News Focus
News Focus
icon url

sortagreen

04/09/23 6:42 AM

#441796 RE: fuagf #441748

The sooner that obscenity of a nation falls into a dystopian nightmare for Jewish citizens, the sooner we can turn our backs on them.

I always love it when people tell me Israel's a democracy that shares our values. Israel is nominally a democracy for its Jewish citizens.. There's little public support for any political or civil rights for the rest.

After a thousand years of dystopian nightmare, Jewish people had an opportunity to create a safe and enlightened society of their own. What did they do? They created a dystopian apartheid nightmare for someone else. Democracy is a masquerade in Israel. They may as well go head and rip that mask off at this point.


----------------------------------------------------
Democracy? Who voted for this?


icon url

fuagf

05/10/23 5:30 AM

#444294 RE: fuagf #441748

Israel Targets Gaza Militants, Fears Retaliation

"Why Palestinians Aren’t Joining Israel’s Protests
"The U.S.-Israel Relationship No Longer Makes Sense
"Israel voters message to American voters, and to Netanyahu -- Israel Is Somewhere It’s Never Been Before
"Netanyahu fires defense minister, sparking mass protests in Israel"""
"

Related: The sooner that obscenity of a nation falls into a dystopian nightmare for Jewish citizens, the sooner we can turn our backs on them.
[...]After a thousand years of dystopian nightmare, Jewish people had an opportunity to create a safe and enlightened society of their own. What did they do? They created a dystopian apartheid nightmare for someone else.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171644798

This is the Israeli military’s largest strike on Islamic Jihad members in nine months.

By Alexandra Sharp, the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy.


Palestinian men inspect the heavily damaged house of Islamic Jihad leader Jehad Ghanam, who was killed in a pre-dawn Israeli airstrike, in the Gaza Strip on May 9. Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

May 9, 2023, 7:00 PM

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Gaza militants killed in Israeli airstrikes, the arrest of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and a diplomatic showdown between Canada and China.

Israel Targets Islamic Jihad Leaders

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday killed three top leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group in airstrikes on homes in Gaza City and Rafah in the Gaza Strip; 10 other people were also killed—including the commanders’ wives and children as well as other civilians nearby—and 22 people were injured. The Israeli military identified the three Islamic Jihad leaders as Khalil Bahtini, Tareq Izzeldeen, and Jehad Ghanam, saying they were responsible for recent rocket attacks against Israel.

This was the IDF’s largest attack on Islamic Jihad since August 2022, when nearly three days of fighting killed .. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-militant-groups-gaza-strip-0c1565488cc2dc03f80200edcdd49a56 .. 43 Palestinians, including 15 children. Now fearing retaliation, Israeli officials have warned .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-strikes-gaza-islamic-jihad-palestinian-deaths-today/ .. civilians within 25 miles of Gaza to remain near designated bomb shelters. Schools, beaches, and highways in southern Israel have also closed in anticipation of violence.

Warplanes and missiles have crisscrossed the region’s skies in recent days following the death of Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/02/khader-adnan-hunger-strike-death-prison-israel-palestine-gaza/ .. in an Israeli prison, who went on an 87-day hunger strike to protest his arrest. Violence between Gaza militants and Israeli forces ensued for hours before Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations managed to negotiate a cease-fire.

As for Tuesday’s violence, Palestinian militants have already warned that Israel must “pay the price,” with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh saying .. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israeli-strikes-in-gaza-kill-3-senior-militants-10-civilians#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAssassinating%20the%20leaders%20with%20a,of%20rockets%20and%20other%20weapons. , “Assassinating the leaders with a treacherous operation will not bring security to the occupier but rather more resistance.” Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are backed by Iran and oppose Israel’s existence.

According to The Associated Press, Israeli forces have killed 105 Palestinians .. https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-airstrikes-1b774f95a2d8f2ceeae4d3b1fadc03a8 .. since 2023 began—roughly half of whom were affiliated with militant groups. Palestinian attacks have killed at least 20 Israelis this year. The “possibility of another Palestinian intifada looms large, born of mounting frustration and anger among younger Palestinians,” Middle East experts Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer argued in Foreign Policy in March. “Creative thinking about peace has atrophied in recent years, and it is hard to see what political pathway can be developed that meets the minimum requirements of the two parties.”

Today’s Most Read

Italy Now Has Conspiracy Theory as National Policy by Anchal Vohra
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/08/italy-meloni-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-immigration/

What Most People Get Wrong About the Iran Nuclear Deal by Jane Darby Menton
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/07/iran-nuclear-deal-jcpoa-us-trump-biden-nonproliferation-diplomacy/

Taiwan Needs Business Help to Harden Its Economy Against China by Elisabeth Braw
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/08/taiwan-china-supply-chains-national-security/

What We’re Following

Pakistani firebrand arrested. Paramilitary forces arrested .. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1174951989/imran-khan-arrest-pakistan .. former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Tuesday over corruption allegations. This follows the military’s rare public rebuke .. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230509-pakistan-military-warns-ex-pm-khan-against-baseless-allegations .. of Khan on Monday for allegedly falsely accusing a senior official with attempting to assassinate him. In response, hundreds of Khan’s supporters stormed the streets of Lahore, Khan’s hometown, and blocked a major road in Karachi. Khan is expected to appear in court on Wednesday.

Once upon a time, Khan and the Pakistani military shared similar goals. The latter even backed the former cricket player’s bid for power in 2018. But when Khan faced a no-confidence vote in April 2022, the Pakistani military did an about-face. Since then, a debilitating economic crisis .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/21/pakistan-economy-politics-imran-khan/ .. and dysfunctional political scene have plagued the country. According to a PTI lawyer, Khan currently stands accused of 34 crimes—and Tuesday marked his first official arrest.

Khan’s ability to avoid arrest until now suggested that “the military’s grip on politics may have loosened or that there is divided opinion about PTI within the country’s most powerful institutions,” journalist Betsy Joles reported .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/05/pakistan-imran-khan-court-cases-elections-corruption/ .. in Foreign Policy last month.

A diplomatic tit for tat. Canadian officials are cracking down on Chinese foreign influence. On Monday, Ottawa requested .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/world/canada/china-diplomat-expelled-canada.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230509&instance_id=92110&nl=the-morning®i_id=159637444&segment_id=132464&te=1&user_id=3a92aa035d8e7d51a6ba63375b87c152 .. that China withdraw diplomat Zhao Wei from Toronto, accusing him of intimidating and gathering intelligence on Canadian lawmaker Michael Chong and his family. Chong was allegedly targeted for his legislative efforts to declare China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims a genocide—something that numerous other countries, including the United States .. https://2017-2021.state.gov/determination-of-the-secretary-of-state-on-atrocities-in-xinjiang/index.html , have already done. Beijing denied the allegations and retaliated by expelling a Canadian diplomat from its consulate in Shanghai just hours later.

The diplomatic rift caps off months of Canadian anger .. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-china-influence-2021-federal-election-csis-documents/ .. over alleged Chinese government efforts to manipulate Ottawa’s general elections in 2019 and 2021 to ensure Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party won. Canadian officials have denied that the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts were successful, and an independent investigation in February ruled .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/world/canada/canada-elections-foreign-interference.html .. that Chinese influence campaigns had no impact on the elections’ results.

Congo devastation. The death toll from recent mass flooding and landslides in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to rise, with more than 400 people dead .. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/over-5500-still-missing-flood-hit-east-congo-local-official-2023-05-09/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=050923 .. as of Tuesday. The almost weeklong natural disaster is Congo’s deadliest in recent history. According to local authorities, at least 5,500 people remain missing, and more than 8,000 individuals require humanitarian assistance. Congo, already struggling with poor urban planning and weak infrastructure .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/18/congo-rainforests-basin-cop26-carbon-logging-sink/ , now faces severe transportation blockages and detrimental crop destruction.

Victory Day airstrikes. Moscow launched .. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-launches-new-attack-ukraine-moscows-sacred-day-2023-05-09/#:~:text=KYIV%2C%20May%209%20(Reuters),failed%20winter%20campaign%20in%20Ukraine. .. cruise missiles at Kyiv on Tuesday alongside Russia’s scaled-down Victory Day celebrations, which commemorate the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. No casualties or major damages were reported. The strikes occurred just one day after the Kremlin sent dozens of drones .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/08/russia-ukraine-drone-attack-victory-day-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant/ .. into Ukraine, killing at least three people and damaging critical infrastructure—including a runway at Kyiv International Airport and a food warehouse .. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-five-wounded-due-russian-strikes-kyiv-city-officials-say-2023-05-07/ .. in Odesa.

Odds and Ends

Wine and lollipops may be unlikely items to include in a survival kit, but those two things were enough to sustain Lillian Ip, who was stranded .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/09/australia-woman-survives-on-wine/ .. at the base of Australia’s Victorian Alps for five days with no other food or water after her car became stuck in mud. When authorities rescued her on Friday, Ip had two requests: “water and a cigarette.”

Alexandra Sharp is the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @AlexandraSSharp

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/09/israel-strikes-gaza-palestine-islamic-jihad-leaders/
icon url

fuagf

01/02/24 3:32 PM

#457912 RE: fuagf #441748

Israel's Supreme Court strikes down disputed law that limited court oversight

"Why Palestinians Aren’t Joining Israel’s Protests
"The U.S.-Israel Relationship No Longer Makes Sense

"Israel voters message to American voters, and to Netanyahu -- Israel Is Somewhere It’s Never Been Before
"Netanyahu fires defense minister, sparking mass protests in Israel""" "

--------
See also: Ehud Barak blames Binyamin Netanyahu for “the greatest failure in Israel’s history”
[...]Netanyahu’s Betrayal of Democracy Is a Betrayal of Israel
"Israel’s Netanyahu back in power with hard-line government"
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170949384
[...]FEW ISRAELIS have anything close to Ehud Barak’s experience of operating in Gaza. In 2000 he was prime minister and defence minister when the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, erupted in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Before that he was the commander of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) when Israel carried out its first major pullback from the cities in the Gaza Strip as part of the first Oslo Accords signed in 1993.
P - And then in his second stint as defence minister, in 2009, he oversaw Israel’s largest ground operation against Hamas in Gaza to date.
[...]He also wants Israel to ensure that its actions are seen as legitimate by the wider world. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack most Western governments offered Israel their full support. But “the support also comes with an expectation we abide by international law in our operations,” Mr Barak warns. “Support will erode when there is footage of ruined homes [in Gaza] with bodies of children and weeping old women.” America’s naval presence—on October 14th it deployed a second aircraft carrier group to the eastern Mediterranean—is partly designed to deter outside actors from entering or escalating the conflict. But it “also emphasises Israel’s need to operate according to international law”.
P - Israel will need to keep a watchful eye on Hizbullah, the Iran-backed Shia militia in Lebanon....
[...]Although Mr Barak strongly supports a ground campaign in Gaza, he is critical of talk of “destroying Hamas” by Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, as well as ministers in his government and some generals. “What does it even mean?” he says. “That no one can still breathe and believe in Hamas’s ideology? That’s not a believable war aim. Israel’s objective now has to be clearer. It has to be that Hamas will be denied its Daesh-like military capabilities,” he says, referring to the Arabic term for Islamic State.
P - Mr Barak believes that the optimal outcome, once Hamas’s military capabilities have been sufficiently degraded, is the re-establishment of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. The authority, which was established under the Oslo Accords and runs the autonomous parts of the West Bank, was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in a bloody coup in 2007. However he warns that Mahmoud Abbas .. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/23/the-ageing-ailing-palestinian-leader-does-not-do-much-governing , the Palestinian president, “cannot be seen to be returning on Israeli bayonets”. There will, therefore, need to be an interim period during which “Israel will capitulate to international pressure and hand Gaza over to an Arab peacekeeping force, which could include members such as Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. They would secure the area until the Palestinian Authority could take control.” Yet for now, other countries in the region seem to have no desire to contribute troops to such a force.
P - And then there is the great reckoning that will take place in Israel once the war ends.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173146040
--------


By Ari Rabinovitch
January 2, 202411:16 AM GMT+11Updated 19 hours ago

VIDEO

JERUSALEM, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Israel's Supreme Court on Monday struck down a highly disputed law passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government that rolled back some of the high court's power and sparked months of nationwide protests.

The law was part of a broader judicial overhaul proposed by Netanyahu and his coalition of religious and nationalist partners which caused a deep rift .. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-netanyahu-discharged-hospital-reuters-witness-says-2023-07-24/ .. in Israel and concern over the country's democratic principles among Western allies .. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-calls-israel-parliament-vote-unfortunate-urges-work-toward-consensus-2023-07-24/ .

Monday's court decision could test the cohesion of an emergency government formed to manage the war against Hamas, which includes hardline proponents like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and critics of the judicial overhaul such as centrist Benny Gantz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Smotrich dismissed the decision as "extreme and divisive", echoing the bitter divisions that marked Israeli politics in the months before the deadly Hamas rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7.

The new legislation .. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-is-israels-new-judicial-law-why-is-it-causing-upheaval-2023-07-25/ .. brought before the court had removed one, but not all, of the tools the Supreme Court has for quashing government and ministers' decisions. It took away the court's ability to void such decisions that it deemed "unreasonable".

[Insert: Netanyahu drops key part of Israel judicial overhaul plans
[...]Meanwhile, far-right ultranationalist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power party, accused Mr Netanyahu of "surrendering" to civil unrest, saying it was "a victory for violence and a loss for Israel".
[...]An ultra-Orthodox minister, Meir Porush, told a newspaper that the original changes to bolster parliament were a condition for his United Torah Judaism party joining the governing coalition. "Any other agreement is not acceptable to us," he said.
[...]Prof Suzie Navot, an expert in constitutional law who has been representing the largest opposition party, Yesh Atid, in the talks at the president's office, found no reason for encouragement in the prime minister's latest remarks.
P - "This is a coup d'etat in the Polish way, which is done a little at a time," she wrote on Twitter, referring to a series of judicial reforms in Poland in recent years that the European Union said undermined judicial independence.
P - At the moment, the Israeli government is pushing ahead with an element of the changes relating to what has been termed "the reasonable clause", advancing a bill that would prevent the court system from using a test of "reasonableness" when ruling against decisions and appointments made by all elected officials.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172243632]



President of the Supreme Court of Israel Esther Hayut and all fifteen justices assemble to hear petitions against the reasonableness
standard law in the High Court in Jerusalem, on Tuesday, September 12, 2023. DEBBIE HILL/Pool via
REUTERS/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

Twelve of 15 justices ruled that it was within the court's parameters to strike down quasi-constitutional "basic laws". A smaller majority of eight ruled to nullify this specific basic law, which the court said "causes severe and unprecedented harm to the core characteristics of Israel as a democratic state."

Some Israeli officials have acknowledged that the internal divisions caused by the judicial overhaul - which seeped into the military .. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hit-by-day-disruption-disputed-judicial-bill-nears-key-vote-2023-07-18/ .. and prompted Netanyahu to temporarily fire Gallant .. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/party-pressure-mounts-netanyahu-pause-judicial-overhaul-2023-03-26/ , who had called to halt the reforms - may have factored into Hamas' decision to carry out its Oct. 7 killing spree.

Netanyahu's Likud party said the Supreme Court's decision was unfortunate and that it opposed "the will of the people for unity, especially during wartime". It did not discuss any possible steps it might take in its brief statement.

Yair Lapid, opposition chair and a former prime minister, praised the court, whose decision he said "seals a tough year of dispute that tore us apart from the inside and led to the most terrible disaster in our history."

The Supreme Court, according to its summary of the case, said the government in passing the amendment to the basic law "completely revoked the possibility of carrying out judicial review of the reasonableness of decisions made by the government, the prime minister, and the ministers."

"The court held that the amendment causes severe and unprecedented harm to the core characteristics of Israel as a democratic state."

Editing by Jason Neely

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-supreme-court-strikes-down-disputed-law-that-limited-court-oversight-2024-01-01/

See also:
[...]Freedom of movement – Israeli citizens enjoy freedom of movement in the entire area controlled by Israel (with the exception of the Gaza Strip) and may enter and leave the country freely. Palestinian subjects, on the other hand, require a special Israeli-issued permit to travel between the units (and sometimes inside them), and exit abroad also requires Israeli approval.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173492043
... and ...
Why Israel is not a democracy
[...] For some, it is apparently sufficient that Israel has an electoral system, and that Arabs have the right to vote in those elections (though just how equally this right is protected is of course a different matter). The fact that one can't vote for a candidate who questions the special Jewish nature of the state, because such candidates can't run for or hold office, strikes most as irrelevant — hardly enough for them to call into question Israel's democratic credentials.
P - If what we see in Israel is indeed democracy, then what does fascism look like?
P - I'm sorry, but I am over it. As a Jew, I am over it. And if my language seems too harsh here, that's tough. Because it's nothing compared to the sickening things said by Israeli leaders throughout the years. Like former prime minister Menachem Begin, who told the Knesset in 1982 that the Palestinians were "beasts walking on two legs". Or former PM Ehud Barak, who offered a more precise form of dehumanisation when he referred to the Palestinians as "crocodiles".
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=55375128