Author: cpaadmin

Exposing Real Friends and Enemies of Israel in the Arab World

The Israeli Institute for National Security Studies has just issued its… Read more

The Israeli Institute for National Security Studies has just issued its 275 page report entitled “Strategic Survey for Israel 2016-2017”. This Israeli research institute and think tank is headed by former IDF Military Intelligence Chief, General (ret.) Amos Yadlin. Its analysis offers a valuable insight into the how the Israeli intelligence and security community view and prioritize developments regionally and globally, and in the process, also exposes who are the real friends and enemies of Israel in the Arab world.

Following are a small sampling of the findings and the recommendations (labelled “challenges and responses”) contained in the report’s summarized conclusion:

* “Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan have withstood the tumult in the Arab world. The Cairo and Amman embassies in Tel Aviv are an expression of a stable element in the regional system, and constitute an important part of Israel’s strategic position.” Page 252

* “The change in Saudi policy has expanded Riyadh’s base of shared interests with Israel, thereby facilitating closer ties between the two countries and possibly encouraging Saudi Arabia to make those ties public.” Page 252

* “From Israel’s standpoint, the non-state actors in the region are deeply involved in fighting for their existence, making them less able to concentrate on the struggle against Israel mandated by their ideology. The Islamic State branch that controls territory bordering Israel in the Golan Heights is for the most part inactive against Israel.” Page 249

* “Although Hezbollah continues its military buildup and poses a significant strategic threat to Israel, and despite the substantial resources invested by Hamas in rebuilding its military force, Israel’s overall strategic position gives it unprecedented freedom of action to initiate military operations aimed at preserving its security interests and restricting the increase in quality of its enemies’ military buildup.” page 250

* “The complete standstill in the political process and the deterioration of security in the Palestinian arena continued in 2016, and Israel continues to pay a price in lives, and in its economy, international standing, and internal political arena.” Page 253

* “Israel’s image in Western countries continues to decline, a trend that enhances the ability of hostile groups to engage in actions aimed at depriving Israel of moral and political legitimacy and launch boycotts in various areas. Indeed, the international campaign to delegitimize Israel continues, as reflected in the BDS movement. Israel’s current right wing government has contributed to this deterioration.” page 254

* “… the worst scenario is a conflict with Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon. Conflicts in the Gaza Strip will probably be limited, and Israel is well equipped to deal with them.” Page 255

The Recommendations:

– “Even if there does not appear to be a partner on the Palestinian side for reaching or implementing an agreement, Israel has an important interest in halting the gradual drift toward an irreversible one-state situation, and instead, progressing toward a two-state situation that ends Israel’s rule over Palestinians, while carefully maintaining and even improving Israel’s security.” Page 257

– “Israel must prepare measures against Lebanon’s national infrastructure without distinguishing it from Hezbollah, and develop capabilities for a ground campaign…” Page 259

– “Against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, military preparation should aim to shorten the duration of the next campaign and anticipate the tactical and systemic surprises that will be encountered.” Page 259

– “Both arenas, against Hamas and Hezbollah, should be discussed with the Trump administration, with understandings reached about Israel’s red lines, and about what will be considered a legitimate policy on the use of force against these groups in the event of another military conflict.” Page 259

– “The dialogue between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states indicates that an effective process with the Palestinians, even if it does not include negotiations for a permanent settlement ending in a full agreement, will make a breakthrough in relations with the Gulf states possible, including making these relations public.” page 260

– “Israel can expect conflicts in both the military sphere and in soft power areas – economics, diplomacy, communications, the social networks, and the courts (lawfare)…It is therefore necessary for Israel to devise organizational frameworks, strategies, and multidimensional, coordinated methods to handle the challenges facing it.” Page 260

This article was first published by palestinechronicle.com

Is Tunisian Security Complicit in the Murder of Palestinian Leaders?

What are the connections and similarities between the assassinations of Mohammed Zawahri and Abu Jihad?
Article published by the Palestine Chronicle.

On Dec. 15, 2016, Tunisian Mohammad al-Zawahri, a Hamas leader and flight engineer specializing in unmanned aerial vehicles, was assassinated in the Tunisian city of Sfax. This operation bore eerie similarities to another assassination 28 years earlier of prominent Palestinian leader and high-ranking Fateh official Khalil Al Wazir (popularly known as Abu Jihad).

According to Gideon Levy in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Dec. 22, “Back in 1988, not far from the place where Zawahri was murdered, Israel murdered Abu Jihad in front of his wife and children in an operation given the poetic name ‘Show of Force’. Its perpetrators, from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, boasted of it for years afterward.”

Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, a recognized expert on the Israeli Mossad, wrote in an opinion article in the Ynetnews on Dec. 19, 2016:

“If the Mossad is indeed behind the assassination of Hamas aviation engineer Mohammad al-Zawahri in Tunisia, as reported by the foreign press, this is the first assassination attributed to the Israeli intelligence organization under Cohen’s leadership (or perhaps the second: Omar Zayed of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine died under mysterious circumstances in Bulgaria).”

Bergman also acknowledged in that same article that:

“Tunisia is what the Mossad calls a ‘soft target’ state…not an actual enemy state” and also noted that “The people arrested in Tunisia were likely not involved and will be released soon.”

Four years ago, the Times of Israel reported on Nov. 1, 2012 that:
“Yedioth Ahronoth investigative reporter Ronen Bergman’s interview with Nahum Lev, the commander of the operation and the officer who killed Abu Jihad, was cleared for publication…after being blocked by the military censor for more than a decade. The interview was conducted prior to Lev’s death from a car accident in August 2000. In allowing its publication, Israel essentially confirmed the open secret that it carried out the operation.”

Was the Tunisian Security establishment complicit in both these assassination operations?

Following is some of the most relevant background information:

* Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to power in Tunisia on November 7, 1987 in a bloodless coup d’état against then President Habib Bourguiba in questionable and suspicious circumstances.

* In his early days, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was awarded training at the “Senior Intelligence School in Maryland and the School for Anti-Aircraft Field Artillery in Texas.”

* In 1987, the new Tunisian security chief Abderrahmane Balhaj Ali, “accompanied Ben Ali to Carthage at the time of his assumption of power as general director of the presidential security”, a position he continued to hold for 14 years.

* On April 16, 1988, just a few months after Ben Ali became President, Abu Jihad was assassinated by the Mossad. In 1993, David Yallop, the British investigative journalist, in his book “To the Ends of the Earth”, exposed the complicity of the U.S. and Tunisian governments in the murder of Abu Jihad. He noted: “The ‘High Backing’ also included the President of Tunis, Ben Ali, and the United States government, specifically the State Department.” (Page 224)

* On February 7, 2011, after the Tunisian popular revolution that ousted Ben Ali and his cohorts, Canada Palestine Association sent a letter to the Tunisian Ambassador to Canada, regarding the murder of Palestinian Leader Abu Jihad entitled “Bring Ben Ali and his Police and Intelligence Officers to Justice“. To this date, we have NOT received any response, not even an acknowledgement of receipt of the letter.

* Times of Israel reported on Nov. 5, 2012 that the Tunisian “Wafa movement announced…that it intended to sue Israel in a Tunis court over its involvement in the killing of Fatah official Khalil Al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)…Fadira Najjar, an attorney and member of Wafa, told Tunisian television that the assassination was perpetrated on Tunisian soil and is considered a war crime under international law. Najjar claimed that deposed Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine Bin Ali colluded with Israel in the killing, along with security officials.” It is worth noting that a Ynetnews story on this same subject did not refer to Tunisian “security officials” that were involved in the murder of Abu Jihad.

* A year ago, Balhaj Ali was resurrected to again head the Tunisian security apparatus and on Dec. 2, 2015, Jeune Afrique reported that he is “the new strong man of the services of the Tunisian police. His appointment is accompanied by a series of changes in the security apparatus…”

* On Dec. 16, 2016 Ynetnews reported his sudden resignation this way: “Five hours after the assassination (of al-Zawahri), the Tunisian National Security Commissioner, Abed al-Rahman Balhaj Ali, announced his resignation without specifying why. Political sources in Tunisia have not ruled out the possibility that the resignation came against the backdrop of the assassination.”

* Haaretz also reported on Dec. 18, 2016 that “Foreign elements were behind the assassination of a Hamas drone expert last Thursday, Tunisia announced on Sunday evening, following allegations that the engineer’s death was orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad.”

All of these facts raise many serious and troubling questions:

* What is the “Senior Intelligence School in Maryland”? Is it similar to the “School of the Americas(Assassins)“? Is it tied to the CIA? Does it train and recruit foreign nationals as CIA agents? Was Ben Ali recruited to the CIA? Did the Tunisian government knew of Ben Ali’s activities?

* What does Abderrahmane Balhaj Ali know about the 1987 Tunisian coup d’état? Was he ever questioned by the Tunisian governments that followed Ben Ali’s Government and did he have any role in the Abu Jihad assassination? Was he ever questioned about what he did know “as general director of the presidential security” about the murder of Abu Jihad?

* Why did Balhaj Ali resign five hours after the assassination of al-Zawahri? You would think that the “Tunisian National Security Commissioner” would want to investigate and expose the assassins!

* What are the connections and similarities between the assassinations of Mohammed Zawahri and Abu Jihad? And, more importantly, would exposing and convicting the Tunisian security and police officials who were complicit in Abu Jihad’s murder have prevented the murder of al-Zawahri?

* Why did the Tunisian government blame Zawahri’s assassination only on “foreign elements”? Was Israeli journalist Bergman right when he stated “The people arrested in Tunisia were likely not involved”? And were those people scapegoats, to protect higher ranking Tunisian officials that were involved?

* Why does the Mossad consider Tunisia a “soft target” state? And why does the current Tunisian government insist on ignoring popular and parliamentary demands to penalize any normalization with Israel?

* And the most crucial point: Is the current Tunisian government willing or capable of appointing a National Security Commissioner that serves the Tunisian and Arab peoples and has no ties or allegiance to the CIA, Mossad, Italian or French security services?

* Why does Saudi Arabia harbor and protect the deposed Tunisian leader Ben Ali, who has been convicted in absentia on multiple counts by Tunisian courts, thereby thwarting justice? Why is Saudi Arabia giving refuge to this murderer with Tunisian and Arab blood on his hands?

* And finally, why are the Fateh leadership and its Palestinian Authority security forces not actively investigating and bringing to justice the murderers of Abu Jihad and Yasser Arafat, rather than chasing after those who oppose and resist the Israeli enemy?

To have genuine justice for the many Palestinians and Arabs who have been murdered in cold blood by the Israeli Mossad, we need to also “clean house” and expose and prosecute all those complicit in such crimes, especially those still in power.

The ‘Arab spring’ that was started in Tunisia in December 2010, will surely continue until it accomplishes its objectives in bringing freedom, democracy and independence to the Arab nation and peoples.

This article was first published by the PalestineChronicle.com.

Boycott Israeli Wine, Stand up for Palestine!

Boycott Israeli Wines campaign targets another BC Gov’t. Liquor… Read more

Boycott Israeli Wines campaign targets another BC Gov’t. Liquor Store

Video of Dec. 17 In-Store Flash Action
The Boycott Israeli Wines campaign in Vancouver, Canada held another flash action and picket on Dec. 17, despite the unusually cold temperatures in the city. The activists initially went into the government liquor store, and showed real “holiday spirit” with their chants and singing. The manager of the store was made aware that the 3 brands of Israeli wines that are stocked there are all from stolen Arab and Palestinian land, thus rendering the BC Government complicit in human rights violations. One brand in particular, the Teperberg Vision Malbec, even openly brags on its website that the vineyard that contributes grapes for this wine is in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mevo Horon. This settler enclave is in the Latrun area of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and is also close to the infamous “Canada Park” built by the Jewish National Fund with Canadian tax-deductible monies.
The picket then moved outside of the store, where leaflets were handed out to many passersby. Palestinian flags flew high as more chants and singing happened on the busy street corner in one of Vancouver’s densest shopping areas.
Activists succeeded in getting their message out, both inside and outside the store, and their chant of Boycott Israeli Wine, Free Free Palestine was heard loud and clear!
Background information on this campaign can be found in this Palestine Chronicle article.

Letter hand-delivered to BC Liquor Board head office
Check out the video of the picket.
Friday Sep. 23, 2016 at 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Head Office, BC Liquor Distribution Branch, 2625 Rupert St, Vancouver, Canada
Join us for this important picket to send the message to the BC Government to stop carrying Israeli wines (most sourced from illegal Israeli settlements) and end their complicity in war crimes. Over the summer, several “surprise” pickets were already held at various BC liquor stores, including one at the beginning of August that included an instore flash action, the video of which has over 78,000 views on FB. Check out the Boycott Israeli Wines FB page for coverage of the last 2 actions and the sustained attacks by the Zionist lobby to try and shut us down.
Come out and help us defend and promote the BDS movement as well as our right to engage in all actions to support Palestine and the Palestinian people.
Facebook page.
Campaign history and background information here.

Commemorate Nakba 68 – Boycott Israeli Wines

Please sign our new petition to the BC Government, calling on them to stop… Read more

Please sign our new petition to the BC Government, calling on them to stop carrying Israeli Wines.

On August 6, there was a lively picket in Vancouver protesting the many BC Government liquor stores that carry Israeli wines and showing solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners. The video which has already been viewed over 79,000 times on Facebook shows highlights of the flash action inside the store. You can also check out our FB page for photos and videos of the leafletting that continued on outside the store.

Thanks to everyone who participated, especially the folks from Solidarity Notes and our piper.


This is a short video of the successful picket held to Boycott Israeli Wines on June 25th in Vancouver.

Please email us if you wish to be involved with this campaign and be on the call-out list for future actions.

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On the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, 8 years ago, the statement below was issued by Canada Palestine Association and other endorsing groups calling for a boycott of Israeli wines in BC liquor stores. This year, on the 68th anniversary, with BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) making great strides globally, BC liquor stores are regrettably still stuck in the past. In fact, not only are they still carrying wines from the occupied Golan Heights, but they have added several others sourced from the occupied West Bank, specifically the illegal Gush Etzion settlement bloc around Jerusalem. One in particular is called Efrat Judean Hills Kosher and is produced by the Teperberg 1870 Winery. This brand declares openly on its website that “Teperberg’s vineyards are spread around several growing regions in the Judean Hills, Upper Galilee, Gush Etzion….” More information on this winery and other Israeli wineries can be found in the exhaustive study done by “Who Profits” entitled Forbidden Fruit: Israeli Wine Industry and Occupation.
We are relaunching the Boycott Israeli Wines, Don’t Drink with Apartheid campaign; and we encourage everyone to let your local liquor store know that supporting occupation and Israeli war crimes is unethical. You can also email the head office at communications@bcldb.com. As we said 8 years ago, enough of dispossession, exile and the destruction of a whole nation. Please also send this message to our politicians as well to show them that we are not waiting for them to condemn us, rather we condemn their cowardly motion on Feb. 22, 2016 attacking BDS (and justice for Palestine) in the House of Commons.

Check out and like the FB page.

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Callout for original campaign – “BOYCOTT ISRAELI WINES”
On this 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, the Israeli government has announced plans to “rebrand” its 60 years of dispossession and ethnic cleansing. Here in B.C., the focus of this “rebranding” is the promotion of wines under an Israeli label in B.C. liquor stores, which are now carrying products from the Galil Mountain Winery, the Golan Heights Winery and the Dalton Winery. The Golan Heights Winery (of which the Galil Winery is a joint venture) produces wines from grapes grown on occupied Arab land, and many of their wineries are located on occupied Syrian land in the Golan Heights. All of this is in direct contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention and stated Canadian policy. Nonetheless, successive Canadian governments have given Israel preferential trading status under the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement, an agreement that financially enables the Israeli government’s oppressive policies and does not even attempt to distinguish products that are from illegal Israeli settlements. And BC liquor stores, when questioned as to their shameful actions, replied they “…offer products from around the world on a commercial demand basis.”
We say 60 years of “rebranding” is enough; 60 years of dispossession, exile and the destruction of a whole nation are enough. Send this message to the Israeli government, and to our local and national politicians. As the South African campaigners said many years ago outside BC liquor stores, then as now, DON’T DRINK WITH APARTHEID!
Endorsers of Original Campaign in 2008:
Al Dameer Association for Human Rights – Gaza, Palestine; Arab Cultural Forum – Gaza, Palestine; Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (BIAC), Vancouver; Burnaby Teachers Association Social Justice Committee, Burnaby; Canada Palestine Association, Halifax; Canada Palestine Support Network (CanPalNet); Canada Palestine Support Network-Ottawa; Canadian Arab Federation, Toronto; Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto; Free Gaza Movement; International Solidarity Movement ISM, Vancouver; Jews for a Just Peace; No One Is Illegal, Vancouver; NorCal ISM, California; Not In Our Name, Toronto; One Democratic State Group – Gaza, Palestine; Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU), Montreal; Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), Ramallah, Palestine; United Black Students at Ryerson, Ryerson University, Toronto; University Teachers’ Association – Gaza, Palestine; Women in Black, Los Angeles
(Check out our website’s BDS Hub for more info about this and other BDS-related activities and campaigns).

Reflections from a Canadian Palestinian on Remembrance Day

We remember our indigenous brothers and sisters, the victims of genocide by the European settler-colonialists in Canada and all over the world.

Justice and peace-loving peoples of the world will also remember Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession. Here are but a few examples of what we remember.

– The late Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King who “was effusive with praise for Zionism when he addressed the Ottawa convention of the Zionist Federation of Canada on 4 July 1922…he applauded Britain efforts (Balfour Declaration) in aid of the Zionist cause.” (1)

– Another former Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson, who was instrumental in ensuring the passage of the U.N. Partition Resolution in 1947 and Supreme Court of Canada Justice, Ivan C. Rand, who was a central figure in drafting it. Mr. M.S. Massoud, president of the Canadian Arab Friendship League, told the Montreal Optimist Club at the time that the Arab world “would ‘remember’ Lester B. Pearson and Justice Rand … who … did their utmost to impose upon Arabs the infamous partition scheme.” Massoud called the Partition vote an act of betrayal by “the selfish interests of the so-called ‘Big Nations’, which broke, ignored, or forget their promises to the Arab people.” (2) In fact, “The Zionists were so grateful to Canada and to Mr. Pearson for the part he played in the whole process that they called him ‘the Balfour of Canada’.” (3)

– In 1948, “More than 300 Canadians eventually joined the Israeli forces while tons of military equipment, from Harvard training aircraft to radio sets, were smuggled out of Canadian ports.” … “The (Canadian) government was reluctant to draw attention to this matter and refused to invoke the Foreign Enlistment Act” in contravention of Canadian law and the U.N. embargo.(4) Yves Engler, in his book Canada and Israel Building Apartheid, noted “During the 1948 war, Israel’s small air force was almost entirely foreign, with at least 53 Canadians…”

We further remember,

– The Canadian House of Commons, on Nov. 12 1975, unanimously condemned the Nov. 10, 1975 UN General Assembly resolution that determined that “Zionism is a form of racism” … And some years later, even the horrific massacre of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee Camp in Beirut in Sep. 1982 could not elicit a unanimous expression of support from the House to express “its disgust for those forces that were responsible for this slaughter and urge upon them a policy of restraint so as to ensure that innocent lives of men, women, children and babies will not again be taken in either revenge or malice.” (5)

– The successive Canadian governments who have supported Israel unconditionally on all political, economic, military and diplomatic levels and accordingly enabled it in carrying out its genocide against the people of Palestine.

– All Canadian governments and officials who participated in the US military aggressions against the Arab people of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain and supported the most despotic, dictatorial and autocratic Arab regimes.

– The Conservative government in 2013 and 2014 and the Liberal government in 2015 voted exactly the same at the UN General Assembly; both governments voted against 17 resolutions out of 20 that were passed by a large margin in support of the Palestinian and Arab peoples.
– Just a few days ago, on November 8, 2016, out of the ten UN General Assembly resolutions that were passed in favour of Palestinian and Arab rights, the Trudeau government voted against eight resolutions and abstained on two.

– And earlier this year, on February 22nd, Canadian MPs voted 229-51 to condemn BDS and even individuals who promote it.

– This is but a small sampling of official Canadian complicity in US-Israeli war crimes!

And finally, we remember all those who supported the Palestinian people’s struggle against Zionist settler colonialism and all those who condemned and exposed Israeli ethnic cleansing, war crimes and apartheid. Special mention goes to the first national leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) J. S. Woodsworth. In 1938, when approached to get CCF support for the Zionist settler project, he noted that it was easy for Canadians, Americans and the British to agree as long as it was somewhere else and stated, “Why ‘pick on the Arabs’ other than for ‘strategic’ and ‘imperialistic’ consideration…?” (6)

We will remember those who were complicit in Palestinian dispossession and contributed to the suffering and dismemberment of a whole people and nation, just as we remember those who stood with human rights and justice.
Lest we forget…

Notes:
1- Canada and the birth of Israel, David J. Bercuson, page13.
2- Canada and the birth of Israel, David J. Bercuson, page135, 136.
3- Report of the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs published June 1985, page 49.
4- Canada and the birth of Israel, David J. Bercuson, page191.
5- Canada and the Arab World, Tareq Y. Ismail, pages 14, 21.
6- Canada and the birth of Israel, David J. Bercuson, page 19.

This article was first published by the PalestineChronicle.com.
(By Hanna Kawas, Nov. 11, 2016: Nine years later, anti-Palestinianism is as prevalent as ever.)