".

The United Nations’ criticism of the Trump Administration’s rhetoric on
Antifa sparked widespread ridicule, with many calling for the U.S. to
defund the international body — mimicking the leftist movement to defund
the police.

Despite the United Nations’ reference to Antifa’s "alleged" violence,
its penchant for resorting to unlawful use of force is well-documented.

For example, Antifa supporters appeared to play a part in recent riots
in the United States over the death of George Floyd, prompting the
Attorney-General to move towards designating it as a terrorist
organisation in the first place.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, at least 24 people clad in Antifa’s signature
"Black Bloc" uniform were arrested after violently clashing with police
in France.

In May, two Antifa members had been arrested for allegedly acquiring
firearms in order to murder police in the French city of Lyon.

An Antifa flag was also at the forefront of one of the early Black Lives
Matter "protests" at the gates of Downing Street in London. Such
protests the British capital have become increasingly violent as the
month has progressed.

Commenting on a violent Antifa demonstration in Germany in May,
journalist and Antifa-watcher Andy Ngo — who was himself a victim of
Antifa violence last year — told Breitbart London: "Observe how Antifa
and far-left demonstrators who defy virus health guidelines, sometimes
violently, haven’t been treated with the same public contempt as
conservative protesters asking for states to open up."

"In Chicago, they terrorised children inside a migrant facility on May
Day when they attacked the building," Ngo continued.

"Far-left extremists are empowered to be violent by the legitimacy and
pass given to them by mainstream society and media," he concluded.

Chris Tomlinson @TomlinsonCJ The United States and @realDonaldTrump need
to learn from the ultra-violent history of Antifa in Europe.
…

TOMLINSON: Europe's Antifa History Should Serve as a Warning to U.S. The
far-left extremist Antifa movement and its allies have carved a wave of
violence, destruction, and even murder for decades in Europe.

(2) The UN declares its support for Antifa on social media


By ARTHUR LYONS 20 June 2020

On Friday, the United Nations, on its Geneva social media account,
declared its unwavering support for members Antifascist Action, a
violent Marxist-Leninist organization which US president Donald Trump
said would soon be labelled as a terrorist organization.

On its official Twitter account, the United Nations Office in Geneva
(UNOG) launched a defense of the anti-police extremist organization,
saying that it was worried by recent statements made by senior officials
within the Trump administration which described the group’s activists as
domestic terrorists.

"UN #HumanRights experts express profound concern over a recent
statement by the US Attorney-General describing #Antifa and other
anti-fascist actrivists as domestic terrorists, saying it undermines the
rights to freedom and expression and of peaceful assembly," the tweet reads.

UN Geneva @UNGeneva UN #HumanRights experts express profound concern
over a recent statement by the US Attorney-General describing #Antifa
and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying it
undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly
in the country.

Below the tweet’s text, an image of the Antifascist Action banner was
posted. Shortly after going live, the tweet, which appeared to endorse
the group that’s   well-known for regularly carrying out violence
against their political opponents, sparked widespread outrage.  Among
other reactions, some commenters called for the UN to be defunded.

In response to the UN’s tweet, Jack Posobiec, a former Naval
intelligence officer who now works as a journalist for the right-wing
news outlet One America News Network (OANN), wrote: "The United Nations
is running cover for an international extremist group that has conducted
violent insurrectionist attacks across North America and Europe" adding
"Antifa doesn’t exist and also the UN just endorsed them."

The UN’s tweet comes after a resolution drafted by the UN Human Rights
Commission which requests a report "systematic racism" and police abuses
against people of African descent.

(3) ‘Defund the UN’? World body blasted after tweeting defense of Antifa


20 Jun, 2020 00:13

A tweet from Geneva objecting to US authorities describing Antifa as a
domestic terrorist organization has provoked calls to defund the United
Nations and accusations that the UN is covering for the group. "UN Human
Rights experts express profound concern over a recent statement by the
US Attorney-General describing [Antifa] and other anti-fascist activists
as domestic terrorists, saying it undermines the rights to freedom of
expression and of peaceful assembly in the country," the UN Geneva
office, home to the Human Rights Council, tweeted on Friday, accompanied
by a photo of the Antifa banner.

UN Geneva @UNGeneva UN #HumanRights experts express profound concern
over a recent statement by the US Attorney-General describing #Antifa
and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying it
undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly
in the country.

No further information was given about who these experts might be, or
whether this was the official position of the Human Rights Council, a
body the US demonstratively left in June 2018, citing its criticism of
Israel.

The unusual tweet quickly attracted controversy over the UN’s apparent
endorsement of Antifa, whose masked activists have repeatedly clashed
with conservatives and police on US streets over the past several years,
including during the recent protests and riots.

"The United Nations is running cover for an international extremist
group that has conducted violent insurrectionist attacks across North
America and Europe,"tweeted journalist Jack Posobiec of OAN,
adding"Antifa doesn’t exist and also the UN just endorsed them."

Journalist Drew Holden brought up the Geneva office’s praise for China,
adding that rather than defunding police, the US should "defund the UN."

Drew Holden @DrewHolden360 Forget #DefundThePolice, what we need to do
is #DefundTheUN

Others didn’t bother with words, sharing instead a meme of a massive
pile of manure to show what they thought of the UN’s opinion.

Rita Panahi @RitaPanahi Replying to @UNGeneva

"How dare you use the UN to promote such an evil organisation," a
British outfit denouncing ‘BBC propaganda’ said, noting that Antifa is
"every bit as evil as 1930's German Fascism."

Britain battles Covid @BBCPropaganda Do you think we don't know history?
ANTIFA were born out of 1930's German Communism and are every bit as
evil as 1930's German Fascism

How dare you use the UN to promote such an evil organisation? Our
nations fought wars against those ideologies. They killed millions

The UN Geneva tweet came after the UN Human Rights Commission asked for
a report on "systemic racism" and police abuses against people of
African descent, in a resolution that did not dare mention the US by name.

This displeased activists at the American Civil Liberties Union, who
declared that the UN "needs to do its job – not get bullied out of doing
it – and hold the United States accountable."

"The country must face independent global scrutiny for its oppression of
Black people," said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights
Program.

Meanwhile, the European Union Parliament adopted a ‘Black Lives Matter’
resolution demanding that the US "take decisive steps to address the
structural racism and inequalities in the country, as reflected in
police brutality."

(4) UN Human Rights Council orders report on systemic racism in the wake
of George Floyd death


By Lauren Meier - The Washington Times - Friday, June 19, 2020

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday unanimously voted to
commission a report on systemic racism and discrimination against black
people and condemned last month’s killing of George Floyd, which sparked
worldwide anti-racism protests.

The 47-member group, of which the U.S. is not a member after withdrawing
in 2018, approved a resolution after days of negotiating the language of
the document, during which a group of African nations reportedly backed
down from their efforts to launch a commission of inquiry on the matter
following U.S.-led closed-door talks.

The resolution now calls for a more streamlined report to be authored by
the council chief’s office among other experts, and seeks to "contribute
to accountability and redress for victims" in the U.S. and around the
world, The Associated Press reported.

It also condemns "the continuing racially discriminatory and violent
practices" by law enforcement against Africans and people of African
descent "in particular which led to the death of George Floyd on 25 May
2020 in Minnesota."

Mr. Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after a white police officer knelt
on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis.

The resolution also calls for the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human
Rights Michelle Bachelet to review government responses to peaceful
protests that swept the world in the wake of Floyd’s death and issue a
report on her findings to the council by June of next year.

(5) Ulysses Grant statue toppled in San Francisco


By Andrew Blake - The Washington Times - Saturday, June 20, 2020

Protesters on Friday toppled a statue in San Francisco of former
President Ulysses S. Grant, who famously led the Union Army to victories
that crippled and ultimately brought down the Confederacy.

The statue of Grant, who also served as the nation’s eighteenth
president, was among three monuments in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park
knocked down during the evening by a group of protesters.

Other monuments toppled include a statue of Junípero Serra, an 18th
century missionary recently declared a saint in the Catholic Church, and
Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," the
national anthem.

Police said roughly 400 protesters were at the park around the time the
statues were taken down, the local NBC affiliate reported. No arrests
were made, the local CBS station added.

The statues in San Francisco are among the latest to be dismantled as
monuments around the country are toppled following last month’s racially
charged killing of George Floyd.

Floyd, a black man, died May 25 in the custody of the Minneapolis Police
Department in Minnesota. Protests against systemic racism and police
brutality have taken place worldwide in the weeks since, including in
several U.S. cities where controversial monuments have recently been
toppled amid that unrest.

Indeed, the statues in San Francisco came down the same evening that
protesters on the other side of the country successfully toppled a
Confederate monument in Washington, D.C.

The statue in D.C. of Albert Pike, a brigadier general in the
Confederate Army, was the only outdoor statue in the nation’s capital to
honor a Confederate soldier prior to it being felled last night. The
Pike statue has long been relatively obscure, however, in part because
it depicted him in civilian dress and was designed primarily to honor
his achievements in leading an order of Freemasons.

President Trump responded to the Pike statue’s dismantling on Twitter
late Friday by calling for the immediate arrest of those involved.

(6) Seattle police probe deadly shooting in activist-run CHAZ
‘autonomous zone’


20 Jun, 2020 15:02

US police are investigating a shooting that left one dead and another
with life-threatening injuries in the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous
Zone (CHAZ) run by activists in downtown Seattle. Shots were fired at
the main entrance to the enclave Saturday morning. The Seattle Police
Department has confirmed that it is investigating the shooting in the
zone, and has said one 19-year-old man was declared deceased while
another male of unknown age is being "treated for life-threatening
injuries."

Andy Ngô @MrAndyNgo Exclusive: My sourcing tells me that Seattle Police
have been hampered from carrying out a homicide investigation because
they were not allowed to enter CHAZ. When police went to Harborview
Medical Center, where a victim was transported, they were met by CHAZ's
armed people.

Andy Ngô @MrAndyNgo Livestream by @Omarisal showed the chaos in the
moments after the shooting at CHAZ. "Street medics" tried to render aid
before the victim(s) was transported to hospital by private car.
Responding Seattle Police were blocked from entering to
…

CHAZ, also known as Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), was
established in Seattle on June 8 by a group of anarchists, socialists
and Black Lives Matter activists. The self-declared autonomous zone
spans six blocks, has no police presence, and is largely barricaded off.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan earlier expressed support for CHAZ, saying
the protesters were "gathering lawfully and exercising their First
Amendment right of free speech."

Ian Miles Cheong @stillgray Shooting in CHAZ. There’s trouble in paradise.

(7) George Floyd was high on Fentanyl; this may have contributed to his
breathing difficulties


Or Did George Floyd Die of a Drug Overdose?

Fatal Fentanyl: A Forensic Analysis

JOHN-PAUL LEONARD

JUNE 16, 2020

"The centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." — W. B.
Yeats, 1919

Truth is the first victim in politics. Factions and passions rule.
Random facts are picked as weapons, no one thinks things through.

We need to understand the facts surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Many key facts are being ignored:

Floyd’s blood tests showed a concentration of Fentanyl of about three
times the fatal dose.

Fentanyl is a dangerous opioid 50 times more potent than heroin. It has
rapidly become the most common cause of death among drug addicts.

The knee hold used by the police is not a choke hold, it does not impede
breathing. It is a body restraint and is not known to have ever caused
fatal injury.

Floyd already began to complain "I can’t breathe" a few minutes before
the neck restraint was applied, while resisting the officers when they
tried to get him into the squad car. Fentanyl affects the breathing,
causing death by respiratory arrest.

It was normal procedure to restrain Floyd because he was resisting
arrest, probably in conjunction with excited delirium (EXD), an episode
of violent agitation brought on by a drug overdose, typically brief and
ending in death from cardiopulmonary arrest.

The official autopsy did indeed give cardiopulmonary arrest as the cause
of death, and stated that injuries he sustained during the arrest were
not life-threatening.

Videos of the arrest do not show police beating or striking Floyd, only
calmly restraining him

In one video Floyd is heard shouting and groaning loudly and
incoherently while restrained on the ground, which appears to be a sign
of the violent, shouting phase of EXD. His ability to resist four
officers trying to get him into the squad car is typical of EXD cases. A
short spurt of superhuman strength is a classic EXD symptom.

Minneapolis police officers have been charged with Floyd’s murder. Yet
all the evidence points to the fact that Floyd had taken a drug overdose
so strong that his imminent death could hardly have been prevented. In
all likelihood, the police were neither an intentional nor accidental
cause of his death. These crucial facts have been completely ignored in
the uproar.

It is widely believed that George Floyd died from a police officer’s
knee on his neck, whether due to asphyxiation or neck injury. That may
be how it looks, to a naïve viewer. In reality, the county autopsy
report says he died of a heart attack,[1] and states that there were "no
life-threatening injuries." Then how could they conclude it was homicide?

When scientists review scientific papers, they look primarily at the
evidence, and give less weight to the conclusions, which are only the
other fellow’s opinions. To blindly follow "expert opinions" is the
Authoritarian View of Knowledge. This is no real knowledge at all,
because to assess whether an expert is always right, we would need
infinite knowledge, and doubly so when experts disagree. Not thinking
for oneself is not really thinking.

So let us stick to the evidence. The county’s ambivalent autopsy also
included the following hard facts: "Toxicology Findings: Blood samples
collected at 9:00 p.m. on May 25th, before Floyd died, tested positive
for the following: Fentanyl 11 ng/mL, Norfentanyl 5.6 ng/mL, …
Methamphetamine 19 ng/mL … 86 ng/mL of morphine," but draws no
conclusions therefrom, noting only that "Quantities are given for those
who are medically inclined."

Shouldn’t we be so inclined? This fentanyl concentration, including its
norfentanyl metabolite at its molecular weight, was 20.6 ng/mL That is
over three times the lethal overdose, following earlier reports where
the highest dose survived was 4.6 ng/mL.[2]

If ever there was a leap before a look, we are in it now. Masses of
people have become extremists, based on conclusions that are as false as
they are hasty.

Regarding suffocation, the county medical examiner’s report found "no
physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or
strangulation."[3] Pressure applied to the side of the neck, as in this
case, and not to the throat, has little or no effect on breathing. One
can easily verify this oneself.[4]

One difficulty is that there are public statements to the effect that
the coroner ruled it a homicide, and the title of the autopsy report
includes the term "neck compression." But the words "homicide,"
"restraint," "stress" or "compression" do not appear in the 20-page body
of the report. References to the neck are few — a couple minor
abrasions, a contusion on the shoulder, and "The cervical spinal column
is palpably stable and free of hemorrhage." It is as if the title was
chosen in regard to what was expected or proposed, but which was never
found, and the title was never updated. There seems to be no support at
all in the report body for the report title, which reads,
"Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint,
and neck compression."

The term "cause of death" does not appear. The words "death" and "fatal"
only appear in this comment in the lab report: "Signs associated with
fentanyl toxicity include severe respiratory depression, seizures,
hypotension, coma and death. In fatalities from fentanyl, blood
concentrations are variable and have been reported as low as 3 ng/mL."
Floyd’s fentanyl level was seven times higher. [...]

(8) Pandemic paralysis and ongoing Social Unrest show the Empire is in
decline


Trust In America Wanes Amid "Defeated Party"-Fomented Social Unrest,
Says Putin

by Tyler Durden

Sat, 06/20/2020 - 13:35

The death of George Floyd ignited nationwide unrest for weeks as social
justice warriors combated police, while others looted stores, torched
police cars and building structures. The unrest was fueled by extreme
wealth inequality and economic collapse - combine the two, and the
country is experiencing one of the worst socio-economic implosions in
its existence.

At the moment, there are no signs this unraveling of society, and or
even the pandemic is decreasing - the image of the country has been
tarnished, and now, there's a credibility issue emerging with America on
the world stage.

Russian news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on
Saturday as saying President Vladimir Putin is very concerned about how
much he can trust agreements with President Trump amid ongoing social
unrest, reported Reuters.

Peskov also said there is an increasing unpredictability in actions by
Washington, and this is bothering world leaders.

Putin was interviewed last Sunday (June 14), where he said social unrest
across the US reveals a deep internal crisis in the country.

      "What has happened [in the US] is the manifestation of some deep
domestic crises," he said, noting that this crisis was festering well
before President Trump took office.

     "When he won, and his victory was absolutely obvious and
democratic, the defeated party invented all sorts of bogus stories just
to call into question his legitimacy," he added.

Putin pointed out the biggest problem of the US political system is the
parties and their special interest of people behind the scenes.

     "It seems to me that the problem is that group party interests, in
this case, are placed above the interests of the entire society and the
interests of people," Putin said.

While commenting on domestic issues, Putin said his government has been
combating the virus with minimal losses. He said that was not the case
in the US, adding the failures of the US' "management system" led to
inadequate response and widespread destruction.

To sum up, the American hegemon is on shaky ground as it has been
paralyzed by the pandemic and ongoing social unrest in major metros -
now world leaders are starting to recognize the empire is in decline.


Posted by at No comments:

1198Palestinian solidarity with BLM; calls to demolish Pyramids; Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem

Palestinian solidarity with BLM; calls to demolish Pyramids; Arabs were
first inhabitants of Jerusalem

Newsletter published on June 19, 2020

(1) Palestinian solidarity with BLM
(2) Calls to demolish Pyramids; Hollywood/Bible version of Egypt vs
Archaeology
(3) Protests are supported by the same Foundationss that supported color
revolutions
(4) Black Lives Matter receives $100 Million from Foundations - policemag
(5) Trump bans chokeholds
(6) Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Choke Holds ‘Unless An Officer’s
Life Is At Risk’
(7) Democrats in key battleground states warn against Annexation
(8) Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem

(1) Palestinian solidarity with BLM


Palestinian activists press solidarity between Palestinians, Black Lives
Matter

Palestinians raised photos of Iyad al-Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian
shot by Israeli police, and George Floyd to make a comparison between
racism against black people and Palestinians.

Aziza Nofal

Jun 17, 2020

RAMALLAH, West Bank — When a group of Israeli soldiers tried to arrest
Hala Marshood, a young Palestinian woman participating in a peaceful
protest against the killing of Iyad al-Hallaq in Jerusalem, she shouted
"I can’t breathe" in reference to the last words of George Floyd, whose
arrest and murder reverberated in the United States and around the
entire world. Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in Minneapolis as a
police officer knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds,
unleashing demonstrations against racism and police brutality.

Marshood was taking part in a peaceful feminist march on June 9
sponsored by the Tal’at movement (Arabic for "stepping out"), a
Palestinian feminist movement. The protests were held in the cities of
Ramallah, Rafah and Jerusalem, and in cities inside Israel, including
Haifa, Jaffa and Nazareth, against the Israeli racist policies and
killings of Palestinians, the latest of which was the shooting of
Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian, at the entrance of Al-Aqsa Mosque May 30.

Palestinian women raised the photos of Hallaq and Floyd side by side,
shouting slogans against racism and calling for the right to a better life.

Palestinian activists have drawn an analogy between Floyd and Hallaq, as
Israeli police were not held accountable for the killing of Hallaq —
Floyd's killer and those who were accomplices were eventually arrested,
however. Police alleged Hallaq was attempting to stab Israeli soldiers.

Activists presented the case of Hallaq as a clear example of the racist
practices against them and the oppression they face only because they
are Palestinians, comparing their situation to that of African Americans
in the United States, according to Hadil Battrawi, 24, an outspoken
Palestinian activist on public and political rights. She holds a
master’s degree in public international law from the University of Lander.

"What’s happening in the United States is very similar to the situation
in Palestine," she told Al-Monitor.

"The successive US governments have been working on portraying black
people as a burden to society who flout the laws in a bid to condone the
racist measures against them. This is the case with Israel that has been
painting Palestinians as terrorists worthy only of extermination,"
Battrawi said.

"Although we strongly condemn what happened to Floyd, it was an
opportunity for us to show the world the reality of things in
Palestine," she added.

Battrawi believes Palestinian activists ought to build on this sweeping
movement against racism around the world in light of the decline of the
Palestinian political rhetoric on the global arena, in order to re-shift
the attention on the Palestinian people’s narrative.

Palestinian institutions, especially those active at the international
level, also condemned racist policies against blacks. In a statement on
June 1, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement called on the
International Solidarity Movement in the United States to stand by the
Black Lives Matter movement and other black-led organizations in their
struggle for justice.

"We, as the indigenous people of Palestine, have first-hand experience
with colonialism and apartheid committed by the Israeli regime, which
receives unconditional military and financial support from the United
States and the successive American administrations," the statement read.

Amnesty International added fuel to the fire and gave more momentum to
the Palestinian activism when it published a report referring to the
training of several US police departments with Israel, which was
described as "a chronic human rights violator."

Salah Khawaja, a member of the coordination committee of the Palestinian
Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, concurred with Battrawi’s
statements on the need to build on the international condemnation of
racist policies and practices, which stemmed from the killing of Floyd.

"There is a similar pattern in the repressive practices whether in the
United States or any other country, which could be highlighted in order
to stop condoning any practices against humanity and human rights,"
Khawaja told Al-Monitor.

He said this is not the first time Palestinian activists get inspired by
international events, as they had also identified and sympathized with
Mexicans when President Donald Trump spoke of erecting a wall on the
borders. This time, however, is more sensitive, with the decline in the
attention on the Palestinian cause.

Khawaja said Palestinian official leadership should seize this
opportunity via its international arms to rekindle and ramp up support
for solidarity movements for Palestinian self-determination and autonomy
and the right to justice and to convey the Palestinian message
throughout the world.

But are these campaigns and movements enough to advance the Palestinian
cause? The answer is no for Mona Shtaya, a human rights activist who
believes that Palestinian activists ought to go to the streets in
marches and events rather than focusing on social media activism, which
would draw more attention and focus to their cause.

(2) Calls to demolish Pyramids; Hollywood/Bible version of Egypt vs
Archaeology


Archaeologists, activists alarmed by online calls to demolish Pyramids

After bringing down statues, symbolic of racism and oppression in the US
and the UK during the Black Lives Matter protests, some social media
activists started calling for the demolition of the Pyramids, basing
their argument on the contested notion that they were built by slaves.

Shahira Amin

Jun 17, 2020

The hashtag #pyramids has been widely circulating on Twitter in recent
days, but not for the reasons one might expect. The fact that Cairo is
preparing to reopen the country for tourism within weeks or that many
travelers are eagerly waiting for the coronavirus threat to subside, to
visit Egypt — if only to feast their eyes on the centuries-old monuments
in Giza — has little to do with the viral hashtag.

Oddly enough, the Pyramids have instead been cited multiple times in an
online discussion between Twitter users on whether or not these massive
structures built as tombs for the pharaohs of Egypt's Old Kingdom more
than 4,000 years ago should be torn down for allegedly having been built
by "slaves."

"Take down the #Pyramids. Slaves built them!" was one tweet advocating
destruction of the monuments that have stood the test of time.

Nigel Hetherington, archaeologist and founder of Past Preservers, a
heritage consultancy, dismissed the calls as "not serious," saying, "I
don’t think that those were ever real calls to pull down the Pyramids."

"The image of thousands of slaves toiling under a burning sun and a
vicious pharaoh is hard to shake, it seems. Despite years of study and
archaeological research and discoveries, the Hollywood version of Egypt
still seems to captivate people," he told Al-Monitor.

While it was unclear if the comments were sarcastic, they provoked a
backlash from critics who refuted the fallacy, with some urging the
social media users spreading such ideas to "read history."

Dismayed Egyptians chipped in defending the funerary monuments that are
an important part of their cultural heritage and history against what
some perceived as real threats.

Skeptics, meanwhile, suggested that the misconception was deliberately
circulated to vilify the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests decrying
racism and police brutality.

"The Egyptian Pyramids are now being used to discredit protests against
racism, colonialism and slavery with the argument they have been built
exploiting forced slave labor. They were not," Jens Notroff, a German
archaeologist, counter-argued on his Twitter account.

The online debate was triggered by the toppling of statues in the United
States and in the United Kingdom perceived by anti-racism protesters as
symbols of racism and colonialism. The protests that started in the
United States in late May have since reverberated across Europe and
other parts of the world. On June 7, a statue of Edward Colston, a
17th-century slave trader, was pulled down by protesters in Bristol,
England, before being thrown in the harbor. The move followed similar
acts of vandalism in the United States. On June 6, Black Lives Matter
protesters used ropes to pull down a statue of Williams Carter Wickham,
a Confederate general, in a university campus park in Richmond, Virginia.

A number of other monuments have also been defaced or spray-painted in
the otherwise peaceful protests, sparked by the May 25 killing of George
Floyd during his arrest by four police officers over alleged forgery in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.

But Katie A. Paul, an America anthropologist and co-director of the
Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research Project,
draws a distinct line between the toppling of the statues emblematic of
racism and oppression and the online calls to destroy the Pyramids,
which she said "are steeped in false understanding of their history and
construction." She warned that such calls "set a dangerous precedent
where misinformation would drive historical destruction. "

"The statues toppled in the United States and Europe are symbolic
representations that deify slave owners and genocidal leaders. They are
being removed or vandalized today because they idolize figures who
committed the worst kind of oppression," she explained in an email to
Al-Monitor. "The Pyramids were not constructed to idolize slavery or
genocide nor do they serve as monuments to revere an era of oppression."

She continued, "The Great Pyramid of Giza represents the same thing now
that it was meant to when it was first constructed: an unmatched feat of
human ingenuity."

The calls for demolition of the Pyramids also caused alarm among some
Egyptian archaeologists like Monica Hanna who called them "dangerous"
and "irresponsible."

"Such calls are reminiscent of similar calls made by some extremists in
2012 to destroy Pharaonic monuments or cover them in wax in the
conviction that the Pharaonic civilization was corrupt and deserved to
be destroyed," said Hanna, who is acting dean of the College of
Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at the Arab Academy for Science,
Technology and Maritime Transport.

She was referring to ominous threats against the Sphinx and the Pyramids
made by radical Sheikh Morgan Al Gohary. In an interview broadcast on
the Egyptian privately owned channel Dream TV in November 2012, the
Salafist cleric boasted about taking part along with the Taliban in the
demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in March 2001. He
suggested covering the Pharaonic monuments in wax, arguing that Sharia
advocates the destruction of every pagan and idol. His controversial
remarks shocked Egyptians at the time, fueling fears that the country's
cultural heritage was under threat under Muslim Brotherhood rule.

Hanna also rebutted the false claim that the Pyramids were built by
slaves, which she said are rooted in Biblical tradition.

"The Pyramids were built by Egyptian workers recruited from all over the
country during the inundation season when the peasants would temporarily
cease work on the farmlands," she told Al-Monitor.

"We have the papyrus logbooks of the workers and we have found the tombs
of the workers from which we know that the workers were fed meat, had
access to medical care and were paid in rations of bread and beer," she
said. The papyrus logbooks she referred to are the Diary of Merer
discovered in 2013  by a French mission working under the direction of
the Sorbonne University in Paris. The journal of a previously unknown
official of the same name chronicles the daily activities of stone
transportation from the Tura limestone quarry to the Pyramid site in Giza.

"Building the Pyramids was also a project of faith as the Egyptians
believed the Pharaohs were the divine intermediaries between the Gods
and the people, so they were building a house for the eternal life of
these religious leaders and Heads of State," Hanna added.

In response to the calls for demolition of the Pyramids, some Twitter
users shared their photographs with the Pyramids as a backdrop from
their holiday trips to Egypt, starting an impromptu campaign that may
attract more visitors to Egypt once the country resumes international
flights. Tourism is one of Egypt's most important sources of income,
accounting for around 12% of the country's gross domestic product.

(4) Black Lives Matter receives $100 Million from Foundations - policemag


Black Lives Matter Receives $100 Million from Foundations

June 12, 2020

by POL Staff

The anti-police activist group Black Lives Matter has received pledges
of more than $100 million in donations from foundations and other sources.

The Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy recently announced the
formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund [BLMF], a six-year pooled donor
campaign aimed at raising $100 million for the Movement for Black Lives
coalition.

That funding comes in addition to more than $33 million in grants to the
Black Lives Matter movement from George Soros through his Open Society
Foundations, as well as grant-making from the Center for American Progress.

"The BLMF provides grants, movement building resources, and technical
assistance to organizations working advance the leadership and vision of
young, Black, queer, feminists and immigrant leaders who are shaping and
leading a national conversation about criminalization, policing and race
in America," said the Borealis announcement.

Ford and Borealis are hardly alone: They said the fund will "complement
the important work" of charities including the Hill-Snowden Foundation,
Solidaire, the NoVo Foundation, the Association of Black Foundation
Executives, the Neighborhood Funders Group, anonymous donors, and others.

(5) Trump bans chokeholds


Donald Trump signs order on police reform

The New Daily

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning the use
of chokeholds but rejected calls to defund or dismantle the police.

Mr Trump said the order, which he signed after meeting families of
victims of police brutality, is aimed at encouraging best practices and
tracking officers with excessive use of force complaints.

But one civil rights group slammed the order for not going far enough to
end police violence and racism.

Mr Trump was also criticised for using the ceremony in the White House
Rose Garden on Wednesday morning (Australian time) as a campaign rally
following weeks of protests prompted by the death of George Floyd.

"Today is about pursuing common sense and fighting, fighting for a cause
like we seldom get the chance to fight for," Mr Trump said.

Under the order, police will have to employ the latest standards for use
of force and improve information sharing so that officers with poor
records are not hired without their backgrounds being known.

They will also be required to have social workers with them when
responding to non-violent cases involving drug addiction and homelessness.

"Americans want law and order, they demand law and order," Mr Trump said.

He offered his condolences to the families of victims of recent violence
at the hands of police and others, and vowed to pursue justice.

But he opposed calls to "defund the police" by reimagining or even
dismantling police departments.

"Without police, there’s chaos," Mr Trump said.

"Americans believe we must support the brave men and women in blue who
police our streets and keep us safe.

"Americans also believe we must improve accountability, increase
transparency and invest more resources in police training, recruiting
and community engagement."

Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights head Vanita Gupta said:
"While the order takes some steps forward, it is an inadequate response
to a nation demanding sweeping, bold action."

In his public comments and on Twitter, Mr Trump has called for
crackdowns on protesters and emphasised a forceful and militarised
response to the social unrest.

Opinion polls show widespread concerns among Americans about police
brutality.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives is expected to vote later in
June on sweeping legislation put forward by the Congressional Black
Caucus to rein in police misconduct.

-with AAP


(6) Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Choke Holds ‘Unless An Officer’s
Life Is At Risk’

Jack Brewster

Updated Jun 16, 2020, 02:26pm EDT

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday on police reform that
bans choke holds "unless an officer’s life is at risk," increases
federal oversight of police departments and encourages departments to
move toward better practices on use of force, though the order falls
short of what activists are pushing for and ties its mandates to incentives.

Under the order, the federal government will require police departments
to ban chokeholds, the police maneuver used by the Derek Chauvin in the
killing of George Floyd, to receive certification that will allow them
to access federal grants.

It will also create a database to track police officers with several
misconduct violations and push for departments to involve mental
healthcare workers on calls dealing with homelessness, mental illness
and addiction.

Activist groups are expected to criticize the order as not doing enough:
in the wake of George Floyd’s death, protest groups, including Black
Lives Matter, have pushed for sweeping reform, including "defunding the
police."

Trump decried the "radical and dangerous efforts to dissolve our police"
during prepared remarks in the Rose Garden before he—surrounded by law
enforcement—signed the order Tuesday, adding "without police, there is
chaos."

After discussing the policy details of his executive order, the
president dedicated much of his remarks Tuesday toward decrying
protesters and attacking the record of his predecessor, former president
Barack Obama, and former vice president and presumptive Democratic
nominee Joe Biden.

Trump has rallied to the defense of police officers and argued Tuesday
that police misconduct was the the work of a small percentage of police
officers: "They’re very tiny. I use the word tiny. It’s a very small
percentage. But you have them. But nobody wants to get rid of them more
than the really good and great police officers."

Trump said Tuesday that his executive order would go "hand in hand" with
the bill Senate Republicans are working on—and implored GOP leadership
to get a bill done quickly. Led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Republican
senators are working to put together a bill that would increase training
to focus on de-escalation tactics and lessen the potential for choke
holds, among other measures. House Democrats are debating a bill that
would ban choke holds outright, and no-knock warrants in drug cases, as
was used in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville,
Kentucky, in March, and increase police accountability, among other
reform measures.

Democrats criticized the order for not going far enough: "While the
president has finally acknowledged the need for policing reform, one
modest executive order will not make up for his years of inflammatory
rhetoric and policies designed to roll back the progress made in
previous years," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in
a statement.

(7) Democrats in key battleground states warn against Annexation


Battleground state Democrats warn against annexation after AIPAC
greenlights criticism

Eight Senate candidates in battleground states are warning Israel
against annexing the West Bank after the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee greenlit the criticism.

Bryant Harris

Jun 15, 2020

A slew of Democratic Senate candidates hoping to unseat Republican
incumbents in key battleground states came out today against Israeli
efforts to annex parts of the West Bank.

The left-leaning lobby group J Street touted their warnings as part of
its ongoing campaign to deter annexation. The rival American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) took the unusual step of greenlighting
Democrats to push back against annexation without fear of repercussion,
so long as the criticism stops there, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
reported last week.

"Unilateral Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank undermines
efforts to achieve a two-state solution," said Jon Ossoff, who hopes to
unseat Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in November. Ossoff said, "A
sustainable and humane resolution of conflict can only be achieved by
diplomacy. Annexation would represent an abandonment of the peace
process established in Oslo in 1993, and it would confirm the failure of
contemporary Israeli and Palestinian political leaders to resolve these
disputes diplomatically."

The other Democratic Senate candidates in competitive states to come out
against annexation include Cal Cunningham of North Carolina, Jaime
Harrison of South Carolina, Amy McGrath of Kentucky, Al Gross of
Arkansas, MJ Hegar of Texas, Sara Gideon of Maine, Theresa Greenfield of
Iowa and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a failed 2020
presidential candidate favored to win the state’s primary against
progressive Andrew Romanoff later this month.

"The two-state solution remains the best way to achieve long-term peace
and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians," said Hickenlooper,
adding, "I oppose unilateral actions that move us away from this goal,
including annexation of the West Bank. In the Senate, I will continue to
advocate for advancing Israel’s security and stability and work with J
Street toward achieving lasting peace in the region."

Hickenlooper, who has historically boasted warm ties with AIPAC, joins
28 Democratic senators who have issued similar warnings. The confluence
of AIPAC-friendly centrists, such as Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware and
Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, adapting J Street’s position on annexation
illustrates the extent to which annexation has become a partisan issue
within both the United States and Israel.

Unlike J Street, AIPAC has not taken a formal position on annexation.
However, AIPAC President Betsy Berns Korn praised President Donald
Trump’s peace plan, which calls for Israel to annex its West Bank
settlements and the entire Jordan Valley, at the organization’s annual
conference in March.

But recently, the Donald Trump administration has sought to dissuade
Israel from moving forward with annexation next month amid ambivalence
from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners in the Knesset.

Netanyahu said today that the Trump administration wants Defense
Minister Benny Gantz, who leads the rival Blue and White faction as part
of a power-sharing deal, on board with the annexation plans before
proceeding. His remarks came after he met with US Ambassador to Israel
David Friedman and Gantz over the weekend.

The prime minister also hinted that he may not proceed with annexation
next month despite previous reports that he had initially pushed for
July in case former US Vice President Joe Biden defeats Trump in
November. J Street made its first-ever presidential endorsement in April
and backed Biden, who also opposes annexation.

(8) Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem


Hashemite white paper says Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem

A white paper by the Amman-based think tank the Royal Aal al-Bayt
Institute for Islamic Thought suggests 5,000 years of continuous Arab
presence in Jerusalem, specifying the Hashemite custodianship of
Christian and Muslim holy sites in the city.

Daoud Kuttab

@daoudkuttab

Jun 15, 2020

At a time when the right-wing leaders of Israel are contemplating
annexing further parts of the Palestinian occupied territories, a
referenced and documented white paper has been produced and published by
the prestigious Amman-based think tank Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for
Islamic Thought, documenting Arab presence in Jerusalem for over three
millennia and specifying the Hashemite custodianship of Christian and
Muslim holy sites in the city.

"The Arabs were the first inhabitants of Palestine in history, including
in Jerusalem," the 108-page paper begins. It references archaeological
records where Jerusalem is mentioned by name in the Amarna
Correspondence, a series of diplomatic letters between Canaanite
city-state kings and their Egyptian overlords during the 14th-century
B.C. It shows pictures of cuneiform tablets that were uncovered in Egypt
in the late 19th century.

Mahdi Abdulhadi, founder and director of the Jerusalem-based PASSIA
think tank, told Al-Monitor that the content of the paper represents a
knowledge brief that genuinely reflects the reality in a scientific way,
articulating the historic narrative that the streets and quarters of the
Old City of Jerusalem have witnessed. He said, "This paper is the legal
and legitimate umbrella reflecting what the Hashemites have been
entrusted with since the Arab Renaissance till today in a way that
ensures the national Palestinian narrative with the Arab and
international one in protecting the city’s Arab identity."

The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, an Islamic
nongovernmental institute, has been headed since 2000 by Prince Ghazi
bin Muhammad, the personal envoy and special adviser to Jordan's King
Abdullah II.

The paper moves from archaeological discoveries to biblical records,
quoting Genesis 10:1-20 that shows "the Arabs, Hamites, Canaanites and
Jebusites were the original inhabitants of the land of Palestine,
including the area of Jerusalem." Canaanites and Jebusites were there
long before (at least 2,000 years before) the Jews, and even long before
Judaism was revealed.

While the focused biblical references are valuable in debunking various
attempts to use religious text to deny Arab connections to the city, not
everyone was excited about using the Bible to authenticate connectivity.

Bernard Sabella, an elected member of the Palestinian legislature
representing Jerusalem’s Palestinian Christians, told Al-Monitor that
the historic documents in the paper reflect the popular religious and
official Palestinian position in support of the custodian role of the
Hashemites. "The importance of this paper is that it comes at a time
that the Israelis are doing their utmost to change the status quo in
Jerusalem with special emphasis on Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif.

Sabella said that the paper debunks Israeli claims questioning the
support of Christian leaders to the Jordanian Hashemites in guaranteeing
the status quo in the holy city.

Former Palestinian ambassador to France Hind Khoury told Al-Monitor that
while she is a strong supporter of the Hashemite custodianship of
Jerusalem, she is not a big fan of using biblical texts for documenting
the history of Jerusalem. "Biblical books are books of faith to the
believers, and archaeologists including Israelis have shown
contradictions between events in religious texts and the documented
history of our region."

Khoury is concerned that religious groups, especially Christian
Zionists, have been using biblical texts for their own purposes to
justify support for the occupation and annexation. "I am always worried
about the danger of mixing between religion and politics. This has been
the way that Zionists and their supporters have gone because it is easy
to use religion to prove any point of view."

The Jewish presence in Jerusalem is also not ignored. The word "Jew" is
mentioned 65 times in the paper and the term "Jewish" is referred in
document 34 times. The paper dedicates a section to the Jewish presence
between 1000 B.C. and 600 B.C. talking about the Prophet-King David who
conquered Jerusalem, which became the capital of his kingdom. The paper
also talks about Jerusalem as a mixed Jewish city in the period 539
B.C.-37 B.C.

The white paper acknowledges that the religious demographics of
Jerusalem changed dramatically in the 20th century. In 1947, the city’s
population was 33,600 Arabs and 2,400 Jews.

Yonatan Mizrachi, CEO of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli nongovernmental
organization working to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect
ancient sites, told Al-Monitor, "While the historic timeline looks fine
to me, I disagree that Arabs have been here before the time of King
David. I don't think that Canaanites are the Arabs’ ancestors."

As to the history of Jerusalem by religions, the authors of the paper
state that "Jews have been there for about 3,000 years, Christians have
been there for about 2,000 years and Muslims have been there for about
1,400 years. However, Islam has been dominant in Jerusalem for 1,210 out
of the last 1,388 years. This is more than the period of Jewish
domination over the last 3,020 years (953 years) or Christian domination
over the last 2,000 years (417 years)."

In summary, the white paper argues that contrary to the misperception
that Islam is a stranger to Jerusalem, Islam has been dominant in
Jerusalem for longer in total than either Christianity or Judaism,
despite being the youngest of the three religions.

Reverend David Rihani, deputy chair of the Jordan Evangelical Council
and the head of the Assemblies of God Churches in Jordan, told
Al-Monitor that the role of Hashemites to Jerusalem is well known and
appreciated by all Arab Christians. "We strongly support and endorse the
Hashemite custodianship and have been impressed by the high level of
interest and support His Majesty the King has shown to Jerusalem’s
Christian as well as Muslim sites."

The Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif — and by extension the whole ancient
city of Jerusalem — is one of Islam’s three holy sites. The paper
refutes the often-repeated argument by those who claim that Jerusalem is
not mentioned in the Islamic holy book. According to the classical
commentaries on the Quran, "the city," "the land," "the Holy Land," "the
Mount," "the Temple" and "the Olive" all refer to Jerusalem, or places
in Jerusalem, the paper states.

Posted by at No comments:

1197 Kissinger: "if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful!"

Kissinger: "if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow
they will be grateful!"

Newsletter published on June 16, 2020

(1) Kissinger: "if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order.
Tomorrow they will be grateful!"
(2) Those Statues won't go back up
(3) US city bans brutal Israeli military training of police forces
(4) Israeli counter-terrorism forces impart a "us against them" approach
to U.S. Police
(5) U.S. Police under pressure to end exchange programs with Israel
(6) Domestic strife will shrink the Empire - Richard Haass, President of CFR

(1) Kissinger: "if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order.
Tomorrow they will be grateful!"


Today, America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to
restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true
if they were told that there was an outside threat from beyond, whether
real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that
all people of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The
one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this
scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the
guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the world government.

This is widely reported on many sites as coming from the Bilderberg
Conference (1991) Evians, France, purportedly recorded by a Swiss
diplomat, but no such recording has ever been provided.

(2) Those Statues won't go back up

From: Eric Walberg <walberg2002@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Cultural Revolution launched by Woke Elites

peter! this is indeed a cultural revolution. those statues won't go back
up. columbus and lee are dead meat. that educates the entire people in
the twinkling of an eye.
finally the confederate beast has been slain. it's epic. we must
celebrate. watching the youtube of the natives dancing around the
toppled statue of columbus is thrilling.

yes, the trans stuff will be the hangover, when we realized we've been had.
but the move back has started with greere, rowling and many more really
articulate women. heather mallick 'came out.'

we have a war on two fronts. supporting the cleansing of the public
spaces is right. there is good and bad nostalgia. we should never
glorify the bad.
supporting the real feminists -- greer, rowlings etc is also right. vive
la difference!

Why we shouldn’t call women ‘menstruators’

(3) US city bans brutal Israeli military training of police forces


US city bans brutal Israeli military training of police forces

June 9, 2020 at 7:45 pm

A US city in North Carolina has banned the training of its police force
by Israel’s military, in the aftermath of the brutal police killing of
Black American George Floyd, reported The New Arab.

Durham council voted unanimously 6-0 to adopt the ban, after a petition
by activists garnered more than 1,400 signatures amid days of global
protests against racism and police brutality sparked by the killing of
Floyd. The council said the ban extends to any country that offers
military-style training to its police force.

"The Israel Defence Forces and the Israel Police have a long history of
violence and harm against Palestinian people and Jews of colour," the
Demilitarize! From Durham2Palestine petition said.

"They persist in using tactics of extrajudicial killing, excessive
force, racial profiling and repression of social justice," it added.

"These tactics further militarise US police forces that train in Israel,
and this training helps the police terrorise black and brown communities
here in the US," the petition said.

The move makes Durham the first city to ban the training of its force by
Israeli police and military. However, more could follow as authorities
across the US take drastic action to address anti-Black racism and
police brutality amid some of the country’s largest ever protests.

A number of human rights groups and activists have claimed that the use
of lethal force is fueled by the two-way exchange of information and
training between high ranking police responsible for this violence in
the US and Israeli security officials.

Floyd’s death sparked an outpouring of public anger about
racially-motivated police brutality, triggering calls for the defunding
of police departments in America and reforming school curriculums to
include colonial history

On Sunday, a majority of council members in Minneapolis, where Floyd was
killed, have voted to abolish the city’s police department, less than
two weeks after the killing of unarmed Floyd.

(4) Israeli counter-terrorism forces impart a "us against them" approach
to U.S. Police


For U.S. Police, Refusing Israeli Training Is Not BDS – It’s Common Sense

Already accused of not doing enough to protect the lives of people of
color, U.S. law enforcement would do well to stay away from joint
programs with security forces that routinely oppress Palestinians

Sari Bashi

Published on 04.12.2018

Decisions last week by two American police departments to withdraw from
a training seminar with the Israeli police are fueling debate within
Israel and the United States about the merits of the BDS movement – the
2005 Palestinian civil society call to boycott cooperation with official
Israeli institutions, even where the activity itself is otherwise
innocuous. BDS activists aim to pressure Israel to end the occupation,
grant equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel and realize the
right of return for Palestinian refugees, much as sports boycotts were a
tool to pressure South Africa to end Apartheid. Yet thus far, most of
the American individuals and institutions canceling their Israel-related
activities have done so not as part of a general boycott but rather due
to concerns about complicity in specific and serious human rights
abuses. That was true for Airbnb’s decision to stop listing properties
in unlawful Israeli settlements, and it is true of decisions by the
Vermont State Police and Northampton, Massachusetts police department to
cancel their planned training in Israel.

Since 2001, U.S. government agencies, together with nonprofit groups
like the Anti-Defamation League, have sponsored police seminars for
American police officers to learn from the Israeli experience in dealing
with terrorism. A number of American civil society groups oppose the
cooperation, expressing concern over the influence of Israeli military
style policing tactics on U.S. police officers, at a time when the
Movement for Black Lives is highlighting police brutality and unlawful
use of lethal force against people of color.

Of particular concern is the "us against them" approach of the Israeli
security forces, many of whom treat Palestinians as security threats
while publicly articulating a commitment to protect Israeli Jews,
including Israeli residents of West Bank settlements.

Israel is an occupying power in Gaza and the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, and with the exception of periods of active combat in certain
locations, international policing standards apply to encounters between
security officials and Palestinian demonstrators and suspects. That is
true inside Israeli towns and cities, at demonstrations along the Gaza
border fence, and inside the West Bank. Of course, police should protect
Israelis, but a half century of control over millions of Palestinians
creates obligations to protect Palestinians, too.

Those obligations are unfulfilled. Security forces fail to protect
Palestinians from attacks by settlers (indeed, their obligation is to
safely remove the settlers from the West Bank). They use lethal force
even when not strictly necessary to protect life, and use excessive
force against demonstrators, including at nonviolent protests. Just 3
percent of investigations into police complaints filed by Palestinians
hurt by Israeli citizens resulted in a conviction.

The problem begins at the highest level, with public statements by
senior police officials encouraging a shoot-to-kill policy against
Palestinians suspected of attacking Jews. "Everyone who stabs Jews or
harms innocent people – should be killed," Jerusalem District Police
Commander Moshe Edri said, following the fatal shooting in 2015 of a
Palestinian child suspected of stabbing two Israeli Jewish youths.
Police Minister Gilad Erdan warned that "every attacker who sets out to
inflict harm should know that he will not likely survive the attack."
Military officials have a somewhat better record of public instruction,
and it was Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot who admonished: "I don’t want a
soldier to empty a magazine on a girl holding scissors."

Treating Palestinians as potential attackers and Jews as members of a
club to be protected extends to inside Israel, including surveillance,
racial profiling and excessive use of force as part of a dual law
enforcement system that discriminates against Palestinian citizens.

Meanwhile, Palestinians – like people of color within the United States
– argue that their security needs are ignored. In the first eight months
of this year, Israeli security forces and settlers killed 204
Palestinians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, including at least 77
non combatants, and wounded more than 21,000, mostly non combatants,
according to the UN.  Palestinian attackers killed seven Israelis during
that time, including four non combatants, and injured 88, including 59
non combatants. The May 2018 attack by police on Palestinian human
rights activist Jafar Farah and the January 2017 fatal shooting of
Yaakob al-Kiyan in Um al-Khiran are examples of how dangerous it can be
to be Palestinian in Israel.

It is no wonder that American police forces – accused of not doing
enough to protect the lives of people of color and especially black men
and boys – are questioning the wisdom of adopting Israeli practices that
pit police officers belonging to the dominant group against communities
from the oppressed minority. That’s not participation in a boycott but
rather an attempt to avoid learning from a bad example.

Sari Bashi is a visiting Robina Foundation human rights fellow and
visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.

(5) U.S. Police under pressure to end exchange programs with Israel


U.S. Police Under Pressure to End Their Relationship With Israel

Police departments have been sending their leaders to Israel to learn
about the country's counterterrorism strategies since the 1990s. But
growing opposition is pushing some to rethink these exchange programs.

CANDICE NORWOOD   |   DECEMBER 20, 2018

Since the 1990s, dozens of U.S. police departments have been
participating in exchange programs with Israeli police to learn about
counterterrorism.

Opposition is growing and has lead several departments to denounce them
or end their participation.

Critics argue that they sanction Israel's treatment of Palestinians and
have negative consequences for minorities in America.

When the International Olympic Committee announced that Atlanta would
host the 1996 Summer Olympics, security for such a massive event was an
immediate concern.

As part of their preparation, local police traveled to Israel to learn
about its security and counterterrorism strategies. In May alone, Israel
saw a total of 684 "terrorist events," according to an Israeli
government website. By contrast, since 1980, there have been 11 notable
terrorist attacks with fatalities on American soil.

"It's an art over there," says counterterrorism expert Maria Haberfeld,
a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former member
of the Israeli Defense Forces. "If you're dealing with this for so many
decades, then there is definitely expertise."

Since the Atlanta Games, nonprofits and private companies around the
United States have sponsored law enforcement exchanges with Israel.
Dozens of U.S. police departments, including those in Boston, Chicago,
New York City and Washington, D.C., have either sent representatives to
Israel or hosted Israeli police members to share their experiences.

Georgia State University criminologist Robert Friedmann -- who was
raised in Israel and launched the Georgia International Law Enforcement
Exchange (GILEE) to help police secure the Atlanta Games -- says these
exchange programs provide an opportunity for U.S. police to learn
counterterrorism prevention and response from a country with
significantly more experience.

But critics of these programs, which include human rights groups, view
them as a problematic sanctioning of the country's treatment of
Palestinians.

"We think these exchange programs are really harmful. We think they are
harmful in lifting up and valorizing Israeli occupation," says Stefanie
Fox, deputy director at the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). "We don’t
think [U.S.] officials need to be learning tips and techniques from
occupying security forces."

JVP argues that the relationship with Israel has negative consequences
for minority groups in the U.S. and will exacerbate mass surveillance,
racial profiling and use of force.

Friedmann calls these claims "shameful and despicable."

"They make the causal attribution that participation in this program
teaches police to kill and oppress minorities," he says. "That doesn’t
offend my Jewishness, it offends my intelligence."

But the JVP's efforts are having some success.

This month, the Vermont State and Northampton, Mass., police departments
withdrew from an Israel trip organized through the Anti-Defamation
League. In April, activists successfully lobbied the Durham, N.C., City
Council to issue a statement denouncing international police exchange
programs with "military-style training."

While Vermont Police spokesman Adam Silverman says the summit was
helpful for a previous police leader, when members of the community
expressed concerns with this year’s trip, the department "agreed that it
would be in the best interests of the Vermont State Police for Col.
Birmingham to withdraw his participation."

Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper echoed a similar sentiment.

"It’s a very divisive issue," she says. "[We] decided that it is in the
best interest of the community to not attend."

Jazmynne Williams, a member of the Demilitarize Durham2Palestine
campaign that petitioned the North Carolina city, says it's important to
recognize the troubled racial history of U.S. policing in addition to
Israeli-Palestinian relations when considering how such a program would
affect residents.

But Steve Pomerantz, a former FBI assistant director and current
homeland security director for the Jewish Institute for National
Security of America (JINSA), believes these critics are conflating the
issues of policing and militarization. Since 2002, Pomerantz has
overseen annual Israel trips with about 15 U.S. law enforcement leaders.
He says the program does not teach military tactics but focuses on
sharing information for how Israel "organizes and responds to terrorism."

David Friedman of the Anti-Defamation League also disputes any
connection between the exchange programs and military strategy. But a
2016 itinerary for an ADL Israel trip includes meetings with Israeli
border police, a security briefing at Ben-Gurion International Airport,
and briefings with current and former representatives of the Israeli
Defense Forces -- the country's military unit.

Friedman says U.S. participants in these programs have given "incredibly
positive feedback."

Henry Stawinski, police chief for Prince George’s County, Md., has
completed a number of international exchange programs. Whether they take
place in Israel or elsewhere, he says they help to "cultivate a broader
perspective." In particular, he says he found value in learning about
crowd management and security considerations for a transient
metropolitan area. (Prince George’s County is part of the Washington,
D.C., region.)

Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief and commissioner of U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, participated in JINSA’s Israel trip. He
says the discussions "were quite technical about suicide bombings and
identification" as well as evidence collection. Not long after
Kerlikowske returned to the U.S., a shooting at the Seattle Jewish
Federation in 2006 left one person dead and five injured.

"[The program] was particularly helpful in dealing with mass
casualties," he says.

Interest among police departments has increased over the years,
according to directors of police exchanges. But as law enforcement
agencies continue to face public pressure to sever their ties to Israel,
Haberfeld says U.S. police departments need to balance
terrorism-fighting strategies with what's best for the public interest.
Haberfeld cautions against "blindly" implementing tactics from other
countries.

"There are things that can be learned, but they always have to be in the
context of the legal system in a given country," she says. "It’s a
combination of looking at what works and determining at what price."

(6) Domestic strife will shrink the Empire - Richard Haass, President of CFR

"will likely quell much of the remaining appetite to intervene abroad"

Richard Haass Crisis at Home Makes the United States Vulnerable Abroad


Foreign Policy By Example

Crisis at Home Makes the United States Vulnerable Abroad

By Richard Haass

June 5, 2020

{photo} Protesting against police violence in New York City, June 2020
Andrew Kelly / Reuters

Analysts of international affairs rarely focus on how the domestic
condition of the United States shapes the country’s influence and role
in the world, but today the connection could hardly be more relevant.
The United States is currently experiencing three upheavals
simultaneously: the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic aftershocks of that
emergency, and the political protests and in some cases violence sparked
by the videotape of the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African
American man, by police officers in Minneapolis.

The three crises of this moment will undoubtedly affect the foreign
policy of the United States, which for three-quarters of a century has
been the preeminent power in the world. Indeed, recent developments
could have a profound and enduring impact on American influence. Unless
the United States is able to come together to address its persistent
societal and political divides, global prospects for democracy may
weaken, friends and allies of the United States may rethink their
decision to place their security in American hands, and competitors may
dispense with some or all of their traditional caution.

The World Is Watching

The example the United States sets at home and the image it projects
abroad can either magnify American power or detract from it. For all
that foreign policy is commonly understood to be the province of
officials and diplomats—consultations, negotiations, communiques,
démarches, summits, and more—foreign policy by example is no less real.
Through example, a country communicates its values and furnishes a
context for all that its representatives say and do. At times, the
United States has stood as a paradigm to countries that demanded
accountability from their leaders; at other times, the United States has
failed to live up to its highest ideals and thereby undermined its calls
for other countries to treat their people better.

Today’s American travails have been widely seen and heard outside the
United States. Globalization is a conveyor belt—one that in this
instance carried stark images of police brutality across the globe. If
one lesson of COVID-19 is that what starts in Wuhan does not stay in
Wuhan, one lesson of the killing of George Floyd is that what happens in
Minneapolis does not stay there. Comparisons between the current
situation and the United States of 1968 are overdrawn, in no small part
because what is going on now is arguably more serious, but one mantra
from that time remains apt: "The Whole World is Watching."

As if to prove that point, spontaneous demonstrations against racism and
police brutality have sprung up around American embassies in Europe and
elsewhere. But the context in which they did so is worth elucidating.
Confidence in the American example has been waning for years, the result
of prolonged political division and dysfunction within the United
States—the pervasive gun-related violence that no other society allows
or can identify with, the prevalence of opioid addiction and related
deaths, the financial mismanagement that led to enormous global hardship
in the crisis of 2008, the rise of inequality, the poor infrastructure
that greets most visitors to the country, and much else. U.S. President
Donald Trump, moreover, has proven to be as controversial, and in many
cases as unpopular, abroad as he is at home.

Confidence in the American example has been waning for years. The
American response to the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced doubts about
American competence. That the novel coronavirus would reach American
shores was inevitable, given the nature of the pathogen and the initial
failure of both China and the World Health Organization (WHO) to contain
it and warn the world of it. What was not inevitable was that the
disease would take the toll it did. The lack of protective equipment for
first responders and hospital staff; the inability to produce at scale
accurate, quick tests for either the virus or the antibodies; the
delayed and then inconsistent messaging about wearing masks and social
distancing—these failures are the country’s own. The result is more than
100,000 fatalities, millions of infections, and a deadly American course
no one wishes to follow.

The United States has long retained many positive features when seen
from abroad: excellent universities, innovative companies, and a
tradition (currently compromised) of openness to immigration. The
election of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 seemed to show that racism had
abated to a significant degree; the gains of the civil, women’s, and gay
rights movements were a source of inspiration elsewhere; and even the
country’s multiple experiences with impeachment seemed to showcase a
system in which no person was above the law. Now, however, the image of
a United States consistent with former President Ronald Reagan’s
"shining city on a hill" grows ever more distant in the eyes of the world.

As that image recedes, the capacity diminishes for the United States to
present itself as a model for others to emulate. So, too, does the
ability of the United States to criticize or pressure other countries
for their failings. A good deal of evidence suggests that Chinese leader
Xi Jinping was on the defensive at home for China’s initial inadequate
response to the COVID-19 outbreak. But the United States’ poor showing
essentially took Xi off the hook, as invidious comparisons could not be
drawn. For all of Washington’s talk, it squandered the opportunity to
take a tough stance vis-à-vis China on the pandemic.

Democracy is in recession around the world, and the ability of the
United States to arrest that retreat is likewise in decline. The current
political crisis, moreover, has likewise hindered U.S. prospects for
promoting and protecting democracies abroad. Human rights and democracy
promotion have long been a staple of American foreign policy—partly for
normative reasons, because Americans believe that such principles
enhance the meaning and value of life, and partly for practical reasons,
because many U.S. policymakers believe that democracies act with
restraint not just toward their own citizens but toward others and in so
doing, make the world less violent. Now, democracy is in recession
around the world, and the ability of the United States to arrest that
retreat is likewise in decline. A case in point is China, which has
countered Washington’s criticism of its actions in Hong Kong by pointing
to U.S. behavior at home.

What happened in Washington, D.C. on Monday night, June 1, was
particularly consequential in this regard. A peaceful protest in the
public space across from the White House was broken up, not because it
was a threat to order but to serve a political purpose. The White House
made a bad situation worse by deploying military units to Washington.
But the rights of free speech and assembly, including public protest,
are constitutionally guaranteed and stand at the core of American
democracy. Public trust requires that federal law enforcement agencies
and the military not be politicized. Terrible images from that night
traveled across the world. Not lost on either international viewers or
American citizens was the dangerous precedent the incident set in a
country just five months away from what is sure to be a hard-fought
election.

Power in Retreat

The turmoil in the United States, set before the eyes of the world,
raises questions about American power. To distinguish between absolute
power and available power is useful here. The country’s absolute power,
above all military and economic power, is still considerable. The bigger
question concerns its available power. Is a country with 42 million
people unemployed, a declining GDP, shuttered factories, widespread
protest that at times turns violent, and deep internal divisions in a
position to act internationally?

The answer to this question is anything but clear. Available power
consists not just of military and economic instruments but also the
ability and the will to use them—and this measure is the one most
sensitive to the condition in which the United States now finds itself.
The impulse to turn inward and do less in the world was already rising
after the United States overreached in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, the
country faces formidable domestic strife, which will likely quell much
of the remaining appetite to intervene abroad, however justified on
occasion it might be. Some of those who bemoan American missteps over
the past two decades may welcome such an inward turn. But no less
dangerous than overreach is underreach—a United States that fails to act
to protect its interests. Such a United States will not be able to
isolate itself from a world in which viruses, greenhouse gases,
terrorists, and cyberattacks cross borders at will.

The perception that the United States has been shorn of much of its
available power will likely affect the decision-making of other
countries. The danger is that foes will see a United States weakened and
distracted and move to take advantage. Some, arguably, already have.
China has moved or spoken aggressively on Hong Kong, its contested
border with India, and Taiwan. Russia has brazenly interfered with the
operation of U.S. planes and ships. North Korea is continuing to expand
its arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, and Iran is slowly but
steadily breaking through the limits established by the 2015 nuclear
agreement. Such opportunism has been growing for some time, given the
U.S. withdrawal from international undertakings, the current
administration’s failure to vocally support U.S. alliances, and reports
that Washington is seeking to negotiate the departure of American forces
from Afghanistan absent conditions of anything approximating peace.
Where would-be foes are tempted to advance, allies will feel anxious,
with some choosing to defer to a powerful neighbor and others choosing
to take matters into their own hands by accumulating or using military
force. U.S. interests and stability will suffer either way.

The danger is that foes will see a United States weakened and distracted
and move to take advantage.

The moment is therefore dangerous. Three decades after the end of the
Cold War on terms more favorable than any optimist could have hoped, the
state of the world is deteriorating. A traditional security agenda has
reemerged, including a revisionist Russia, a rising and more assertive
China, and ever more capable hostile middle powers, such as Iran and
North Korea; what is more, these concerns share the field with a new
security agenda that includes terrorists with global reach, climate
change, and pandemics.

The United States that faces this daunting agenda is weakened, divided,
and distracted. But the threats will not manage themselves or disappear;
nor can the United States shield itself from the adverse consequences of
inaction. History has no pause button: the world cannot be expected to
wait until the United States sorts itself out. To the contrary, the need
is urgent for the United States to come together—to root out racism,
restore its economy, and bridge its political divisions—sooner rather
than later, for both its own sake and the world’s.

RICHARD HAASS is President of the Council on Foreign Relations and the
author of The World: A Brief Introduction. Copyright © 2020 by the
Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)