Blood Racism in Israel: the Master Race Lives Again, from Moldova to Ethiopia………

      


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“In additional case of discriminatory practices, Yesh Atid MK Pnina Tamano-Shata barred from donating blood because she has “special kind of Jewish-Ethiopian blood”……………….” Magen David Adom refused to allow MK Pnina Tamano-Shata (Yesh Atid) to donate blood, saying she had “the special kind of Jewish-Ethiopian blood.” The staff then told her that she could donate blood, but her donation would be frozen, not used. In the past, the MDA’s refusal to use blood donated from resident of Ethiopian descent has inspired claims of racism, the MDA in response claim they are only trying to minimize risks to blood recipients…………….”

Magen David Adom is supposed to be the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross or Red Crescent. It is not supposed to be some ‘institute’ created by some Heinrich Himmler from Moldova or thereabouts to distinguish superior blood for tainted blood.
This Nazi-style irrational racism is apparently something that happens often, refusing blood donations from blacks, be they Jews or others, in order to minimize risks. And these are the most educated people in the Middle East! Even we Muslims know better than discriminate between sources of blood,  know that it makes no difference.
Cheers
mhg

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From Langley with Love and Mutual Contempt: the Strange Odyssey of Bob Levinson……….

      


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“An American man who went missing in Iran more six years ago had been working for the CIA in what U.S. intelligence officials describe as a rogue operation that led to a major shake-up in the spy agency and his family receiving a secret, multimillion-dollar settlement. Bob Levinson, an ex-FBI agent, traveled to the Iranian Island of Kish in March 2007 to investigate corruption at a time when he was discussing the renewal of a CIA contract he had held for several years. He also inquired about getting reimbursed for the Iran trip by the agency before he departed, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials. …………. But months after Levinson’s abduction, e-mails and other documents surfaced that suggested he had gone to Iran at the direction of certain CIA analysts who had no authority to run operations overseas…………….”

This has always seemed like a baffling case. I had thought there was something odd (rather fishy?) about Mr. Levinson’s case: it was never made clear who in Iran was holding him and why. For years both American and Iranian officials danced around the story of his disappearance gingerly, avoiding details. Odd that the Iranians, if they have him, did not announce it, given the series of assassinations of their scientists and academics in recent years. Given that they must have ‘interrogated’ him and got whatever he knows. And what about that odd picture in an ‘orange’ prison suit and chains and the brief message?
This story may explain part of the mystery, although it may be difficult convincing the Iranians that he was sent by “rogue” elements within the CIA. You see, Iranian officials are as ready to believe American officials as American officials are ready to believe Iranian officials. Hard to believe that the contempt is mutual, almost shocking, no?
Can there be more to this story, another angle not divulged? Some Iranians may think so. I suspect there is and I don’t even consider myself a conspiracy theorist.
I just hope for his sake that it is not as bad as it can be.

Cheers
mhg

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No Hypocrisy: Obama Administration Mulls Sanctions against Ukraine and Bahrain and Egypt and………

      


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“The US raised the prospect of placing sanctions on Ukraine on Wednesday after riot police moved against anti-government demonstrators, seemingly violating its pledges of restraint. Baroness Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs representative, all but accused Victor Yanukovich, Ukrain’s president, of misleading her in negotiations in Kiev that happened just hours before riot police launched a push to retake opposition-occupied areas of the city, including City Hall and Independence Square. The crowd resisted the police onslaught in temperatures of -11C but Baroness Ashton, who was in Kiev for crisis talks on Ukraine’s rejection of a strategic pact with Europe, said the authorities had crossed the line……………….”

Ukraine has crossed “one line”, has been doing it for a week. Just attacking protesters in the square, not raiding their homes and looting and arresting and torturing them. Bahrain’s regime has crossed many lines, has been doing it for almost three years: tear gassing, shooting, arresting, torturing, and killing. Raiding and looting homes of the majority of its rebelling people at midnight. Ukraine is mild compared to Bahrain. Someone forgot to tell the U.S. government that.

Cheers
mhg

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Journalists and Syria’s Liberator-Kidnappers………

      


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“Thirteen international news organizations, including the BBC, The Associated Press and The New York Times, have written a letter to the armed opposition in Syria asking for assurances that their reporters will not be abducted. Over the past year, the letter says, the organizations have “witnessed a disturbing rise in the kidnapping of journalists while on assignment within the northern provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and al-Raqqa,” and elsewhere in Syria. The organizations estimate that more than 30 journalists are now being held, the letter said, and that as a result many of them have “decided to limit their coverage of the war.”…….. “We understand that, as in any war zone, reporters face great risk of injury and death,” the letter says, “and we accept those risks, but the risk of kidnapping is unacceptable……………….”

What a polite letter to the Jihadis. They
worry about the risk of kidnapping. The risk of being shot and getting
beheaded is apparently not so bad.

For
more than two years Western media ignored the role of the Syrian opposition groups in the deaths and kidnappings of journalists and other civilians. Headlines were given only to journalists who were killed by regime forces; some others were killed by “unknown” parties and blamed on the regime. The major media fell in line with government policy in such a smooth transition that the old Pravda would have envied, that the Syrian daily Tishreen would envy. But that could go on for only so long, especially now that kidnapping rather than ‘liberation’ seems to be the major avocation of some of the armed groups. They re even kidnapping each other now, including each others’ wives.

Cheers
mhg

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Netanyahu Skips South Africa, Puts ‘Both’ His Eggs in U.S. Congressional Basket…………

      


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“Mandela, in both life and death, symbolized the idea of equality among all human beings and opposition to the apartheid regime, which subjected people to different laws based on race or ethnicity. Israel under Netanyahu’s leadership, in which segregation, racist legislation and discrimination on the basis of nationality are flourishing virtually undisturbed, cannot say it respects Mandela’s heritage, nor can it join the family of nations whose flagship values are the striving for civil equality and the fight against racism. Mandela spoke out in the past in favor of the Palestinian struggle – something that earned him no points with Netanyahu, who sees the Palestinians as demonic enemies with whom there is no possibility of dialogue. It’s also possible to infer that the core of Mandela’s struggle – the war on racism against blacks – doesn’t burn in the Israeli prime minister’s bones, since just this week Netanyahu and his coalition partners were busy passing the so-called Infiltration Law, which allows people to be jailed for up to a year without trial, and is aimed primarily at African migrants………………..”

Also sprach Israel daily Haaretz.
Netanyahu is increasingly depending on two kinds of allies: his own domestic extreme rights wing supporters and the U.S. Congress (both houses, both parties). He probably feels that he needs no one else: he can get elected and he can outmaneuver President Obama with his own houses of Congress, including the Democrat-controlled Senate. It is true: both houses of the U.S. Congress are now more likely to do Netanyahu’s bidding than that of Obama. After all, when Netanyahu spoke to a joint session of Congress, his old tired predictable rhetoric got many more standing ovations than Obama’s State of the Union addresses.

In fact, even as I write this post, Congressmen and senators facing elections next year are pushing through new Iran resolutions that would derail Mr. Obama’s peace attempts. They are doing the bidding of a foreign leader who is no doubt lobbying and campaigning by phone against the policies of the president of the United States. Some Arab media have reported that the White House is allegedly reduced to sending emissaries to Tel Aviv to help moderate a U.S. Congress that is eager for war (both houses, both parties) on behalf of the Israeli right wing.

We can say Mr. Netanyahu is putting both his eggs in the Congressional basket. Congress, of course, has fewer eggs than it used to, or maybe just has smaller ‘eggs’ than before, but that probably has nothing to do with taking any testosterone.
FYI: I was translating literally from Arabic in the last paragraph.
Cheers
mhg

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Under Knesset Pressure: Obama Expands Blockade of Iran before Talks………

      


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“Under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that it is not easing up on sanctions on Iran’s oil sector or on its nuclear and missile programs, the Obama administration on Thursday announced an expanded list of Iranian companies and individuals that it said it would target to block their trading activities around the world. The administration’s announcement came shortly before Wendy Sherman, chief American negotiator on the Iran agreement, was scheduled to testify on the nuclear accord with Iran and the sanctions issues to the Senate Banking Committee…………….”

No profile in courage here, but then politics is not about courage, it never is. On the eve of expanded nuclear negotiations, the Obama administration tightens the blockade of Iran. Just to keep the hawkish Knesset in Washington (both Republicans and Democrats) at bay. To keep Ben Netanyahu’s groupies, his fan club, happy.

Cheers
mhg

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The Pitfalls of Boycotting Apartheid South Africa, Communist Cuba, Theocratic Iran, and Communist China………

      


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“In 1988, the Wyoming Senate candidate said economic engagement would end apartheid faster than boycotts. Conservatives used the same argument with Jim Crow—and they still don’t get it. Liz Cheney doesn’t just share her father’s neoconservative politics. As a young woman, she also shared his support for the apartheid regime in South Africa. In a 1988 editorial for her college newspaper, Cheney—now running a losing primary bid against Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY)—condemned anti-apartheid activists at Colorado College. “The real problem with divestment,” wrote Cheney, attacking a prominent strategy of apartheid opponents, “is that it won’t work. Like most moral statements, it accomplishes nothing tangible.”……………..”

The Cheneys have had an unusual mixed almost bi-polar relationship with the Al Saud princes. They loved the princes and their money even as they waged a media war on their religion. Liz Cheney particularly has a website (Keep America Safe) that for years focused on being Islamophobic even as the Cheneys remained close to the Saudis. That silly fear-mongering website, which also encouraged banning mosques, is now reportedly closed.
 
Of course there was and still is much hypocrisy in the right-wing position regarding apartheid South Africa. While they extolled the benefits of “engagement” in reducing Apartheid (not that they cared about it), they have also extolled the virtues of keeping the blockade against Cuba, and tightening the blockade against Iran. Apparently ‘engagement’ works with China and apartheid South Africa but not with Cuba, Iran and a few other places. Of course many Democrats are at the forefront of keeping the blockade on Cuba and tightening the blockade on Iran rather than “engaging” these countries. It all depends on upcoming elections, the Cuban exile lobby, and the potent Israeli lobby (including the Christian Zionists).

Cheers
mhg

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Tropical Paradise Lost? Rendition from Guantanamo, a Brotherhood of Cutthroats……….

      


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“The Senate and House Armed Services committees have reached a deal that would, for the first time, loosen restrictions that impede the Pentagon’s ability to transfer Guantanamo detainees to foreign countries, making it slightly easier for the Obama administration to pursue the president’s longstanding goal of closing the detention facilities. The compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 would expand the executive branch’s ability to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to other countries, while maintaining the ban on bringing them to the United States. The proposed NDAA would allow detainees to be sent to Yemen, but would require the administration to report on the Yemen government’s ability to detain, rehabilitate or prosecute them…………………”

The Saudis try to rehabilitate the al-Qaeda veterans by transforming them from violent Wahhabis into peaceful Wahhabis, and sometimes by getting each one a wife or two (preferably). It all depends on the clout of their tribes: those of the larger tribes are usually given preferential treatment and the tribes are enlisted to help “turn” them. Some of them regress and are sent to Yemen or Iraq and Syria to do their God’s work of blowing up civilians (that is the Wahhabi God’s work).
As for those sent from Gitmo to Yemen: they’ll be held in the most secure prison in that splintered country for a few weeks, after which they’ll be busted out by their Al-Qaeda pals or their tribal folks. Then they’ll rejoin the Brotherhood of Cutthroats and they’ll make new targets for American drones.

FYI: There are no Shi’a members of Al-Qaeda, just like there were no Jews in the Nazi Party and for similar reasons. Hence there are no Shi’as in Guantanamo. If there were any, their rehabilitation method would be swift: they would be quickly beheaded in Saudi Arabia upon rendition.
Cheers
mhg

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Hersh on WMD of Choice: Syrian Sarin and French Haute Cuisine………..

      


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“Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad…………..”

The story of Sarin use in at least two cases this year was broken through the semi-official Saudi Alarabiya network (a network that is owned and operated in Dubai by an in-law of the late King Fahd). These stories always came out at critical times for the Syrian opposition groups, usually after big defeats on the battlefield: for example one story broke out just after the regime victory as Qusayr. Saudi Alarabiya as usual broke the story through an interview with “activists” who supplied a video. Western media adopted the story with gusto: CNN practically declared its own war. The governments of the USA, Britain, and France jumped on the story, again. The French, always good at cooking food and occasionally cooking up evidence, quickly confirmed the use of Sarin. The French and British governments immediately implicated the Assad regime. The Obama administration seemed more doubtful and was relatively more honest: it often avoided pointing the finger at any one side, merely saying that “Sarin was used in Syria”.

Cheers
mhg

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No Honest Brokers in Syria? Maybe Belize or Fiji or Israel………

      


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“Iran’s potential participation in the Geneva 2 discussions would be an additional indignity to those in the Syrian opposition who still seek cooperation with the United States and the West. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers told The Daily Beast that he doesn’t think Iran should be included. “I don’t believe Iran is an honest broker in Syria to any degree. They are operating Hezbollah, supporting them, giving them weapons, giving them intelligence,” he said. “That would not be a great outcome. You cannot continue to alienate our allies in the region, just to get a deal.”……………”

That is true, what Congressman Rogers said: Iran is not an honest broker in Syria because it supports one side of the civil war. Any party that supports one side can’t be an honest broker.
So, can you tell me who can be an honest broker in Syria now? That means: can you tell me of a country that doesn’t support any one of the many sides of the civil war? Maybe Belize? Or perhaps Vanuatu or Fiji?
 
It is tempting to go to a ridiculous extreme and suggest Israel as ‘honest’ broker since they dislike all sides of the Syrian war and all sides hate them, and they probably have something to lose no matter what the outcome.
It all depends on their assessment of which side is ‘preferable’ as the lesser evil in the long term. I bet some of the impotent Arab potentates would love this last suggestion even as they scowl at it with feigned indignation.

Cheers
mhg

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