THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND AMERICAN POLICY Grant F. Smith Dale Sprusansky: Grant Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy–again, the co-sponsor of today’s event. He’s the author of the 2016 book Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America, which covers the history, functions, and activities of Israel affinity organizations in America. Grant has written two unofficial histories of AIPAC, and many other books. His organization is constantly working on Freedom of Information Act requests and uncovering important documents, especially on Israel’s nuclear program.

I can tell you that few, if any, people work harder on this issue than Grant. Between his frequent research, appearance in FOIA court, his writing, his polling and his 5:00 a.m. E-mails, Grant is truly a one-man machine. Today he will be sharing polling data on U.S. Aid to Israel conducted by his organization and byother pollsters. Grant Smith: Thank you, Dale.

Public opinion polling is very important, obviously, but there isn’t very much done in terms of asking about what the public thinks about core Israel lobby programs. But that’s going to change today. The polling that we are about to look at could and should provide input to elected officials, who should then, in turn, act in the public interest. Polling about the Israel lobby programs that we’re going to look at reveals the growing gap between what the public thinks about particular issues, and the government actions being demanded by the Israel lobby. Last year, I spoke here about the birth of the Israel lobby in the United States, its growth, its size, its composition and division of labor. This was all based on my book Big Israel, in which I reveal a $3.7 billion nonprofit ecosystem on track to reach $6.3 billion by 2020. With 14,000 employees, 350,000 volunteers, but a paying membership of approximately 774,000, it is this nonprofit lobby, along with overlapping campaign-finance infrastructure–whether it is large individual donors, stealth political action committees–that provide Israel with the U.S.

Support that it would otherwise not have. All of this will be on a brilliant display when 15,000 AIPAC members assemble this weekend to begin their annual policy conference. So let’s continue looking at the lobby, and what Americans think of that program. The following surveys I’m about to show you are Google Consumer Research Surveys, probably the single most accurate polling tool available in America today. The famous Nate Silver said, “Perhaps it won’t be long before Google and not Gallup is the most trusted name in polling.” So let’s take a look at what Americans think about Israel’s single most important program, which is obtaining unconditional U.S. Foreign aid, including advanced American weaponry, cash for Israel’s export-oriented military industry, packaged into 10-year memorandums of understanding, or MOUs. These 10-year MOUs we’re going to look at require keeping the entire issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons program off the table.

Has provided $254 billion in known foreign aid to Israel, more than any other country. Now there has been a recent attempt by scholars, such as Prof. Hillel Frisch, to try to move the goalpost and claim that Japan, Germany, and South Korea are in fact bigger recipients. However, this argument is wrong. Japan, Germany, and South Korea are in a different category–that of treaty-bound allies. The military alliance expenditures, with contributions by both sides, have mutual obligations which make them not usefully comparable to U.S. Aid with Israel, which has no obligations.

Dale Sprusansky: Grant Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy–again, the co-sponsor of today's event. He's the author of the 2016 book Big Israel. Porta un lungo abito nero, un cappello nero e una spilla con la bandiera palestinese appuntata sul petto. Rabbino Hirsch, chi sono i Neturei. The Ultimate Black Friday Playlist to Get Shoppers Pumped Up. 0 Workout Songs in 2. Hello, hello! I hope your week's off to a great start.

When informed of its relative size, 60 percent of Americans believe that U.S. Foreign aid to Israel is either much too much or too much. And this finding is also reflected in polls by Shibley Telhami and some Gallup polls. This has been consistent over time. Recent years–2014, 2015, 2016–showed similar levels of responses. Americans responding to this poll have been informed that aid has been around 9 percent of the total foreign aid budget, but this question will have to change in the future, as Dale has mentioned, since the Trump administration proposes cutting the State Department budget, while leaving aid to Israel untouched.

So we should ask ourselves when that happens, what will it be–10, 20, 30 percent? We don’t know yet. 14 Memorandum of Understanding, the U.S. Guaranteed in this MOU security assistance over 10 years. There are no Israeli obligations, and up to 28 percent could be spent on Israel’s own export-oriented industries. This is the latest in a series of 10-year commitments, and the public has been told that this will guarantee Israel’s qualitative military edge. When we polled this right after the MOU signing, the public responded–60 percent of them–that they had higher priorities.

When questioned if the $38 billion was a good investment, 60 percent said health care for U.S. Veterans, education, and paying down the national debt would be far better expenditures. Only 17 percent thought it should be spent on Israel.

When Congress passes aid to Israel and presents them to the president in bills to be signed, both rely on a subterfuge that the U.S. Does not, and indeed cannot, know whether Israel has nuclear weapons. However, under the Arms Export Control Act, procedures must be followed whenever the U.S. Provides foreign aid to known nuclear powers that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2012, under increasing pressure–including from a journalist who’s here today and Helen Thomas, who’s not with us–the Obama administration passed a gag order that punishes any federal employee or contractor who speaks out about what most people already know, which is that Israel has nuclear weapons.

So in a public opinion survey, first of its kind, most Americans would prefer an honest discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons. Fifty-two percent said Congress should take nukes under consideration.

Officially Congress has said it does not take a position on this matter. But under pressure from reporters–a handful–and legal action to block U.S. Aid over its nuclear weapons program, and dogged reporting, this could change.

[START OF VIDEO CLIP] Sam Husseini: Do you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir? Chuck Schumer: I’m not–you can go read the newspapers about that. Sam Husseini: You can’t acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir? Chuck Schumer: It is a well-known fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, but the Israeli government doesn’t officially talk about what kinds of weapons and where, et cetera. Sam Husseini: Could the U.S. Government be forthright?

Chuck Schumer: Okay. [END OF VIDEO CLIP] Grant Smith: That was Sam Husseini, who is here with us today. In 1985 Israel and its lobby were the primary force behind providing preferential U.S. Market access to Israeli exporters. This was later rebranded as America’s first free trade agreement. Industry and labor groups were unanimously opposed to it, an Israeli Embassy operative covertly obtained and passed a 300-page classified report compiled from proprietary industry data from the ITC to help AIPAC overcome opposition.

This was investigated as a counterespionage matter by the FBI. And, as could probably be expected from such a process, it replaced a balanced tradingrelationship with a chronic U.S. Deficit to [Israel]. In fact, on an inflation- adjusted basis, the U.S.-lsrael Free Trade Agreement is the worst bilateral free trade deal ever, with a cumulative deficit of $144 billion. In this era of popular disapproval of trade deals–whether it’s the Trans-Pacific Partnership initiative or the North American Free Trade Agreements–when informed of the Israel free trade deal, 63 percent of Americans would either renegotiate or cancel it altogether. Another bad deal that has been a long-term Israel and lobby initiative is moving the U.S.

Embassy to Jerusalem. Since 1948, Israel has been attempting to persuade foreign embassies to relocate in Jerusalem, which is, under the original partition agreement, supposed to be international. But, leveraging Bob Dole’s presidential aspirations, in 1995 the Zionist Organization of America and AIPAC championed a law that was passed that defunds State Department overseas building budgets unless the U.S. Embassy is moved. Presidents have refused to do it, but there are now many champions of the move in the Trump administration. Americans are not so excited when told in a survey question, “Israel’s U.S.

Lobby wants the U.S. Embassy in Israel moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. No other country, in accord with the U.N. Resolutions opposing such a move, has done so.” Fifty-six percent of Americans indicate the embassy should not move, while 38 percent say it should. There is a renewed push to return to a policy of no daylight between the United States and Israel. This policy, particularly championed by former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, means that the U.S.

And Israel can disagree, but not openly, since that would encourage common enemies and renders Israel vulnerable. Of course, such a policy mainly benefits Israel as a bargaining chip it can put in its pocket and leverage the appearance of U.S.

Unconditional support in its own relations. So there is an effort underway for that. Americans, when told and asked, Israel and its U.S. Lobby are the only parties making such a demand in a question–“Israel and its U.S. Lobby want a no-daylight policy, the president never criticizing Israeli settlements and giving Israel billions in aid and diplomatic support at the U.N.”–most say, 56 percent say, the majority say, there should not be a no-daylight policy. We have Maria LaHood with us today who can do a much better job talking about what Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) are–a movement to end international support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians–and the effort by the Israel lobby to pass laws blocking this, making it illegal across the country.

So I’ll only say that Israel lobby direct mail fund-raising campaigns are virtually unequivocally focused on stopping BDS as a fund-raising and major program initiative right now. It’s highly visible. It’s the number one priority. Question: Israel & its US lobby want a no daylight” policy of the president never openly criticizing Israeli settlements, giving Israel billions in aid, & diplomatic support at the UN But Americans are ambivalent. When asked, 60 percent neither oppose nor support such laws, with 21 percent opposing them and only 18 percent supporting them. So Americans are notbehind BDS, are not highly on board with it, and they also don’t support the entire idea of single issue lobbying on behalf of a single foreign country.

I think this is the most important survey question, because it gets to the heart of the entire mechanism by which the Israel lobby has accumulated so much influence–campaign contributions. So here it is. That system ranges from seed funding of political candidates to funding through coordinated stealth political action committees, bundled campaign contributions, and pro-Israel mega donors. Janet McMahon and two former congressmen will be talking about that, I’m sure.

Seventy-one percent of Americans do not support this system. They are probably not aware, however, why lobbyists for Israel no longer talk about getting guns and diplomacy for Israel. They talk about maintaining the U.S. Special relationship with Israel, and there is a legal reason for that. Lobbyists for Israel, including the old-timers such as Abraham Feinberg and the founder of AIPAC Isaiah Kenen, in their writings and speeches were far more forthright in the early days. They honestly stated that their goal was weapons, money, and diplomatic support, because Israel needs it. There was no talk of because America needs Israel.

AIPAC received, indirectly, foreign startup money to launch itself, and today the tight coordination with the Israeli government continues. But the PR frame, the public relations frame, has changed. Now, it’s one of preserving special interests and common values. By the 1970s, no matter what the lobby did, the Justice Department stopped pursuing questions about whether some of its actors were in fact foreign agents who should be regulated as such. And since that year, a growing number of espionage investigations of AIPAC, and even the ADL, were opened, but then quietly closed for no justifiable reasons.

1970, in fact, was the last year the Justice Department took an interest in the Israel lobby as a foreign agent. There were in-depth hearings in 1962 and 1963 pleading with the IRS to look at their tax-exempt status, but nothing happened. However, Americans appear to support a return to that simpler time when foreign agents were compelled to comply with disclosure laws and didn’t have quite so much power over Congress and elected officials. Sixty-six percent, in fact, when asked, favor returning to regulating such activities. Perhaps this is driven by warranted investigative journalism about coordinated Israel lobby and Israeli government officials that are still using every means possible, including covert ones, to win. That includes an attempt to overturn a very beneficial–the JCPOA–Obama administration deal with Iran which most Americans favor, but which Israel and its lobby do not favor. So you do have good journalism that came out about surveillance of the negotiations with the Iranians, about the Israeli government offering to do whatever is necessary with individual members of Congress if they would oppose passing this deal which the entire mainstream establishment Israel lobby–AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC–were united in opposing.

So, in conclusion, solid majorities of Americans polled, when using accurate survey technology, believe that U.S. Foreign aid to Israel is too much. They don’t really even approve of the meansby which they’re won, and the funds and the U.S. Unilateral commitments that are made to execute. However, this is a passive majority. None of these opinions and views has recently been, with few exceptions, translated into direct action by their members of Congress. So only through active opposition, rather than passive opposition, which is clearly out there, will Americans be able to get their government back into the business of representing them.

And only by clearly asking about, and polling, and surveying, and doing serious research about Israel lobby programs and what Americans think about them, will we be able to have a process that takes wing and goes viral, so to speak, in terms of engaging more Americans to get out of this passive mode and become active participants once again with their government. So with that, I am hoping our wonderful ushers, who are here today earning some community service hours, will circulate–Adrien, and Tabatha, and Sebastian, there we have Sapphire. If you have any questions, please pass your cards to them. We’ve got a very tight schedule, so we’re trying to keep our question and answer sessions getting to the most important questions first.

Do we have any questions yet? Question: Many US lobbyists, nonprofit organizations & individuals steer campaign contributions to incumbents & sitting members of Congress solely on the basis of support for Israel.

Question: Until 1970 the US enforced laws requiring public disclosures when Israeli government & surrogate programs sought to influence U.S. Public opinion and lobby congress. US should be regulating such activities thanks to: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. May2017, Vol.

36 Issue 3, p7-10. The following remarks were presented by the Institute for Palestine Studies’ General Secretary Walid Khalidi at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies’ symposium on “Arab Jerusalem.” Khalidi’s description of Israeli exclusivist ambitions over Jerusalem were remarkably prescient and his words are even timelier today. Below is an abridged version of the presentation and the.... Today, the basic concept that seems to inform all discussion on Jerusalem is that of the “unity of Jerusalem.” In principle, the concept sounds worthy of the Golden City and its ecumenical significance to humanity. On closer scrutiny, however, a different reality emerges. Sixty-six percent of so-called “united Jerusalem” is territory seized by force in 1967.

Of that, 5 percent is what had been the Jordanian municipality of Jerusalem and 61 percent is West Bank territory annexed into the Jordanian municipal area. Before 1948, Jewish land ownership in that 66 percent was less than 3 percent. Even the Jewish Quarter of the Old City was Jewish primarily in tenancy; most of the quarter belonged to old Jerusalem families as waqf (Islamic endowments). As for the remaining 34 percent of “united Jerusalem” that is today’s West Jerusalem, Jewish-owned property there before 1948 did not exceed 20 percent overall; the rest belonged to Christian and Muslim Palestinians and to international Christian bodies. This sector contained the most affluent Palestinian residential quarters as well as most of the Palestinian commercial sector.

This West Jerusalem also included the lands of the occupied or destroyed villages of Dayr Yasin, Lifta, Ayn Karem, Maliha, Romema, Shayka Badr, and Khallat al-Tarha. Most of the Israeli government buildings in this area, including the Knesset, are built on Palestinian land. Thus, the great bulk of “united Jerusalem” is, quite simply, conquered and arbitrarily expropriated land. In terms of the population in this “united Jerusalem,” some 170,000 Jews now live in settlements established in those parts of Jerusalem seized in 1967, whereas only about 3,000 Jews had lived in those same areas prior to 1948. In contrast, to this day virtually no Palestinians are allowed to live in West Jerusalem, whereas more than 35,000 fled or were expelled from that part of the city during the 1948 fighting and thereafter.

This figure includes the inhabitants of the villages just mentioned, which were incorporated in the West Jerusalem city limits after 1948. Nor are the current municipal borders of Jerusalem the limit of Israel’s ambitions for Jerusalem.

Israel has already surrounded East Jerusalem with concentric rings of colonies on West Bank territory outside but contiguous to the municipal borders of the city. The plan, already well advanced, is to integrate these colonies with united municipal Jerusalem in order to create Greater or Metropolitan Jerusalem. Under Likud, this plan will be pressed forward at an even more frenetic pace than under the Labor government. The resultant Metropolitan Jerusalem will cover twice the surface area of present-day municipal “united Jerusalem.” A great advantage and indeed the prime objective of this strategy for Israel is that the more Palestinian territory that is alienated from the West Bank in the name of Metropolitan Jerusalem, the less the physical, political, and psychological space that will be left for the Palestinians there in the West Bank. One can count on Netanyahu to carry this strategy to its very farthest extent....

The area of David’s ancient capital per se constitutes less than 1 percent of today’s so-called united Jerusalem. No religious, historical, economic, or security considerations informs the extended municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem, much less those of Metropolitan Likudist Jerusalem.

What does inform them is ruthless gerrymandering in the service of solipsistic nationalism and a spirit of defiance of world opinion.... The proposition of a clash of civilizations, far from being the latest in prognostication, is old hat. Remember Rudyard Kipling with his “East is East and West is West and ne’er the Twain shall meet”?

But the proposition itself is not harmless old hat. It is tendentiously deterministic and ominous in its self-fulling potential.

Its deepest flaw is that it abolishes human initiative. That is why a viable solution for Jerusalem must steal the thunder of all irredentists – of Crusades and proxy-Crusades, of jihads and counter-jihads. That is why all those committed to an honorable and peaceful solution must band together to stop in their tracks the forces of fundamentalism – Muslim, Christian, and Jewish – slouching towards their rendezvous in Jerusalem.... * * * For our February Special Focus – Arab Jerusalem, we are highlighting a series of articles from the Journal of Palestine Studies as well as from the, the only journal exclusively dedicated to the city’s history, political status, and future. Selected are contributions from, inter alia, Edward Said, Ian S. Lustick, and Rashid Khalidi on Jerusalem’s Arab heritage and fate under Israeli occupation. All photographs are from, by Walid Khalidi.

Journal of Palestine Studies: Nicholas E. Roberts Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 4 (Summer 2013), pp. 7-26 British administrators employed urban planning broadly in British colonies around the world, and British Mandate Palestine was no exception. This article shows how with a unique purpose and based on the promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, British urban planning in Jerusalem was executed with a particular colonial logic that left a lasting impact on the city.

Both the discourse and physical implementation of the planning was meant to privilege the colonial power’s Zionist partner over the indigenous Arab community. Hogan Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 2 (Winter 2012), pp. 99-114 Written by a humanitarian aid worker moving back and forth between the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem over a two-year period (May 2009– June 2011), the observations in these “fieldnotes” highlight the two areas as opposite sides of the same coin. Israel “withdrew” from Gaza and annexed East Jerusalem, but both are subject to the same degree of domination and control: by overt violence in Gaza, mainly by regulation in East Jerusalem. Gish Amit Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 4 (Summer 2011), pp.

6-23 During April–May 1948, almost the entire population of the residential Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem fled the fighting, leaving behind fully furnished houses, some with rich libraries. This article is about the “book salvage operation” conducted by the Jewish National and University Library, which added tens of thousands of privately owned Palestinian books to its collections.

Based on primary archival documents and interviews, the article describes the beginnings and progress of the operation as well as the changing fortunes of the books themselves at the National Library. The author concludes with an exploration of the operation’s dialectical nature (salvage and plunder), the ambivalence of those involved, and an assessment of the final outcome. Michael Dumper Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 2 (Winter 2002), pp.

51-65 This article surveys the main trends in the relations of Jerusalem’s historic churches with Israel and the Palestinians since the 1967 occupation and especially since Oslo. It examines the shift from cooperation with the Israeli state in the early period to a closer identification with the Palestinian nationalist position under the impact of Israeli actions and other factors, including pressures from the laity and an increasingly “Palestinianized” higher clergy, and details the growing cooperation among the churches themselves.

The article ends with an examination of the various options for a future church role, especially in the light of the churches’ proposal for a “special statute” for Jerusalem, and concludes that a holy place’s administrative regime under Palestinian sovereignty would be more likely to protect long-term Christian interests. Rashid Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 3 (Spring 2001), pp. 82-87 More than any other issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Jerusalem has deep resonance for all the parties. Certainly, there will be no end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, no Arab-Israeli reconciliation, and no normalization of the situation of Israel in the region without a lasting solution for Jerusalem. For a solution to be seen by all parties as satisfying, it must accomplish three things: it must allow Palestinians and Israelis to share the city equitably; it must allow Jerusalem to be the capital of both Palestine and Israel; and it must allow people of all faiths to have free and unimpeded access to Jerusalem. Lustick Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.

1 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 5-21 Israel’s insistent portrayal of “Yerushalayim” as “united and indivisible” and as encompassing not only all of Arab al-Quds but vast surrounding areas had a crucial political purpose: to block any negotiated settlement with the Palestinians by creating a taboo against even discussing any separation. The campaign was successful in some ways but ultimately failed as a hegemonic project. This failure is reflected in the Barak government’s willingness to reimagine the city’s future.

This article examines four misconceptions about Israeli attitudes toward Jerusalem and its status in Israeli law. In so doing, it documents the potential for Israeli flexibility on the issue. Walid Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 4 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 80-101 One of the most difficult issues of the final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is Jerusalem. The complexity of this issue has been compounded by U.S. Actions to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and by allegations that the prospective site of the embassy is Palestinian refugee property confiscated by Israel since 1948.

Nathan Krystall Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 2 (Winter, 1998), pp.

5-22 This article describes the progressive depopulation of the Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem following the outbreak of the fighting in late 1947. By the time the State of Israel was proclaimed on 15 May 1948, West Jerusalem already had fallen to Zionist forces. Quoting from eyewitness accounts, the author recounts the widespread looting that followed the Arab evacuation and the settlement of Jewish immigrants and Israeli government officials in the Arab houses. By the end of 1949, all of West Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods had been settled by Israelis. Sarah Kaminker Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 4 (Summer, 1997), pp.

5-16 Government planning policy denies Palestinians the right to use their land in East Jerusalem. Thirty-three percent of this land has been expropriated and used for building homes for more than 40,000 Jewish families. Planning schemes confine Palestinians to 10 percent of the land area of East Jerusalem. Draconian bureaucratic measures imposed on “Arabs only” aggressively prevent construction on the remaining Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem.

The result: a shortage of 21,000 homes for Arab families. Using Har Homa to provide for the Arab “homeless” could be the only political and moral justification for developing the lonely mountain Jabal Abu Ghunaym.

Said Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn, 1995), pp.

5-14 Israel was thus able to project an idea of Jerusalem that contradicted not only its history but its very lived actuality, turning it from a multicultural and multireligious city into an “eternally” unified, principally Jewish city under exclusive Israeli sovereignty. Michael Dumper Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 4 (Summer, 1992), pp. 32-53 Since 1967, Israeli settlement policy in Jerusalem has been directed towards a single overriding goal: the consolidation of Israeli control over Palestinian East Jerusalem in order to prevent any future redivision of the city. In political and functional terms, this has involved declarations of a “united” Jerusalem as the “eternal” capital of the Israeli state, combined with the transfer of government offices and the extension of municipal authority and services to East Jerusalem. Demographically, it has meant strenuous efforts to construct housing and encourage the settlement of Israelis in the Palestinian parts of the city.

Ibrahim Mattar Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 4 (Summer, 1983), pp.

57-63 Since 1948 the city of Jerusalem has undergone a process of “Israelization” accomplished by the uprooting and dispossession of the Palestinian Christian and Muslim population. This displacement of Palestinians from the Holy City was achieved by two methods. First, the use of a terror campaign in 1948 to evict the Palestinians from their homes and villages in what is now called West Jerusalem.

The second method utilized a legal process, developed after 1967, by which privately-owned Palestinian land was confiscated for “public purposes.” “Public” refers to the Israeli public, and the “purpose” is the establishment of exclusive Jewish residential fortress colonies being built in East Jerusalem. Mary Ellen Lundsten Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 3-27 Exactly 50 years ago, late in September 1928, an “incident” occurred at the Western Wall of the Holy Sanctuary in Jerusalem which set in motion a sequence of violent events that clearly “vibrate,” as Croce put it, in political situations and judgments today. The Western or “Wailing” Wall controversy, which became a public issue in 1928, triggered the intercommunal violence that in 1929 claimed 800 casualties and marked the shift of the political process in Palestine into the irreconcilably violent phase which continues today.

Abdullah Schleifer Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn, 1971), pp.

68-86 Monday morning, June 5, 1967. At 0850 an Aide-de-Camp called the Palace in Amman to report to King Hussein Radio Cairo’s communique that Israel had attacked Egypt. By 0900 the Egyptian General Abdul-Moneim Riad – who had arrived in Amman with a small group of staff officers to take command of the Jordanian front a few days before the war began – had received a coded message in Amman from UAR Field Marshal Amer. The UAR, the message said, had put out of action 75 per cent of the Israeli planes that had attacked the Egyptian airports and the UAR Army, having met the Israeli land attack in Sinai, was going over to a counter-offensive.

“Therefore Marshal Amer orders the opening of a new front by the commander of the Jordanian forces and the launching of offensive operations according to the plan drawn up last night.” Jerusalem Quarterly: Nazmi Ju’beh Jerusalem Quarterly 62 (Spring 2015) Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Sarah Ihmoud Jerusalem Quarterly 59 ( 2014) Candace Graff Jerusalem Quarterly 58 (Spring 2014) Francesco Chiodelli Jerusalem Quarterly 51 (Autumn 2012) Danielle C. Jeffe Jerusalem Quarterly 50 (Summer 2012) ris Edward Said Jerusalem Quarterly 45 (Spring 2011) George Bisharat Jerusalem Quarterly 30 (Spring 2007) Documents and Source Material: Walid Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn 2012), pp. 71-82 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 3 (Spring 2012), pp.

223-232 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 3 (Spring 2011), pp. 206-208 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 2 (Winter 2011), pp. 195-202 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn 2010), pp.

193-196 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn 2007), pp. 88-110 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 1 (Autumn, 1971), pp.

171-194 thanks to. JERUSALEM, November 20, 2014 (WAFA) – At least 600 Palestinian children were arrested in Jerusalem since last June, of whom nearly 40% were exposed to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities, Thursday revealed a report by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC). The PCC said the daily arrest campaigns constitute a collective punishment against the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. Mufeed al-Haj, an attorney with the PCC, said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including, but without limitation, night and predawn raids on family homes, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Al-Haj added that under applicable laws, minors undergoing investigation should be accompanied by their parents, yet the Israeli authorities paid no respect to these laws in many cases. Forces often ignore laws and arrest Palestinians without having arrest warrants. Since last June, Israel arrested hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, most during predawn and night raids on their family houses.

RAMALLAH, November 8, 2014 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Liberation organization PLO expressed concern over the use of the inaccurate term “Temple Mount” to refer to Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound in Jerusalem, urging all international media representatives to adhere to international law and correct any other existing terminology used. “The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is not a disputed territory and all other terms, therefore, are null and void,” stated the statement. Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, sometimes referred to as the Noble Sanctuary (“Haram al-Sharif” in Arabic), is the compound that contains Al Aqsa building itself, ablution fountains, open spaces for prayer, monuments and the Dome of the Rock building. This entire area enclosed by the walls which spans 144 dunums (almost 36 acres), forms the Mosque. Sacred to approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, and a symbol for all Palestinians, the Mosque has been under exclusive Muslim sovereignty and control since the construction of the Dome of the Rock in 692 CE.

As such, any entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque must be agreed and coordinated by the Muslim Waqf. Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound is located in East-Jerusalem, an internationally recognized part of the Occupied State of Palestine, stressed the statement.

Since Israel’s military occupation of East Jerusalem in the June 1967 War, several plots by Settler organizations and other Zionist extremists to blow up the Mosque were uncovered by the Israeli authorities, it said. “In 1980, Israel adopted the “Basic Law” on Jerusalem, which ratified the annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem to Israel; which the international community ‘does not recognize’, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 478. This Resolution rejected the Israeli measure as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and determined that, “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and the status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular, the recent ‘basic law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void.” Today, many settler leaders, with the support of the Israeli government, continue to incite against this sacred site, and consequently provoke Palestinian fears and anger. The statement stressed that Israel, the occupying power, has failed at stopping settler extremists from entering the Mosque and this constitutes a violation of the Waqf’s custodianship and its obligation as an occupying power to maintain public order and civil life in the occupied territory.

The Islamic-Christian Commission in support of Jerusalem and its holy sites warns of calls by Jewish extremist movements to divide the al Aqsa mosque and impose full Israeli control over it. In a press statement, the commission warns of Israel’s attempts to impose a fait accompli by dividing the al Aqsa mosque, as occurred in Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque. The Islamic-Christian Commission notes that radical Jewish groups are behind these calls, although they are increasingly being made by more mainstream groups in Israel. These calls are often portrayed in liberal terms, as promoting and protecting the freedom of religion of Jews to pray in the Haram al Sharif compound, which houses the al Aqsa mosque. These seemingly liberal calls, however, ignore the context of occupation and the fact that Muslims and Christians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip are prevented from praying in al Aqsa mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other religious sites in Jerusalem.

At a conference held this week by the Israeli NGO Ir Amim, a panel discussion was conducted concerning the strengthening of “Temple” movements in Israel and its ramifications. Temple movements focus on the Harm al Sharif compound being the biblical Temple Mount, and the future building of the Third Temple on the site. No Palestinian or Muslim representatives participated in the panel, and at least two panellists expressed the opinion that Jews should be allowed to worship in Haram al Sharif. The context of this being occupied territory under international law, and that such worship would necessarily involve increased police presence and oppression of the occupied Palestinian population in Jerusalem’s Old City, was not emphasised. Parallel calls for freedom of worship of the Palestinian population were also not made.

May 15th marks the 65th anniversary of the dispossession of the Palestinian people that came with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. This day is referred to as “Al Nakba,” the Arabic word for “catastrophe”, and is commemorated by Palestinians worldwide, The(TPFF) said in a press release. The TPFF is commemorating Al Nakba with the North American premiere of Ahmed Damen’s documentary The Red Stone, which will take place on Wednesday May 15, 2013 at 7:00pm in Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham St Toronto, on Admission: $5 suggested donation North American Premiere Trailer The Red Stone: Taking its title from the characteristic red stone used to build many of Jerusalem’s historic buildings, Ahmad Damen’s documentary focuses on Palestinian areas of West Jerusalem that were depopulated in 1948 to create the state of Israel. While tracking the architectural and family histories of these splendid properties, The Red Stone reveals the buildings’ current occupants, the Israeli real estate companies trading in their “exotic” appearances, and the original owners now barred from their ancestral homes.

This touching film uses personal narratives and archival footage to tell the stories of the displaced inhabitants and their attempts to reunite with their childhood homes. The 6th annual TPFF takes place Sept 28- Oct 4, 2013. Established in 2008, TPFF celebrates film as an art form and means of expression by showcasing the vibrant heritage, resilience, and narratives of the Palestinian people. Mohammed El Kurd is a Palestinian boy growing up in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in the heart of East Jerusalem.

When Mohammed turns 11, his family is forced to give up part of their home to Israeli settlers, who are leading a campaign of court-sanctioned evictions to guarantee Jewish control of the area. Shortly after their displacement, Mohammed’s family and other residents begin peacefully protesting against the evictions, determined not to lose their homes for good. In a surprising turn, they are quickly joined by scores of Israeli supporters who are horrified to see what is being done in their name. Among them is Jewish West Jerusalem resident Zvi Benninga and his sister Sara, who develop a strong relationship with Mohammed and his family as they take on a leading role in organizing the protests. Through their personal stories, My Neighbourhood goes beyond the sensational headlines that normally dominate discussions of Jerusalem and captures voices rarely heard, of those striving for a shared future in the city.

My Neighbourhood follows Mohammed as he comes of age in the midst of unrelenting tension and remarkable cooperation in his backyard. Highlighting Mohammed’s own reactions to the highly volatile situation, reflections from family members and other evicted residents, accounts of Israeli protesters and interviews with Israeli settlers, the film chronicles the resolve of a neighbourhood and the support it receives from the most unexpected of places. My Neighbourhood is directed and produced by Rebekah Wingert-Jabi, who documented Mohammed’s story over two years, and acclaimed filmmaker Julia Bacha. It is the latest production by Just Vision, an award-winning team of Palestinian, Israeli, North and South American filmmakers, journalists and human rights advocates dedicated to telling the stories of Israelis and Palestinians working nonviolently to achieve security, freedom and peace in the region. Learn more about. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Arabic Literature (in English).

At least two Syrian soldiers have been killed after Israeli fighter jets targeted an army position in the west-central province of Hama, in yet another act of aggression against the Arab country “Israeli warplanes at 2:42 a.m. Today fired a number of missiles from Lebanese air space, targeting one of our military positions near Masyaf, which led to material damage and the deaths of two members of the site,” the army said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement further warned against the “dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region.” “This aggression comes in a desperate attempt to raise the collapsed morale of the ISIS (Daesh) terrorists after the sweeping victories achieved by the Syrian Arab Army against terrorism at more than one front, and it affirms the direct support provided by the Israeli entity to the ISIS and other terrorist organizations,” it added. Masyaf is located approximately 60 kilometers east of the coastal city of Tartus, where Russia holds a naval base. Earlier media reports said the Israeli military had struck a scientific research facility in Masyaf. Citing pro-government activists, Al-Masdar News, a pan-Arab news and commentary website, said Thursday that Israeli warplanes targeted the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Masyaf in Hama. Meanwhile the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two facilities were hit, a scientific research center and a nearby military base. It said the Israeli assault also wounded five people. “Many explosions were heard in the area after the air raid,” said the group’s head, Rami Abdulrahman, adding that some of the blasts may have been secondary explosions from a missile storage facility being hit.

Israeli officials have not immediately commented on the reports. Over the past years, the Israeli military has carried out sporadic attacks against various targets across Syria in what Damascus views as an attempt to boost the Takfiri terror groups that have been taking heavy blows from the Syrian army and allied forces on the battle ground.

The latest Israeli strike comes just days after the Syrian army, backed by popular defense groups and Russia airpower, managed to break the years-long siege imposed by the Daesh terror group on the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr. Objective Metal contamination of humans in war areas has rarely been investigated. Weaponry’s heavy metals become environmentally stable war remnants and accumulate in living things.

They also pose health risks in terms of prenatal intake, with potential long term risks for reproductive and children’s health. We studied the contribution of military attacks to the load of 23 metals in the hair of Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip, who were pregnant at the time of the military attacks in 2014, and their newborns. We compared the metal load in the mothers with values for adult hair from outside the war area (RHS) as the reference. We investigated heavy metals trans-passing in utero, and assessed if the heavy metal intake could derive from sources unrelated to the war. Main outcome measured Measure of the load of heavy metals in mother and newborn hair by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).

Comparison of metal loads with the reference RHS, between groups with different exposures to attacks and house/agriculture chemicals, and between mothers and newborns. Data for birth registry and for exposures to war and other known risk factors were obtained at interview with the mothers. Photographic documentation of damage from military attacks was obtained. Strength and limitations of this study • The lack of ‘never exposed to war’ controls within Gaza is a limitation of the study which cannot be overcome. • A general limitation of this type of study is that the risks posed in the long term by the intake of multiple heavy metals are still largely unknown in humans, and in particular during pregnancy.

• The size of the sample, while adequate to identify the correlation between levels of heavy metals with environmental exposure, is not large enough to accurately study the negative outcomes at birth (birth defects and preterm) due to their low frequency. • A strength of the study is the inclusion of a relatively large cross sectional convenience sample of participants, allowing for subgroups of exposure, suitable in size for statistical analysis. • An important point was the inclusion of analyis of newborn hair in for metal load.. • Verification by in loco visits the recall of exposure of women on an objective basis gives additional strength to the study.

• Development of a questionnaire and of procedures that allowed information to be obtained on various habits and different potentially risky environmental exposures, -allowing to exclude some more likely potential confounders. • The analysis of microelements and metals not associated with weaponry provided an internal control for the analytic results. Introduction Women and children are highly vulnerable during periods of war and military attacks, as well as in the aftermath of war, because of the possibility of the long term effects of war related environmental changes on reproductive and infant health. Accumulation in human bodies of toxicants and heavy metal teratogens found in the remnants of war occurs, that, coupled with their long persistence in the environment, suggests a considerable risk for health. The effects of toxicants, teratogens and carcinogens related to heavy metals have been found in embryos at concentrations lower than in adults.

During the first trimester of pregnancy, major morphogenetic events occur, and is the period of highest sensitivity of the embryo to external effectors. Apart from the mutational risks posed by some of the heavy metals, there is compelling evidence of their prevalent epigenetic mechanisms of action. Heavy metals act as endocrine disruptors, and their interference with gene expression causes disturbances in various metabolic and hormonal pathways. The epigenetic mechanisms are an essential part of the current understanding of the developmental origin of health and disease. Reports show that heavy metals accumulate in specific body compartments and can be released during pregnancy. However, relatively little is known about the kinetics, modalities and accumulation of heavy metals in compartments of the human body. Also, not much is known about the following phenomena: the effects of human subjects’ concurrent intake of multiple toxic metals, the kinetics of the passage of heavy metals through the placenta and the critical concentrations that affect the embryo and fetus.

In addition to the risks posed by acute exposure, persistence of heavy metals in the environment may cause people to be continually exposed which, combined with the accumulation of heavy metals in different compartments of the body, adds to the concerns about the long term negative effects on health. The long term effects of metals via epigenetic mechanisms can occur in mothers, fetuses exposed in utero and in breastfed infants and children; these effects could even be transgenerational.

Military attacks are a source of heavy metal input in war zone environments, and may influence the health of the population and affect the outcomes of pregnancies. The prevalence of birth defects increased in areas heavily exposed to military attacks in Iraq, and in Gaza after the Israeli military operation of Cast Lead in 2008–2009 and since the implementation of air delivered weapons in attacks.

Previous research in Gaza also showed that women’s exposure to military attacks (courtesy of the database of the United Nations’ mine action team) correlated with a higher incidence of progeny with birth defects. Hair analysis for metal load of infants born prematurely or with birth defects to mothers who experienced military attacks revealed in utero contamination of the babies.

The heavy metal load in these newborns was higher than that of normal newborn babies for teratogens (mercury and selenium) in babies with birth defects and for toxicants (barium and tin) in premature babies. Together, the data show an association of the damage to newborn health with maternal exposure to attacks, and the trans-placental passage of wartime heavy metal remnants from exposed mothers to their progeny in utero. Three major wars, with their complex consequences for the environment, may have been the single most influential determinant of change in the living conditions and in the demography of Gaza from 2008 to 2014.

The context of the current study is the aftermath of the 2014 Israeli military operation ‘Protective edge’ in Gaza, which lasted for 55 days and had massive effects on civilian life. This operation left widespread structural destruction, with physical remnants of war, including components of weapons, shrapnel and missiles, as well as environmentally stable chemical elements and contaminated ruins, throughout the area. The weapons used in these attacks were documented by the United Nations and other reputable sources, and included missiles, mortars, explosive devices and bombs of various sizes, with or without penetrator heads. The content of heavy metals in each weapon differed, and each had a different range of spread, from metres to hundreds of metres or more. The Israeli government does not make available a list of weapons used, and all data are directly from United Nations’ agencies and independent witnesses on the ground. Removal of explosive war remnants and the debris of demolition began only 6–8 months after the end of hostilities and involved the creation of open air deposits and the reuse of materials from demolished structures. No transfers of debris could be conducted outside the area of the Gaza Strip.

Thus any contamination due to the 2014 war remained in the local environment from the time of the attacks throughout the period of our study. The aim of the study was to investigate whether there were changes in the metal load of a representative segment of the female population after military attacks, particularly with respect to heavy metal contaminants with known teratogen, toxicant and carcinogenic effects, which could pose long term risks for health because of their stability in the environment and tendency to accumulate in the human body. We investigated the extent of exposure to attacks in a cross sectional convenience sample of women who had been in their first trimester of pregnancy during the attacks in the summer of 2014 and who entered one of four major maternity hospitals in Gaza for delivery. The correlation between maternal contamination and their newborns’ was also investigated. Procedures One midwife in each hospital registered all the deliveries occurring during her work shift and obtained the participants’ written informed consent for participation in the study.

The midwife collected the hair samples from mothers and newborns. The midwife also administered a face to face interview with the mothers, following a prepared questionnaire. This included the standards of European and US birth registers and was integrated previously to include the health history of the extended family (to the second degree), and questions about environmental exposure, including the mothers’ recollections of their exposures to military attacks and a variety of potentially risky habits. This questionnaire was thus an apt tool for the surveillance of changes in reproductive health, including of the inherited component of newborn congenital diseases, and it was useful for establishing correlations with major environmental changes in Gaza.

The Palestinian Health Research Council and the Helsinki Committee for Ethical Approval approved the study. The Research Board in the Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine, reviewed and approved the research tools and procedures. Mothers’ recollections of their exposures to attacks were corroborated with objectively documented damage to their dwellings, if the women reported the attacks occurring while they were at home. Measures In the present study, the metal load in the hair of mothers and newborns was determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) using the methodology recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for testing human exposure to environmental metals.

We analysed women’s and newborns’ hair for the metal components of weaponry already identified in 2009 at weapons’ wound sites in the bodies of victims of attacks. We had also detected these metal components contaminating the hair samples of 65 of 95 children tested 1 year after the attacks of Cast lead (Manduca, unpublished data). We also found some of these metals contaminating the hair of newborns in 2011. Finally, we tested 23 metals, including known weapon components and war remnants, such as lead (Pb), barium (Ba), mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), tin (Sn), uranium (U), tungsten (W) and aluminium (Al).

As an internal control, we also measured other metals and microelements that have biological relevance but are not weapons related. We compared the metal load of thecross sectional convenience sample of Gaza women with values for adult hair from outside the war area (RHS). We analysed whether the metal loads in mothers were correlated with those in newborns. Heavy metal concentrations are expressed as ppm (parts per million). Maternal hair (4 cm) was taken nearest to the scalp at the nape of the neck, which reflected environmental exposure during the last 4–5 months of pregnancy and the eventual release of metals previously accumulated in the body. Hair from newborns reflected the accumulation of metals through life in utero.

All hair was preserved in plastic bags until the moment of analysis, according to the recommendations of the IAEA, in the Pacific Rim Laboratory, ISO/Tec 17 250 accredited (Canada). Analytical procedures were performed according to previous protocols. In brief, 0.2 g of washed hair was added to 2 mL of HNO 3 and 2 mL of H 2O 2, heated to 85°C for 2 hours and added at room temperature to 6 mL of water. Samples were run in Agilent 7700. The limits of detection (ppm) were: aluminium (Al) and iron (Fe) 0.4; magnesium (Mg), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn) and titanium (Ti) 0.04; barium (Ba), cobalt (Co) and chromium (Cr) 0.02; arsenic (As), cesium (Cs) and molybdenum (Mo) 0.001; cadmium (Cd) and uranium (U) 0.0001; mercury (Hg) 0.0004; nickel (Ni) 0.15; selenium (Se) 0.22; tin (Sn) and tungsten (W) 0.03; strontium (Sr) 0.01; vanadium (V) 0.002; and zinc (Zn) 0.3.

Experimental values below the limits of detection for each metal were considered equal to 0 0 for the purposes of statistical analysis, which was conducted using median values. Commercial analytical standards of hair for calibration purposes were run in parallel (NCS ZC 81002b and NCS DC73347a; China National Analysis Centre for Iron and Steel). Exposure to military attacks The variable exposure of women to military attacks was indicated by self-reporting and verified by photographic documentation.

Women responded ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to five questions: whether their own house was bombed during the 2014 war, whether the house next door was bombed during the 2014 war, whether they were inside their home at the time of the attack, whether they were displaced afterwards and whether they found spent ammunition inside their dweling. Based on these answers, they were grouped according to their ‘proximity of exposure to attacks’. The concept of proximal exposure was formulated on the realisation that attacks very often involved the spread of weapons’ parts to adjacent houses. The term ‘proximally exposed” was used to identify women whose homes or neighbouring homes were attacked.

The proximally exposed group was divided into two subgroups according to their continuous habitation in the places where the attacks occurred: women who remained in or next to the house that had been bombarded or shelled, and women who moved elsewhere at some time after the attack. Creation of these subgroups reflects the concern that women with ongoing residence at the locations of the attacks might have had different exposures to war remnants than those who had moved. This concern was, ultimately, unfounded. A third group included women who had no recollection of any exposure. In October 2015, we visited the women in subgroups 1 and 2 and photographically documented the damage that had occurred during the military attacks on their dwellings. Exposure to potential civilian sources of metal contamination We tested whether other known potential sources of contamination by heavy metals correlated with the mothers’ distribution of metal load.

Women were asked about their own use of agricultural substances (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides) and generic household chemicals of unknown composition, their consumption of three main types of medicines and of three prenatal prevention supplements, their use of three available sources of water for drinking and cooking, their frequency of eating fish and their history of smoking. For statistical analyses, a dichotomy variable was formed with 1=women reporting the use of agricultural and household chemicals and 2=non-users. Statistical methods The metal loads (ppm) found in the hair of mothers, reported as median values and interquartile ranges, were statistically compared. The first analysis involved the 95th percentile values of the whole cohort and of each exposure group compared with those values for the hair from adults of both sexes from areas unaffected by war (RHS, Germany, by Micro Trace Minerals, MTM; USA by Trace Minerals International, TMI).

No equivalent reference was available for the newborns’ metal load. The second analysis compared the metal loads within the cross sectional convenience sample between groups proximally exposed and unexposed to military attacks.

The third analysis compared the metal loads between users and non-users of agricultural and household chemicals. In analysing the findings in this study, quantile regression analysis was used because it allowed for the modelling of any percentile or quartile of the outcome, represented in this study by metal distribution, including the median.

Furthermore, the Shapiro–Wilk and Pearson’s χ 2 normality tests showed that metal concentrations were not normally distributed, and log transformation did not lead to satisfactory results. Quantile regression analysis has the advantage of being more robust against outliers in the outcome variables than least squares regression (linear) and, as a semi-parametric tool, it avoids assumptions about the parametric distribution of the error process. The relationships between 23 metal concentrations and exposures to military attacks were analysed by multiple quantile regression models, least absolute value models (LAV or MAD) and minimum L1 norm models. The quantile regression models, fit by QREG STATA COMMAND, express the quantiles and the conditional distribution as linear functions of the independent variables which, in this case, are exposure and any confounders.

Spearman correlations were used to identify the associations between mothers’ and newborns’ metal concentrations. All analyses were performed using STATA v.13. Results In this sample, median age of the women was 26.9±5.92 years (range 16–52), and 2.5% of participants were younger than 18 years. Of the 502 women, 26.7% were carrying their first pregnancy during the war, and the majority (88.8%) worked at home.

Prenatal care efforts, including consumption of iron, vitamins and folic acid, were undertaken by 89% of women. A total of 29% reported a diagnosis of anaemia while 0.5% reported a diagnosis of diabetes.

The prevalence of preterm delivery was 1.5%; the prevalence of low birth weight (. Figure 1 -C Localization of the mothers during attacks. (A) The residence of the 502 mothers. In black those residing in late 2015 in the same place as during the attacks in gray those displaced afterwards. (B) Left column, percentage of women in the 502 cross sectional convenience sample that reported that their own housing was hit directly and right column, those that found parts of ammunitions in their house. (C) Percentage of women that were inside their house under the attack.

In October 2015, 78 women of the 103 whose homes were hit while they were inside were contacted, and the damage to 49 homes was recorded (in photographs) in order to objectively document the military attacks. Shows the number of the visited homes whose damages were photographed; of these 63% still exhibited the damage from the attacks. Ten houses were totally destroyed, 15 exhibited major damage and 24 displayed minor damage ( and in the online supplement). Figure 2 A-B Reported attacks on the housing of the women in the cross sectional convenience sample (n=502).

(A) Seventy eight of the 103 women who experienced a direct attack on their house while they were inside it were visited in October 2015. The damages that were still visible were documented by photography.

(B) Damages observed classified according to their impact on the structure. Subgroups for personal exposure to military attacks were generated in order to investigate associations between the load of metals in women’s hair and their proximity to the military attacks. Shows the distribution of the two proximally exposed and the unexposed subgroups. Of the 502 women in this study, 55.9% (n=282) belonged to the subgroup of women who were exposed to an attack and who remained in the same house, where weapon remnants were likely to be present, during the following months of their pregnancy. Subgroup 2, composed of women who were exposed to attacks and who had moved away from the bombed or shelled home, included 12.3% (n=61) of participants.

Subgroups 1 and 2 compose what we named the “proximally exposed” women and were the 68.2% of the cross sectional convenience sample. Approximately one-third (31.7%, n=159) of the women belonged to subgroup 3, who reported not having been under or next door to military strikes and were therefore considered unexposed. Photographic evidence confirmed the damage to the houses of 25 women in subgroup 1 and of 24 women in subgroup 2. Distribution of the cross sectional convenience sample according to different environmental exposures. (A) Division of the whole sample into subgroups was based on their reported proximal exposure or non-exposure. All women who reported that their home or the home next door was hit in an attack are in subgroup 1 (55.9% of the sample if they remained a resident in the same house until they delivered their baby, or in subgroup 2 (12.3% of the sample) if they were displaced after the attack. Subgroup 3 (31.7% of the sample reported no exposure to attacks.

(B) Source of water for drinking and cooking. (C) Nearness to manufacturers and workshops.

( D) Use of household and agriculture chemicals (shown in detail): users, or users of any of these chemicals or more than one. ” data-icon-position=”” data-hide-link-title=”0″>• • •. Figure 3 A-D Distribution of the cross sectional convenience sample according to different environmental exposures. (A) Division of the whole sample into subgroups was based on their reported proximal exposure or non-exposure. All women who reported that their home or the home next door was hit in an attack are in subgroup 1 (55.9% of the sample if they remained a resident in the same house until they delivered their baby, or in subgroup 2 (12.3% of the sample) if they were displaced after the attack. Subgroup 3 (31.7% of the sample reported no exposure to attacks.

(B) Source of water for drinking and cooking. (C) Nearness to manufacturers and workshops. ( D) Use of household and agriculture chemicals (shown in detail): users, or users of any of these chemicals or more than one. Metal load in mothers and newborns Supplementary (see online supplementary Table 1) shows the descriptive values of the metal load, as determined by ICP-MS, for the 23 metals investigated in the hair of mothers and newborns, both for the whole group and for subgroups of exposure to military attacks. In general, the mothers’ metal loads were higher than the newborns’. Spearman correlations of the metal load between the mothers and newborns for the whole sample () showed significant (p.

Table 2 Comparison of the metal load of the mothers in the cross sectional convenience sample and in subgroups 1, 2 and 3 with that of reference ranges of standards from areas not involved in the war. Comparison of the 95th percentile of metal load in the wholesample and in subgroups 1–3 with that of standards from areas not involved in wars. Confidence intervals are shown. Results with 95th percentiles significantly higher than the reference value are enhanced in light blue and in bold. Values are reported in ppm.

Subgroups 1 and 2 are mothers ‘proximally exposed’ to attacks and subgroup 3 those that reported no exposure The metal load comparison to a reference standard (RHS) from areas unaffected by war () shows the comparison of the 95th percentile of the metal load for the mothers with that of RHS. In the whole sample and in each subgroup, the load of toxicants (Al, Fe, Ba, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sr and V), teratogens (Hg, U and W), carcinogens (As, Cd and Co), and of Mg and Zn was significantly higher in the hair of women in all groups of the Gazacross sectional convenience sample than in the reference group RHS.

The load of Cs, Cu, Mo, SE, Sn and Ti did not significantly differ from what was found in the reference group, RHS. Proximal exposure to military attacks and metal load To examine whether there is an association between proximal exposure to military attacks and metal load, the median values of the subgroups were analysed by multiple quantile regression models. Results showed that both subgroups of proximally exposed women had significantly higher loads for the majority of metals than the unexposed subgroup. For the sake of clarity, does not include the following metals which were detected at the same level in all samples as in RHS, and thus unrelated to differences in anthropogenic activities of any kind in the samples and the reference: Cs, Cu, Mo, Se, Sn and Ti. This analysis confirms that proximal exposure is associated with a higher load of contamination for most metals, with an exception for U, with the highest load in subgroup 3. Specifically, subgroups 1 and 2 together showed significantly higher metal loads than subgroup 3 for Al, Mg, Mn, Ba, As, Zn and V.

Subgroups 1 and 2 showed significant differences between them: subgroup 1 was highest for Ba and V; subgroup 2 for Cr, Sr and W. Measured loads of Fe, Hg and Pb were higher in the three subgroups than in RHS but did not differ among the subgroups. Comparison between the newborns groups for metal load showed that the newborns in subgroup 2 had a significantly higher load of contaminants for most metals, except for Hg and Zn. Yet, children in subgroup 3 had a significantly higher load for Al than newborns in subgroup 1. Regarding exposures to environmental chemicals from civilian sources and potential confounders, the study showed high homogeneity in the women’s sample for exposure to most of the potential risk factors. For 84% of the women, it was common to use multiple sources for drinking water, and 87% of the women resided far from industrial plants (). All of the women used a combination of the five food sources (UNRWA, Egyptian, Israeli and Turkish imports, and local).

Less than 5% of women engaged in potentially risky habits, such as smoking, using hair dye or consuming medicines (not shown), and most of the women (90%) ate fish, a potential source of mercury, less than or equal to once per month. These putative risk factors do not seem relevant to the differences in the distribution of the metal load found between the women proximally exposed to military attacks and unexposed women. Table 3a Comparison between mothers of metal load between subgroups according to their ‘proximal exposure’. The metal load in mothers from different subgroups were compared with each other. Analysis was by multiple quantile regression on median values as linear function of the independent variable, ‘proximal exposure’. For ease in reading the data, the colour yellow indicates that the group in the first column of each panel has significantly higher load (p.

Table 3b Comparison between mothers of metal load between subgroups according to their ‘proximal exposure’. The metal load in mothers of different subgroups were compared with each other. Analysis was by multiple quantile regression on median values as linear function of the independent variable, ‘proximal exposure’. For ease in reading the data, the colour yellow indicates that the group in the column on the left in each panel has significantly higher load (p. Table 3c Comparison between newborns of metal load between subgroups according to the mothers ‘proximal exposure’. The metal load in newborns of different subgroups were compared with each other.

Analysis was by multiple quantile regression on median values as linear function of the independent variable, ‘proximal exposure’. For ease in reading the data, the colour yellow indicates that the group in the column on the left in each panel has significantly higher load (p. Table 3d Comparison between newborns of metal load between subgroups according to the mothers ‘proximal exposure’.

The metal load in newborns of different subgroups were compared with each other. Analysis was by multiple quantile regression on median values as linear function of the independent variable, ‘proximal exposure’. For ease in reading the data, the colour yellow indicates that the group in the column on the left in each panel has significantly higher load (p0.3 for all analyses) among these subgroups in the load for all 23 metals. It is possible, then, to rule out the possibility that the use of these products contributed to the heavy metal contamination. Principal findings The study is the first to document the number of civilian subjects in the population who were exposed in 2014 to military attacks in Gaza. The women in this cross sectional convenience sample experienced, in 32.4% of cases, a direct hit to their private dwellings and, in 63% of these cases, the attacks occurred while the women were inside their homes.

The women’s recollections were supported by photographic documentation of the reported damage which verified its extent. Hits including those on neighbouring buildings (proximal exposure) were reported by almost 70% of the women. The study examined the load of heavy metals in the hair of this cross sectional convenience sample of women who were all pregnant during the war in Gaza in 2014.

Hair samples were collected when the women delivered during the winter of 2014 and the spring of 2015. We found a positive correlation between a high load of toxicants (Ba, Al, V, Sr and Cr), a teratogen (W) and a carcinogen (As) in women’s hair and their proximity to military attacks in 2014.

We also found that there was a higher load in the entire cross sectional convenience sample of Gaza women in comparison with the hair samples from individuals in areas unaffected by war (RHS), regardless of their recent exposure to attacks. The high load was for heavy metals already detected as war remnants from previous attacks in 2009 (toxicants such as Al, Fe, Ba, Mn, Cr, Ni, Pb, Sr and V; teratogens such as U and W; and carcinogens such as As, Cd and Co). There was, instead, no difference in the cross sectional convenience sample of Gaza women, regardless of their reported exposure to the attacks in 2014, in comparison with the metal load in the hair of adults of both sexes from the areas unaffected by war (RHS) for the concentration of microelements (Cu, Se and Mo) and a few other metals (Cs, Sn and Ti). Moreover, anthropogenic sources not arising from military attacks were excluded as confounders. These data confirm that the source of toxicant, teratogen and carcinogen contaminants was anthropogenic and associated with military attacks. We also showed that there was trans-placental passage for heavy metals from mothers to their newborns. Limitations of the study The lack of ‘never exposed to war’ controls within Gaza is a limitation of the study which cannot be overcome because there is no recent ‘time zero’ for anthropogenic, heavy metal weapons related contamination in Gaza since the first aerial attacks in 2004.

Military attacks and restrictions on people’s movement have become a prominent structural factor in the past 10 years. All participants in this study were present and residentially stable during three military operations in 6 years (Cast lead in 2008–2009, Pillar of cinder in 2012 and Defensive edge in 2014) and were likely exposed during that time and continuously thereafter to heavy metal war remnants that were environmentally stable. Even so, as the results highlight, this study was able to identify the contribution of heavy metals from the military attacks in 2014, establishing a significantly higher metal load in the hair of the women proximally exposed to these attacks.

The composite background of war related heavy metal contaminants in the entire cross sectional convenience sample reflects the local history of attacks and had no bearing on the conclusions when we compared women exposed to those not exposed in 2014. A general limitation of this type of study is that the knowledge about the effects of in-body interactions resulting from intake of more than one heavy metal is limited.

It is difficult to anticipate the extent of the long term risk for human health and, in particular, for future pregnancies or infant development. Although we reported preliminary findings about incidence of birth defects and prematurity outcomes for the whole cross sectional convenience sample, this study was not designed to identify potential correlations between negative phenotypes in the newborns and heavy metal load. The size of this sample, while adequate to identify the correlation between levels of heavy metals with environmental exposures, is not large enough to generate accurate values for the incidence of negative birth outcomes, which have relatively low frequency in the population, or to establish the association of a high load of heavy metals with those outcomes. Strengths of the study The use of a questionnaire specifically designed to include local issues and administered via face to face interviews with women by their midwives allowed for the evaluation of the potential impact on the load in heavy metals of women’s habits and exposures to sources of potential contamination other than military attacks. The questionnaire confirmed the rarity of other habits that could potentially lead to heavy metal exposure and to quantify as very low the geographical nearness to common anthropogenic sources of heavy metals in Gaza. The survey thus helped to verify and exclude a role for many potential confounders in the mothers’ heavy metal load. A further strength of the study was the inclusion, as an internal control, of the testing of the concentration of microelements and metals not associated with weaponry.

These did not differ in concentrations from the RHS reference, for both the exposed and not exposed groups. This is the first investigation involving a sample with a relatively large number of participants, enlisted without exclusions, and which also includes newborn babies, where the load of 23 heavy metals was measured in participants’ hair. The size of the cross sectional convenience sample allows subgroups to be used according to exposure to environmental factors, where even the subgroups were of suitable sizes for statistical analyses of the differences in median concentrations of contaminants. In addition, this is probably one of the first studies where women’s recollections, in this case regarding their exposure to military attacks, was verified objectively by photographic documentation.

Heavy metal contamination as a hidden legacy of military attacks in 2014 The contamination by heavy metals associated with the exposure to recent military attacks is a hidden factor that has, until now, never been fully documented, even though it constitutes a risk for the health of the population. The frequency of women’s exposure to the attacks in 2014 in a home setting was very high, about 70%, demonstrating the local’s saying that there was ‘no place to hide’ for the population of Gaza at that time.

The women exposed to attacks had significantly higher loads of heavy metals than women not exposed. As only about a quarter of women were primipara, three-quarters of the women had children who were similarly exposed to the military attacks. The extent of the attacks on civilians in 2014 was thus likely to have produced heavy metal contamination in a wide sector of the population. The fact that the highest contaminant loads was found in the women exposed to attacks were in those not exposed involved various toxicants, teratogens and carcinogens (Ba, Al, V, Sr, Cr, W and As), could not be foreseen a priori and illustrates the complexity of the contamination.

Yet, this finding is compatible with the reports by various sources about the use of many different types of ammunitions in this military operation. We excluded some relevant sources as potential contributors to the heavy metal load detected in the cross sectional convenience sample. Chemicals used in agriculture and in the household did not impact on the metal loads when the entire sample was compared with references, or in proximally exposed women versus those not exposed. All other known factors considered are unlikely to be confounding.

This is consistent with the known limited other anthropogenic sources of heavy metals in Gaza (like refineries and metal and chemical industries) and with the reduction in gasoline consumption for all uses, which was severely restricted due to the economic blockade in place since late 2012. Exposure to the 2014 attacks was the only factor that we could detect as contributing to the personal contamination of the participants by heavy metals. Historical contamination by other war remnant heavy metals and their persistence in the environment Besides the identification of a high load of heavy metals, which we specifically traced to exposure to the military attacks in 2014, we found that all the participants had levels significantly higher than controls from outside areas affected by war (RHS) of other war remnant heavy metals, such as U, Hg, Cd, Co, Fe, Ni, Pb, V, Mn, Cd and Co. Previous reports had shown their delivery in Gaza by weaponry; teratogens Hg and Cd and toxicants Pb and Fe were delivered by weapons in the 2008–2009 war. A high load of Hg was reported in newborns of mothers exposed at that time to bombing and to attacks with white phosphorus ammunitions.

High loads of Al, Fe, Cd, Hg and U were detected in the hair of children tested 1 year after the 2008–2009 attacks (unpublished, Manduca). The presence of concentrations higher than those found in the reference group (RHS) for heavy metals introduced previously by weaponry in Gaza in the entire cross sectional convenience sample of women that we have tested in 2015 confirms that these elements have persisted in the environment for years and suggests that the whole population may have been chronically intaking these metals. Implications of chronic exposure to heavy metals and their in-body accumulation Chronic exposure to heavy metals before the attacks in 2014 complicates the contribution of the attacks in 2014, and involves also diverse types of heavy metals. Yet, the heavy metals detected previously, as well those recently detected as deriving from the 2014 attacks, are known for their teratogenic, toxicant and carcinogenic properties. They are risk factors for non-communicable diseases and for reproductive health.

On the one hand, the environmental stability of heavy metals makes it possible for their chronic intake from the environment by individuals. On the other hand, these metals, after intake into the body, are not excreted rapidly and accumulate in organs where they can continue to induce somatic epigenetic changes. If there is a threshold for their action, they can reach the critical concentrations capable of causing negative biological effects over time and can therefore affect health even at a time distant from that of intake, and pathological and phenotypic endpoints of their effects could be delayed. A variety of negative effects in time affecting the physiology of individuals, as well as an increase in non-communicable diseases, were reported in association with heavy metal exposure. Unfortunately, very little knowledge is available to date on the kinetics of the deposition of each heavy metal in the body and of its release from each specific organ of deposition, and these unanswered questions require further investigation. Among the various potential long term negative effects associated with heavy metal intake, we here only discuss some of the concerns regarding reproductive health, for which some information in humans is available, as well as the role of teratogens of some of the heavy metal contaminants. Exposure to attacks, heavy metal load and long term implications for reproductive health We have mentioned the limits of this study in investigating the association of the metal load with phenotypes at birth.

The present study is a first step in this direction. Nonetheless, the finding of an increase in birth defects and preterm births, compared with the incidence registered in 2011, is a concern. We can anticipate that our data on a widercross sectional convenience sample would register significant increases in birth defects and preterm births by the year 2016 (Manduca et al, submitted 2016).

In other post-war settings, the association between exposure to attacks and negative reproductive outcomes was reported. In Gaza, by retrospective pedigree analysis, an increase in birth defects was reported starting in 2005, after the newest air delivered weapons were first used.

Between 2006 and 2010, i.e. before and after the Cast lead operation in 2009, there was a significant increase in birth defect in infants, a rise which was continuing in 2011 (Manduca, unpublished). In Gaza was reported in 2011 association between the exposure to attacks and the contaminant load in newborn hair for specific teratogens, if the infant was born with a birth defect, or toxicants, if the infant was born preterm.

There is thus some evidence of the potential negative impact on the outcomes of pregnancies due to the intake of heavy metals during wars. There was also limited previous evidence that most of the heavy metals pass through the placental barrier, as we here documente, and accumulate in the hair during fetal life. However, the critical levels of heavy metals capable of negatively impacting on the human embryo and fetus are unknown, and little is known about the kinetics and modalities of trans-placental transfer of each individual heavy metal over time. We have reported that newborn babies in this cross sectional convenience sample have lower heavy metal loads than mothers, but our present knowledge does not allow for a conclusion of whether this is reassuring for their future health as infants.

Delayed effects were reported for in utero exposure to attacks among children as increased rates of chronic illnesses, developmental problems and growth impairments. Our data on newborn contamination are only an initial contribution to the needed research to investigate whether a high maternal load of weapons related metals and in utero exposure of the baby can predict physical, cognitive, emotional and psychological development in the infant. We are presently addressing this issue with a longitudinal assessment. Other long term exposures to heavy metals that could harm the infant’s development may occur because of the transmission of heavy metals from the mother through breastfeeding. A high load of some heavy metals can interfere with the mother’s future capability to bring a pregnancy to term, resulting in premature deliveries or negative effects on their next babies’ health. Mobilisation during pregnancy of metal previously accumulated in the mother’s body is likely to occur in pregnancies remote in time from their intake, and the return of stored heavy metals into the lymphatic and vascular circulation may have delayed effects on reproductive health.

There is evidence that different heavy metals accumulate preferentially in different compartments of the body (eg, bone for lead, strontium and uranium; brain for mercury, cadmium and aluminium; kidney for cadmium, mercury, chrome, lead and plutonium), and that from these organs, the metals can be mobilised during subsequent pregnancies, via organ and tissue remodelling, and the development of the placenta, but the extent and details of these mobilisations are largely unknown. Generalising the meaning of the study The results of this study illustrate that in Gaza, a specific high load of heavy metals is associated for all the women in the cross sectional convenience sample with the exposure to military attacks in 2014, and widespread contamination for many heavy metals was associated with the use of weaponry in previous attacks. These evidences support the possibility of immediate and long term risks for health posed by weapons associated heavy metals and war remnants. They suggest that the risks posed by the war remnants are diffuse, may not be limited to reproductive health and may also affect the frequency of pathologies such as cancers, male sterility, immunity and endocrine disorders, thus interesting all sexes and ages, as the insurgence of these pathologies can be influenced by heavy metal exposure and is noticeable that they are reported by medical sources, on the rise in Gaza.

The contamination documented in the cross sectional convenience sample by potential effectors of non-communicable diseases suggests new investigative lines in studying their ethology. The relevance of the local context needs to be underlined as the it was the first determinant that made our research possible.

There are factors in the Gaza Strip that aided conducting human studies which would hardly be possible elsewhere: good medical structures, collaborative communities with stable composition and residences, and stagnating or restricted industrial production (although imposed by the siege and negative for the well-being of the people), independent documentation from international observers of timing of attacks and of kind of weapons used, and consulting help for environmental issues. The collaborative context also allowed the development of a questionnaire suitable for further surveillance of health. To fully understand the implications for health of these findings we need future studies involving a variety of professional aptitudes. Research is needed on the fate of heavy metals in the human organism, particularly in relation to the release from the mother’s organ during remodelling in pregnancies. Additionally, researchers should explore the mechanistic aspects of the molecular action of each heavy metal, and longitudinal studies can identify and verify the endpoints of diseases over time.

Currently, knowledge of all of these matters is limited. Given that the weaponry used in many of the current military operations in other countries is often manufactured by the same firms as the weaponry used in Gaza, our observations may be relevant in designing studies in other settings. Conclusions The long term effects on health due to contamination by remnants of war containing heavy metals needs consideration in association with other long term effects of war on populations, including the trauma of war and war related economic and structural damage.

Surveillance at birth, bio-monitoring and the study of outcomes of maternal and newborn health must be maintained as stable programmes, as they provide the most sensitive first sentinels for studies of the sequelae of anthropogenic contamination and can provide alerts about increases in damaging health conditions. They also provide solid information intrinsic to prospective data collection.

Surveillance at birth is relatively easy to implement, and its outcome informs the general risks for the population and helps tailor public health interventions and preventive procedures. Retrospective and longitudinal investigations should be undertaken to investigate the effects of heavy metal contamination on non-communicable diseases Further research on the long term health damage caused by exposure to heavy metals is needed. Yamaha Breeze Serial Number Location. Additionally, plans for family counselling, prevention and remediation should be developed.

These efforts require the support of the scientific community and the involvement of an array of professionals from different disciplines. Our studies provide a background for others to be implemented in other settings where, in similar fashion as in Gaza, general health may be threatened by hidden remnants of war in the present and for the next generations. In summary, in Gaza, contamination by heavy metals that persist in the environment and their continuing accumulation in individuals are ongoing risk factors for a variety of health outcomes in the aftermath of war. Footnotes • Contributors Contributorship statement. PM developed the questionnaire used to collect the data, directed the analytical work and elaboration of the data with statisticians, wrote the manuscript, and prepared the figures and reference list. SYD directed the organised field work in three hospitals, and the follow-up objective assessment of damages, and contributed to the definition of the work and review of the manuscript.

NMAA directed the organised field work in one hospital and contributed to the definition of the work and review of the manuscript. SRQ partecipated in the planning of the study and review of the manuscript. R-LP launched the idea of the study and participated in the planning of the work and first draft and review of the manuscript. All contributed authors had access to and revised the data. • Competing interests None declared. • Patient consent Yes.

• Ethics approval The Palestinian Health Research Council and the Helsinki C’ommittee for Ethical Approval approved the study, and the Research Board of the Islamic University of Gaza, Palestinine, reviewed and accepted the research tools and procedures. The women provided written informed consent for their own and their newborns’ participation. • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed. • Data sharing statement Extra data can be accessed via the Dryad data repository at with the doi:10.5061/dryad.kr846.

© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: thanks to. Leading poverty charity Oxfam has condemned the UK’s massive arms deals with Saudi Arabia, blasting the British government as “one of the most significant violators” of the international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

Last year, London approved the sale of more than £3 billion worth of weapons to the Riyadh regime, helping the Arab monarchy with its ruthless military aggression against Yemen which has killed about 10,000 people since it began in March 2015. Oxfam says the war has put millions of people in the poverty-stricken country on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. Penny Lawrence, deputy chief executive of Oxfam GB, is expected to censure Britain’s unconditional support for Saudi Arabia during a speech at the Second Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty in Geneva, on Tuesday. “Schools, hospitals and homes have been bombed in contravention of the rules of war,” she will say, referring to numerous Saudi airstrikes that have intentionally targeted civilians and critical infrastructure. Last week, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) decided to pull its staff out of the war-torn country following a number of deadly Saudi airstrikes on MSF-run hospitals across Yemen. A Yemeni man checks the ruins of buildings destroyed in a Saudi airstrike, in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, February 25, 2016. (AFP photo) “The UK government is in denial and disarray over its arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition bombing campaign in Yemen,” Lawrence will continue.

“It has misled its own parliament about its oversight of arms sales and its international credibility is in jeopardy as it commits to action on paper but does the opposite in reality.” Britain is one of the key states backing Saudi Arabia’s war on its southern neighbor, which was launched as an attempt to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of its own. Debris at the Queen Arwa University campus after a Saudi airstrike, in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, January 30, 2016. (AFP photo) Under the ATT, signatories are required to block any arms deal if they have knowledge at the time of the sale that the weapons will be used against civilians. A UN report leaked to the Guardian in January found “widespread and systematic” targeting of civilians in the Saudi-led strikes. The report found 119 strikes that it said violated international humanitarian law. This is while, according to Amnesty International, the UK government sold 2,400 missiles and 58 warplanes to Saudi Arabia in 2015.

London is also accused of providing the Saudis with banned weapons such as cluster bombs. Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement has rejected an initiative put forth by US Secretary of State John Kerry to resolve the crisis in the war-torn country. Mohammed Abdulsalam, the Ansarullah spokesman, said Saturday that the offer aims at depriving the Houthis of their arms in their fight of resistance against the Saudi invasion. “Whoever has a greedy eye on our weapons, we will have a greedy eye on his life,” Abdulsalam wrote in a message posted on Facebook. Kerry earlier called on Houthis to hand over their weapons including ballistic missiles and to pull back from the capital Sana’a.

In return, the US secretary of state said Houthis and allies can have a share in Yemen’s future unity government. The proposal comes amid reports that Houthis have stepped up missile attacks on border regions in Saudi Arabia over the past weeks.

The attacks are carried out in reaction to deadly Saudi airstrikes that the regime in Riyadh says are meant to undermine Houthis and allies and to restore power to Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s president who has resigned and fled the capital. About 10,000 people have been killed across Yemen since the Saudi campaign started in March 2015. The conflict in Yemen re-escalated after peace talks mediated by the United Nations and held in Kuwait collapsed earlier this month. The talks hit a snag after Houthis rejected a similar initiative proposed by the UN, saying it lacked any clear mechanism for transition of power. Houthis had declared since the start of the talks in April that they were ready for disarmament and withdrawal from key areas they control in case a broad political agreement is reached in which Hadi would have no role. The Syrian government says French and German forces are present in northern Syria, condemning it as an act of “aggression.” The Syrian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday French and German forces are deployed to Ain al-Arab, also known as Kobani, and Manbij alongside US military personnel. “Syria considers it explicit and unjustified aggression towards its sovereignty and independence,” the official SANA news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

Foreign forces are aiding Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) near Manbij and Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, part of the SDF, in Ain al-Arab, characterizing the aid as part of an offensive against Daesh. The ministry said any side “wishing to fight against terrorists must coordinate its moves with the legitimate Syrian government, whose army and people are fighting terrorism” across the country. “Such presence under the pretext of fighting terrorism cannot elude any one,” it added.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said French special forces were building a base for themselves near Ain al-Arab. France’s defense minister said last week that there were also special forces operating in Syria helping the SDF advance towards Manbij.

Berlin, however, was quick to deny the presence of German special forces in Syria. “There are no German special forces in Syria.

The accusation is false,” a spokesman at the Germany’s Defense Ministry said. The Observatory, however, said German, French and American military advisers, and French and American special forces, were assisting the SDF. Their presence has raised growing suspicion that the US and Europe are assisting a Kurdish campaign to establish a separate state in Syria.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey would not allow cooperation with terrorist organizations in Syria, referring to Kurdish groups which the US supports. Ankara and Washington have long been at loggerheads over the role of the US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia. Turkey says the fighters are a terrorist organization affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) but the US sees them as a partner in Syria operations.

In a speech to his ruling AK Party in parliament, Yildirim said Turkey won’t allow formation of new states in Syria. Syrian men look at damage on June 13, 2016, following airstrikes the previous night on the al-Mashhad in northern Aleppo.

Software Update Comag Sl65 there. © AFP Syria is currently fighting foreign-backed militants such as Daesh and al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front on several fronts, including in Aleppo which borders Turkey. On Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fierce battles between government forces and Takfiri terrorists in Aleppo had left 70 fatalities in less than 24 hours. The monitor said Syrian forces retook the villages of Zaytan and Khalasa to the southwest of the Aleppo city after losing control of them hours earlier. The area overlooks the government supply road around the south of Aleppo, linking government-held Nayrab airport to the city’s southeast and areas controlled by government forces to its west.

The Syrian daily al-Watan said Russian fighter jets resumed their missions in Aleppo, targeting positions of al-Nusra Front and allied forces on Wednesday. Moscow launched airstrikes against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria on September 30 upon a request from the Damascus government. Russia has warned that the presence of the USS Porter in the Black Sea is a provocation, but the United States says it intends to stay. The USS Porter, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, entered the Black Sea last month, sparking criticism from Moscow as being yet another example of the US military encroaching on Russia’s borders.

“American warships do enter the Black Sea now and then. Certainly, this does not meet with [Russia’s] approval and will undoubtedly lead to planning response measures,” said Andrey Kelin, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s European Cooperation Department. “If a decision is made to create a permanent force, of course, it would be destabilizing, because this is not a NATO sea.” But the US Navy has no intention of leaving the region. Speaking from the USS Mason in the Mediterranean, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus that the Western presence is necessary to prevent “Russian aggression.” “We’re going to be there,” he said. “We’re going to deter.

That’s the main reason we’re there – to deter potential aggression.” Referring to the deployment of two US Navy aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean ahead of the NATO Summit in Warsaw next month, Mabus added that the Pentagon plays an important role in maritime security. “We’ve been in the Mediterranean continuously for 70 years now, since World War II,” he said. “We’ve been keeping the sea lanes openIt’s what we do.” With its own Black Sea Fleet operating out of Sevastopol, Russia views these maneuvers as the latest example of.

The alliance plans to station four new battalions in the Baltics and Poland, and has installed a new missile defense system in the region. Any permanent stationing of a US warship in the waterway would be a violation of the Montreux Convention, which states that countries without a Black Sea coastline cannot keep military ships in the region for more than 21 days. Months after Russian jets responded to the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic, a US destroyer is now testing the waters of the Black Sea. On Monday, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter entered the Black Sea to participate in bilateral military exercises as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve. “The United States continues to demonstrate its commitment to the collective security of our NATO allies and support for our partners in Europe,” reads a statement from the US Navy, adding that the ship’s operations are meant to “enhance maritime security and stability, readiness, and naval capability with our allies and partners.” The Russian government has criticized the presence of a US warship near its borders as a provocation and has vowed to take necessary countermeasures.

“American warships do enter the Black Sea now and then. Certainly, this does not meet with [Russia’s] approval and will undoubtedly lead to planning response measures,” said Andrey Kelin, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s European Cooperation Department. Kelin also expressed disapproval of the USS Harry S. Truman’s deployment to the Mediterranean, ahead of NATO’s Warsaw summit in July, a move he described as an obvious “show of power.” “There is nothing special about the movement of US vessels in this case. We know that aircraft carriers are moving the Mediterranean Sea and elsewhere, they have a right to do so, this is freedom of navigation,” he said.

“But in general, this is a definite increase in [Russia-US] relations and all this is done ahead of the NATO summit in Warsaw – this is a demonstration of force.” The USS Porter is expected to make port calls while operating in the Black Sea. “We will see how things move forward,” Kelin said. “But overall, we can absolutely not give up on the most important channel of cooperation and dialogue.” Speaking with radio Zvezda, military expert Viktor Murakhovsky also condemned the presence of American warships near Russia’s borders. “Permanent deployment of US destroyers in the European theater of war is already a provocation,” he said, noting that there are four other similar US vessels permanently stationed at a Spanish naval base. In April, the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea, resulting in its interception by a pair of Su-24 bomber jets. US officials described the jets’ maneuvers as “aggressive,” as well as “unsafe and unprofessional.” Writing about the incident for The American Conservative, political commentator Pat Buchanan observed that “the Russian planes carried no missiles or bombs.” This, he argued, was an indication that their “message [was]: What are the Americans doing here?” “US warships based in Bahrain confront Iranian subs and missile boats in the Gulf. Yet in each of these regions it is not US vital interests that are threatened, but the interests of allies who will not man-up to their own defense duties, preferring to lay them off on Uncle Sam,” Buchanan said.

“And America is beginning to buckle under the weight of its global obligations.” Sorgente. The Libyan prime minister has dismissed the possibility of an international military intervention purportedly aimed at boosting the anti-Daesh fight in the conflict-plagued country. “It’s true that we need help from the international community in our fight against terrorism and it’s true that this is something we have already received,” Fayez al-Sarraj said in an interview with French weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche published on Sunday. “But we are not talking about international intervention,” Sarraj said, noting that foreign boots on Libyan soil could offend national pride and runs “contrary to our principles.” “Rather we need satellite images, intelligence, technical help not bombardments,” he pointed out.

Sarraj further noted that “total victory over Daesh in Sirte is close.” “(We hope) that this war against terrorism will be able to unite Libya. But it will be long. And the international community knows that,” he said. On Friday, Sarraj had said he was confident that forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government, known as Government of National Accord (GNA), would liberate the coastal city of Sirte, the main stronghold of Daesh terrorists in Libya.

Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government are seen during clashes with Daesh terrorists on the western outskirts of Sirte on June 2, 2016. ©AFP In another development on Saturday, GNA loyalists took control of Ghardabiya air base, which lies about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Sirte, from Daesh extremists. Spokesman Mohamed al-Gasri described the capture as strategically significant given that it cut off Daesh supply routes and “trapped them further” within the city. Gasri added that three fighters from the government-backed brigades lost their lives and five others sustained injuries during Saturday’s clashes. GNA forces also announced that they had liberated the town of Abu Hadi, situated 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) southeast of Sirte, from the clutches of Daesh Takfiris. Separately, two militia groups operating in eastern Libya have expressed their support for the UN’s unity government, which seeks to put an end to years of factional power struggles. Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government are seen during clashes with Daesh terrorists around 23 kilometers (14 miles) west of Sirte on June 2, 2016.

©AFP On Saturday, the commanders of the special anti-terrorist force and a military intelligence brigade held a joint press conference with GNA Defense Minister-designate al-Mahdi al-Bargathi, and decided to throw their support behind the GNA. Libya has had two rival governments since 2014, when politician Khalifa Ghweil and his self-proclaimed government seized control of the capital, Tripoli, with the support of militia groups, forcing the internationally-recognized government to move to the country’s remote eastern city of Tobruk. The two governments achieved a consensus on forming a unity government, the GNA, last December after months of UN-brokered talks in Tunisia and Morocco to restore order in the country. President Obama delivers remarks at Concord Community High School in Elkhart, Indiana, June 1, 2016.

(Zach Gibson / The New York Times) Anyone looking attentively at contemporary developments in the United States will surely notice that the country is undergoing a profound crisis of purpose and institutional legitimacy under a neoliberal regime in overdrive. And this is occurring less than eight years after the election of Barack Obama, whose political campaign raised hopes for a shift away from the neoconservative fallacies and imperial crimes that characterized the administration of George W.

Welcome to the future of the past. The United States is a nation in disarray whose economic and political elite are still trying to recapture and reproduce the Gilded Age at a time when the overwhelming majority of citizens are experiencing a sharp decline in their standard of living and an increase in large-scale economic insecurity, coupled with sharply diminishing social services, a collapsing infrastructure and loss of hope in the future. Hence the explanation for the rise of political charlatans like Donald Trump, a man who aspires to become president without even pretending to have what may be loosely described as a coherent ideology (which is why the popular version among certain segments of the US progressive movement that Donald Trump is a “fascist” is a crude joke).

Hence, also, the appearance on the national political stage of Bernie Sanders, whose message about the need for a more democratic United States resonates extremely well with young people, many of whom fear that, given the current conditions, their future will involve massive unemployment and economic insecurity. Be that as it may, it seems beyond reasonable doubt at this point that the November election will be between a Republican candidate who believes that the rich deserve to get richer off the brutal exploitation of the working class and a Democrat who has fully embraced neoconservatism on foreign policy issues and is in bed with the Wall Street wolves. In this respect, Hillary Clinton hardly offers a meaningful alternative to Donald Trump, whose incoherent mumblings have scared even the Republican establishment to the point that his opponent can count on measurable support, both in terms of money and votes, from traditional conservatives and many neoconservatives. With the November election still several months away, it would be instructive to reflect on the state of the country and the world under the Obama administration as the past always shapes and conditions the present. Noam Chomsky, one of the US’ premier dissidents, social critics and intellectuals for more than half a century, was among a handful of souls who never “bought” the promotion of Barack Obama as a real reformer, let alone a sincere progressive.

In this exclusive interview with Truthout, Chomsky lays bare the reasons why Obama’s election did not lead to any significant changes in the realms of foreign and economic policy making, although it did represent some kind of progress after eight grim years of neoconservative rule under a messianic administration. CJ Polychroniou: Barack Obama was elected in 2008 as president of the United States in a wave of optimism, but at a time when the country was in the full grip of the financial crisis brought about, according to Obama himself, by “the reckless behavior of a lot of financial institutions around the world” and “the folks on Wall Street.” Obama’s rise to power has been well documented, including the funding of his Illinois political career by the well-known Chicago real estate developer and power peddler Tony Rezko, but the legacy of his presidency has yet to be written. First, in your view, did Obama rescue the US economy from a meltdown, and, second, did he initiate policies to ensure that “reckless financial behavior” would be kept at bay? Noam Chomsky: On the first question, the matter is debated. Some economists argue that the bank rescues were not necessary to avoid a serious depression, and that the system would have recovered, probably with some of the big banks broken up. Dean Baker for one.

I don’t trust my own judgment enough to take a strong position. On the second question, Dodd-Frank takes some steps forward — making the system more transparent, greater reserve requirements, etc. — but congressional intervention has cut back some of the regulation, for example, of derivative transactions, leading to strong protests [of] Frank. Some commentators, Matt Taibbi for one, have argued that [the] Wall Street-Congress conniving undermined much of the force of the reform from the start. What do you think were the real factors behind the 2008 financial crisis?

The immediate cause of the crisis was the housing bubble, based substantially on very risky subprime mortgage loans along with exotic financial instruments devised to distribute risk, reaching such complexity that few understand who owes what to whom. The more fundamental reasons have to do with basic market inefficiencies.

If you and I agree on some transaction (say, you sell me a car), we may make a good bargain for ourselves, but we do not take into account the effect on others (pollution, traffic congestion, increase in price of gas, etc.). These “externalities,” so called, can be very large. In the case of financial institutions, the effect is to underprice risk by ignoring “systemic risk.” Thus if Goldman Sachs lends money, it will, if well-managed, take into account the potential risk to itself if the borrower cannot pay, but not the risk to the financial system as a whole. The result is that risk is underpriced. There is too much risk for a sound economy. That can, in principle, be controlled by sound regulation, but financialization of the economy has been accompanied by deregulation mania, based on theological notions of “efficient markets” and “rational choice.” Interestingly enough, several of the people who had primary responsibility for these destructive policies were chosen as Obama’s leading economic policy advisers (Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and others) during his first term in the White House.

Alan Greenspan, the great hero of a few years ago, eventually conceded quietly that he did not understand how markets work — which is quite remarkable. There are also other devices that lead to underpricing risk.

Government rules on corporate governance provide perverse incentives: CEOs are highly rewarded for taking short-term risks, and can leave the ruins to someone else, floating away on their “golden parachutes,” when collapse comes. And there is much more. Didn’t the 2008 financial crisis reveal once again that capitalism is a parasitic system? It is worth bearing in mind that “really existing capitalism” is remote from capitalism — at least in the rich and powerful countries.

Thus in the US, the advanced economy relies crucially on the dynamic state sector to socialize cost and risk while privatizing eventual profit — and “eventual” can be a long time: In the case of the core of the modern high-tech economy, computers and the internet, it was decades. There is much more mythology that has to be dismantled if the questions are to be seriously posed. Existing state-capitalist economies are indeed “parasitic” on the public, in the manner indicated, and others: bailouts (which are very common, in the industrial system as well), highly protectionist “trade” measures that guarantee monopoly pricing rights to state-subsidized corporations, and many other devices. During his first term as president, you admitted that Obama faced an exceptionally hostile crowd in Capitol Hill, which of course remained hostile throughout his two terms. Be that as it may, was Obama ever a real reformer or was he more of a public manipulator who used popular political rhetoric to sideline the progressive mood of the country in an era of great inequality and mass discontent over the future of the USA?

Obama had congressional support for his first two years in office, the time when most presidential initiatives are introduced. I never saw any indication that he intended substantive progressive steps. I wrote about him before the 2008 primaries, relying on the webpage in which he presented himself as a candidate.

I was singularly unimpressed, to put it very mildly. Actually, I was shocked, for the reasons I discussed. Consider what Obama and his supporters regard as his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act. At first, a public option (effectively, national health care) was dangled. It had almost two-thirds popular support.

It was dropped without apparent consideration. The outlandish legislation barring the government from negotiating drug prices was opposed by some 85 percent of the population, but was kept with little discussion. The Act is an improvement on the existing international scandal, but not by much, and with fundamental flaws.

Consider nuclear weapons. Obama had some nice things to say — nice enough to win the Nobel Peace Prize. There has been some progress, but it has been slight and current moves are in the wrong direction. In general: much smooth rhetoric, some positive steps, some regression, overall not a very impressive record. That seems to me a fair assessment, even putting aside the quite extraordinary stance of the Republican party, which made it clear right after Obama’s election that they were, substantially, a one-issue party: prevent the president from doing anything, no matter what happens to the country and the world. It is difficult to find analogues among industrial democracies. Small wonder that the most respected conservative political analysts (such as Thomas Mann or Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute) refer to the party as a “radical insurgency” that has abandoned normal parliamentary politics.

In the foreign policy realm, Obama claimed to strive for a new era in the US, away from the militarism of his predecessor and towards respect for international law and active diplomacy. How would you judge US foreign and military strategy under the Obama administration? He has been more reluctant to engage troops on the ground than some of his predecessors and advisers, and instead has rapidly escalated special operations and his global assassination (drone) campaign, a moral disaster and arguably illegal as well [on the latter matter, see Mary Ellen O’Connell, American Journal of International Law volume 109, 2015, 889f].

On other fronts, it is a mixed story. Obama has continued to bar a nuclear weapons-free (technically, WMD-free) zone in the Middle East, evidently motivated by the need to protect Israeli nuclear weapons from scrutiny. By so doing, he is endangering the Nonproliferation Treaty, the most important disarmament treaty, which is contingent on establishing such a zone. He is dangerously escalating tensions along the Russian border, extending earlier policies.

His trillion-dollar program for modernizing the nuclear weapons system is the opposite of what should be done. The investor-rights agreements (called “free trade agreements”) are likely to be generally harmful to populations, [and] beneficial to the corporate sector. Sensibly, he bowed to strong hemispheric pressures and took steps towards normalization of relations with Cuba.

These and other moves amount to a mixed story, ranging from criminal to moderate improvement. Looking at the state of the US economy, one can easily argue that the effects of the financial crisis of 2007-08 are not only still around, but that we have in place a set of policies which continue to suppress the standard of living for the working population and produce immense economic insecurity. Is this because of neoliberalism and the peculiarities of the nature of the US economy, or are there global and systemic forces at play such as the free movement of capital, automation and the end of industrialization? The neoliberal assault on the population remains intact, though less so in the US than in Europe. Automation is not a major factor, and industrialization isn’t ending, just being off-shored. Financialization has of course exploded during the neoliberal period, and the general policies, pretty much global in character, are designed to enhance private and corporate power.

That sets off a vicious cycle in which concentration of wealth leads to concentration of political power, which in turn yields legislation and administrative practices that carry the process forward. There are countervailing forces, and they might become more powerful.

The potential is there, as we can see from the Sanders campaign and even the Trump campaign, if the white working class to which Trump appeals can become organized to focus on their real interests instead of being in thrall to their class enemy. To the extent that Trump’s programs are coherent, they fall into the same general category of those of Paul Ryan, who has granted us the kindness of spelling them out: increase spending on the military (already more than half of discretionary spending and almost as much as the rest of the world combined), and cut back taxes, mainly on the rich, with no new revenue sources. In brief, nothing much is left for any government program that might be of benefit to the general population and the world. Trump produces so many arbitrary and often self-contradictory pronouncements that it isn’t easy to attribute to him a program, but he regularly keeps within this range — which, incidentally, means that his claims about supporting Social Security and Medicare are worthless. Since the white working class cannot be mobilized to support the class enemy on the basis of their actual programs, the “radical insurgency” called “the Republican Party” appeals to its constituency on what are called “social-cultural issues”: religion, fear, racism, nationalism. The appeals are facilitated by the abandonment of the white working class by the Democratic Party, which offers them very little but “more of the same”. It is then facile for the liberal professional classes to accuse the white working class of racism and other such sins, though a closer look often reveals that the manifestations of [this] deep-rooted sickness of the society are simply taking different forms among various sectors.

Obama’s charisma and undoubtedly unique rhetorical skills were critical elements in his struggle to rise to power, while Donald Trump is an extrovert who seeks to project the image of a powerful personality who knows how to get things done even if he relies on the use of banalities to create the image he was to create about himself as a future leader of a country. Do personalities really matter in politics, especially in our own era? I am very much down on charismatic leaders, and as for strong ones, [it] depends on what they are working for. The best, in our own kind of societies, I think, are the FDR types, who react to, are sympathetic to and encourage popular movements for significant reform. Sometimes, at least. And politicians to be elected to a national office have to be pretty good actors, right? Electoral campaigns, especially in the US, are being run by the advertising industry.

The 2008 political campaign of Barack Obama was voted by the advertising industry as the best marketing campaign of the year. Obama’s last State of the Union address had all the rhetoric of someone running for president, not someone who has been in office for more than seven years. What do you make of this — Obama’s vision of how the country should be and function eight to 10 years from now?

He spoke as if he had not been elected eight years ago. Obama had plenty of opportunities to change the course of the country. Even his “signature” achievement, the reform of the health care system, is a watered-down version, as I pointed out earlier. Despite the huge propaganda assault denouncing government involvement in health care, and the extremely limited articulate response, a majority of the population (and a huge majority of Democrats) still favor national health care, Obama didn’t even try, even when he had congressional support.

You have argued that nuclear weapons and climate change represent the two biggest threats facing humankind. In your view, is climate change a direct effect of capitalism, the view taken by someone like Naomi Klein, or related to humanity and progress in general, a view embraced by the British philosopher John Gray?

Geologists divide planetary history into eras. The Pleistocene lasted millions of years, followed by the Holocene, which began at about the time of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago and recently the Anthropocene, corresponding to the era of industrialization. What we call “capitalism,” in practice various varieties of state-capitalism, tends in part to keep to market principles that ignore non-market factors in transactions: so-called externalities, the cost to Tom if Bill and Harry make a transaction. That is always a serious problem, like systemic risk in the financial system, in which case the taxpayer is called upon to patch up the “market failures.” Another externality is destruction of the environment — but in this case the taxpayer cannot step in to restore the system.

It’s not a matter of “humanity and progress,” but rather of a particular form of social and economic development, which need not be specifically capitalist; the authoritarian Russian statist (not socialist) system was even worse. There are important steps that can be taken within existing systems (carbon tax, alternative energy, conservation, etc.), and they should be pursued as much as possible, along with efforts to reconstruct society and culture to serve human needs rather than power and profit. What do you think of certain geoengineering undertakings to clean up the environment, such as the use of carbon negative technologies to suck carbon from the air? These undertakings have to be evaluated with great care, paying attention to issues ranging from narrowly technical ones to large-scale societal and environmental impacts that could be quite complex and poorly understood.

Sucking carbon from the air is done all the time — planting forests — and can presumably be carried considerably further to good effect, but I don’t have the special knowledge required to provide definite answers. Other more exotic proposals have to be considered on their own merits — and with due caution. Some major oil-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, are in the process of diversifying their economies, apparently fully aware of the fact that the fossil fuel era will soon be over. In the light of this development, wouldn’t US foreign policy toward the Middle East take a radically new turn once oil has ceased being the previous commodity that it has been up to now? Saudi Arabian leaders are talking about this much too late.

These plans should have been undertaken seriously decades ago. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states may become uninhabitable in the not-very-distant future if current tendencies persist. In the bitterest of ironies, they have been surviving on the poison they produce that will destroy them — a comment that holds for all of us, even if less directly. How serious the plans are is not very clear. There are many skeptics.

One Twitter comment is that they split the electricity ministry and the water ministries for fear of electrocution. That captures much of the general sentiment. It would be good to be surprised. Here are some controversial facts we’ve learned from emails addressed to and sent by US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Revelation 1: Google and Al-Jazeera interfered in the Syrian events and collaborated with each other in an attempt to overthrow Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad.

According to an email from the head of “Google Ideas” Jared Cohen, received by the US State Department in 2012, the company was trying to support insurgents by urging representatives of Syrian power structures to take the side of the opposition. “Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria,” Cohen wrote in the e-mail. Revelation 2: Following the 2011 Libyan intervention, France decided to seize the country’s oil industry and “reassert itself as a military power”.

An e-mail on the issue was written by Clinton family friend Sidney Blumenthal. He wrote that France was trying to establish control over Libyan oil immediately after the coup in 2011. Moreover, France was exerting pressure on the new Libyan government and demanding exclusive rights to 35% of the country’s oil industry in exchange for political support.

“In return for this assistance, the DGSE officers indicated that they expected the new government of Libya to favor French firms and national interests, particularly regarding the oil industry in Libya,” the email said. Revelation 3: The US tried to conceal the fact that it helped Turkey to fight the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. An email addressed to Clinton said that the US government tried to exert pressure on the Washington Post to amend an article on cooperation between American and Turkish intelligence in the fight against Kurdish rebels. “Despite our efforts, WaPo will proceed with its story on US-Turkey intel cooperation against PKK,” the message said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. “They will not make redactions we requested so expect the Wikileaks cables to be published in full.” Revelation 4: The last revelation is more of a personal nature and concerns Clinton’s poor knowledge of modern technology.

Thus, her email correspondence shows that she frequently needed assistance with daily activities such as faxing, charging her iPad or searching for a Wi-Fi network. Italian military analyst Manlio Dinucci explains what he believes is the biggest danger emanating from the US deployment of its missile defense network in Romania and Poland. NATO officials’ explanations aside, everyone,, seems to understand perfectly well that the US’s shiny new Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Deveselu, Romania, and the one being built in Redzikowo, Poland are directed against Russia. And the reason, Il Manifesto military analyst Manlio Dinucci, is not because the system threatens to intercept Russian ICBMs and put the nuclear balance of power in jeopardy.

“The reality,” he writes, “is much worse.” In the course of his meeting with leaders from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway in Washington last week, President Obama reiterated his “about Russia’s growing aggressive military presence and posture in the Baltic-Nordic region,” and reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to collective defense in Europe. “This commitment,” Dinucci recalls, “was demonstrated a day earlier at Romania’s Deveselu air base in the form of the inauguration of the US Aegis Ashore land-based missile defense system.”. “In this way,” he warns, “Europe is reverting to the climate of the Cold War, to the advantage of the US, which can use such a climate to increase their influence on their European allies. It’s no coincidence that at the meeting in Washington, Obama highlighted the ‘European consensus’ on maintaining sanctions against Russia, and praised Denmark, Finland, and Sweden and their ‘strong support’ for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which the US wants to sign by the end of the year.” It turns out “that the Lockheed Martin launchers also contain a TTIP missile,” Dinucci concludes. Senators who are 83 ignoramuses and their letter is a disgrace. Israel of all countries?

Military assistance of all needs? Increasing military aid won’t add one iota of security to Israel, which is armed to the teeth. It will harm Israel. Those 83 out of 100 senators base their extraordinary demand on “Israel’s dramatically rising defense challenges.” What are they talking about?

What “rising challenges”? The rise in the use of kitchen knives as a deal-breaking weapon in the Middle East? The challenge for one of the world’s strongest armies to survive against young girls brandishing scissors? Hamas’ tunnels in the sand? Hezbollah, which is bleeding in Syria? Iran, which has taken a new path? It’s time they expanded their narrow view and reduced the enormous aid they shower on Israel’s arms industry – one of the world’s largest weapons exporters – and its army.

The United States is allowed, of course, to waste its money as it sees fit. But one may ask, senators, if it makes sense to invest more fantastic sums to arm a military power when tens of millions of Americans still have no health insurance and your senate is tightening its purse strings despite the challenges of climate change. A world power is arming a regional power as part of a corrupt, rotten deal. Your money, senators, is largely being spent on maintaining a brutal, illegal occupation that your country claims to oppose – but finances.

The weapons you provide are for a brazen state that dares defy America more than any of its allies does. It ignores America’s advice and even humiliates its president. It gets twice the aid you give Egypt, an ally that needs the money much more.

It’s three times more than you give Afghanistan, which is devastated in part because of you. It’s almost four times more than you give Jordan, which is in a precarious state due to refugees and the Islamic State.

To Vietnam, which you destroyed, you gave $121 million, and to Laos, which you ruined, $15 million. Impoverished Liberia received $156 million and awakening, liberated South Africa $490 million. But for Israel, even $3 billion a year isn’t enough.

It gets more than any other country in the world yet insists on $4 billion, not a cent less, including an unconditional commitment for a decade. If you’ve already decided to pour such huge sums on Israel, why on its army of all things?

Have you seen what its hospitals look like? And if you’re financing weapons, why not condition it on the only democracy in the region’s appropriate behavior? What do you have over there in the world’s most important legislature? An automatic signing machine for letters supporting Israel? An ATM for the Jewish lobby’s every whim? Only 17 of 100 senators were courageous enough, or bothered to think for a moment, before they signed another scandalous venture by AIPAC and the Israeli Embassy. More money to arm Israel will end in blood.

It must end in blood. There are old weapons that must be used and new weapons that must be tried (and then sold to Azerbaijan and Ivory Coast). This destructive, murderous force will fall again on devastated houses in Gaza, and America will finance it all once again. The money will also corrupt Israel. If this is the prize for its refusal to make peace and its flouting of international law, why shouldn’t it behave this way?

Uncle Sam will pay. The senators who signed the letter didn’t act for either their country’s good or Israel’s. It’s doubtful whether they know what they signed. It’s doubtful whether they know what the real situation is. Maybe among them are people of conscience or people familiar with their country’s national interests. But the blood money will serve neither those interests nor morality. Media and military experts have engaged in a discussion of the US military concept of a Prompt Global Strike (PGS), a system that would enable Washington to deliver precision-guided non-nuclear airstrikes anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

Defense analyst Konstantin Sivkov discusses the idea, and Russia’s inevitable response. In his, published by the independent online newspaper Svobodnaya Pressa, Sivkov begins by recalling that the general media and expert appraisal of the concept is that it would be a danger to the entire world, if ever implemented. “Generalizing the appraisals of the Prompt Global Strike program, it emerges that this is an extremely dangerous idea that would become a deadly threat for almost all nations. At the core of this idea is the assertion that precision conventional weapons can be comparable in their destructive power to nuclear weapons. Accordingly, their massed use against Washington’s foes could bring them to their knees.” “But is this really the case?” Sivkov asks. “What is behind the concept of the Prompt Global Strike, and is it really possible to bomb an enemy into capitulation?

How serious a threat is this concept with regard to its possible use against Russia?” At its core, the doctor of military sciences recalls, the concept “involves the creation of a complete combat system, and apart from the strike component also requires subsystems including reconnaissance and surveillance, command and communications posts, as well as jamming systems.” “The weapons used under this concept would include land- and sea-based ballistic missiles, as well as sea- and air-launched hypersonic long-range cruise missiles. In the long term, space-based platforms can also be used to launch attacks.” Sivkov notes that ballistic missiles are currently the most likely candidate to meet the requirements laid out by the concept of the Prompt Global Strike.

“They provide for the high-precision destruction of targets (with a CEP accuracy of 100-150 meters), a short delivery time (no more than 30-40 minutes), and high speed of the warhead in the target area, allowing them to destroy objects buried deep underground. The United States is about to activate its missile systems across Europe, despite Russia’s warnings against a systematically increasing US-led arms deployment near its borders. Almost after a decade of pledging to protect members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Washington will on Thursday activate a web of missile systems it has deployed across Europe over the years. American and NATO officials are slated to declare operational the so-called shield at a remote air base in Deveselu, Romania. “We now have the capability to protect NATO in Europe,” said Robert Bell, a NATO-based envoy of US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

He claimed that the shield is supposed to protect Europe from an Iranian missile threat, a claim Moscow has repeatedly rejected, saying the missiles are aimed at Russia instead. “The Iranians are increasing their capabilities and we have to be ahead of that.

The system is not aimed against Russia,” Bell told reporters, adding that the system will soon be handed over to NATO command. The US Aegis Ashore missile complex, Romania He echoed US State Department spokesman John Kirby who had said the system “is defensive in nature” and therefore can’t be targeted “at anybody.” Despite American assurances, Moscow accuses Washington of trying to neutralize its nuclear arsenal and buy enough time to make a first strike on Russia in the event of war. Russia’s response General Sergey Karakayev, commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (SMF), downplayed the system’s impact, saying that the Russian military was paying “special attention” to enhance their weapons and overcome US missile defense systems.

“Threats from the European segment of the missile defense system for the Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) are limited and don’t critically reduce the combat capabilities of the SMF,” Karakayev (pictured below) said on Tuesday. The general added that Russian ballistic missiles can carry new warheads and deliver them through energy-optimal trajectories in multiple directions, making their path difficult to predict for missile defense systems. During a Senate hearing in April, US Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Brian McKeon, requested a budget boost for the Missile Defense Agency, saying the funding was crucial for upgrading US missile systems to counter Russian and Chinese missiles.

Russia does not look favorably upon the North Atlantic Organization Treaty (NATO)’s growing deployment of missiles and nuclear weapons near its borders, with the Russian President Vladimir Putin saying in June last year that if threatened by NATO, Moscow will respond to the threat accordingly.