Trump outsources U.S. foreign policy to Israel By The Wayne Madsen Report

Trump outsources U.S. foreign policy to Israel

By The Wayne Madsen Report

The signs that Donald Trump planned to allow Israel to largely call the shots on U.S. foreign policy have been evident since he named ultra-Zionist New York bankruptcy attorney David Friedman, formerly with the Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman law firm, as his ambassador to Israel and son-in-law Jared Kushner as his "special advisor on Middle East peace." Israel's control over Trump's foreign policy, especially on Middle East issues, has manifested itself in several ways.

Friedman altered long-standing U.S. Middle Eastern policy by stating to an Israeli audience that "they [the Israelis] are only occupying 2 percent of the West Bank," adding that, “settlements there are part of the Jewish state proper." Since invading the West Bank in 1967, Israel has taken over 42 percent of Palestinian land, a violation of 27 United Nations Security Council resolutions. Although Trump vowed to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the mere call for such action is a violation of UN General Assembly resolution 181, which calls for Jerusalem to be a "corpus separatum," an international city governed under the auspices of the UN. Israel cites ancient mythological Jewish texts, not recognizable under international law, as the basis for its occupation of east Jerusalem and West Bank territories.

In a span of two days, Trump carried out two act that were not in America’s interest but had been pushed by Netanyahu. These were the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), because Trump viewed it as overly anti-Israeli, and Trump’s official decertification of the P5+1’s (United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, and Germany) Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program. Netanyahu was brimming with joy at the decertification of the JCPOA and followed Trump's action on UNESCO by withdrawing Israel from the organization.

On a visit to Ramallah in May, Trump reportedly screamed at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting attended by U.S. and Palestinian officials. Trump accused Abbas of lying to him during a previous meeting at the White House. Trump yelled at Abbas, "You tricked me in DC! You talked there about your commitment to peace, but the Israelis showed me your involvement in incitement [against Israel]." The Israelis know they have Trump in their hip pocket. Trump's support for the Saudi-led sanctions against Qatar were not only supported by Israel but the entire underpinning for the sanctions -- a false Qatar News Agency report of Qatar's emir criticizing the Saudis to the Iranians -- was fabricated in a hacking operation of the agency's computer network in Doha. The hacking of the news agency and placement of a fake news story was designed by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi --  an Israeli lackey and business partner of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's brother, Blackwater founder Erik Prince -- and the Israeli influence-peddling organization in Washington, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Several of Trump's foreign-born business partners and real estate investors who are now being scrutinized by Justice Department counsel Robert Mueller are active in criminal syndicates in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, and Poland. These business partners are also strong promoters of Israel and lead several Zionist organizations in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and central Asia. One of these partners, Beny Steinmetz, the Israeli diamond, mining, and real estate magnate, is under criminal indictment in Israel for money laundering and bribery.

Among Trump's top political campaign donors are such Zionist supporters of Israel as casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, who backs Netanyahu's government, and Paul Singer, the Wall Street hedge fund vulture who preys on faltering economies like those of Puerto Rico, Argentina, and countries in Africa.

Encouraging Trump's rabidly pro-Zionist and pro-Israel agenda is, ironically, the alt-right. The person who coined the alt-right phrase, neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer, considers himself a "white Zionist," even though he uses Nazi-like "Heil Trump" salutes at his white supremacist gatherings. Spencer's longtime friend, Stephen Miller, an outspoken Jewish Zionist, ensures that Trump uses white nationalist "dog whistle" phrases and jargon in his speeches. Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, who has returned to Breitbart News, is also known to support Zionist causes even though his ex-wife said he didn't want their children going to certain schools because there were too many Jewish students in attendance.

Netanyahu is more than comfortable with Trump's ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The Israeli Prime Minister refrained from criticizing Trump's comment that there were "fine people" marching in the neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan parade in Charlottesville, Virginia. Netanyahu has made common cause with various far-right and formerly neo-Nazi political parties in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Poland. Netanyahu has actually broken with Jewish groups that have publicly condemned the events in Charlottesville and Spencer's organization.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is known to be fuming over the ardently pro-Israeli activities of Kushner, Friedman, and U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Although Friedman and Haley report to Tillerson, both diplomats appear to have another chain-of-command, one that leads directly to Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, a convert to Orthodox Judaism, in the West Wing.

Intelligence sharing brouhaha has more to do with protecting Israel By The Wayne Madsen Report

Intelligence sharing brouhaha has more to do with protecting Israel

By The Wayne Madsen Report
Official Washington was all aflutter in the late afternoon of May 15 with news that President Trump shared "highly-sensitive" intelligence from a "close Middle East ally" with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak.

The National Security Council and other White House staff requested The Washington Post, New York Times, and other press outlets not to provide details of the intelligence Trump is said to have shared with his Russian visitors.

However, in a tweet sent on May 16, Trump wrote: ""As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

What was learned was that Israel provided the United States with intelligence on a planned terrorist attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The U.S. Intelligence Community then slapped the intelligence with a sensitive compartmented intelligence code word, restricting it from wide access within the intelligence community.

Details of the ISIL terror plan had already leaked out and it was pretty much in plain sight. Apparently, the Israelis had a mole inside an ISIL bomb making unit located in a Syrian town still occupied by the terrorist group. The Israeli agent reported that he had witnessed ISIL constructing bombs in laptop computers. That intelligence was used as justification by the Trump administration to order the Transportation Security Administration to ban laptop computers from passenger cabins on flight to the United States originating from specific Middle Eastern airports. That ban has now been extended to U.S.-bound flights from Europe. Passengers with laptops are required to check them with their baggage.


The top secret intelligence Trump shared with Russians was about bombs in laptops.

In 2015, ISIL placed an online advertisement looking for bomb makers to travel to Syria and join the group. The advert was run by British ISIL operative Abu Sa’eed Al-Britani, whose actual name is Omar Hussain. It is ISIL-related online items like these that are "discovered" by the Israeli intelligence-linked Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), which is run from Washington, DC, and run as "news" by the major media.

Israel and its supporters in the United States are livid about Trump sharing the intelligence with the Russians. National security adviser H. R. McMaster and his deputy Dina Powell are insisting the report about Trump blabbing to the Russians is not true. Yet, they also asked the media not to publish details about the story.

The reason for Israel's and its supporters' angst about the intelligence disclosure is that this is yet another example of Israel's rather close relationship with ISIL, a group that has murdered Americans; Middle East Christians, Shi'as, Alawites, moderate Sunnis, and Yazidis; and nationals of American allies. The fact that Israeli intelligence could place an informant so close to an ISIL bomb making operation is testimony to the Israel-ISIL relationship.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that last November, ISIL "apologized" to the Israeli Defense Force after an ISIL unit exchanged fire with the IDF "by mistake." The Israelis are reticent about reporting cases of "friendly fire" between its military and ISIL.

Although it is not known in what Syrian town the laptop bomb making factory is located, it is reasonable to believe that it is close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in southwestern Syria. Wounded ISIL fighters have been transported to Israel over the 1974 Syria-Israel cease fire "Disengagement Line" in the Golan region for medical treatment and the Golan-Syria "border" has served as a practical meeting point between the Israelis and the Islamic State. Israeli logistics aid, including ISIL flags, has also been supplied to ISIL by the Israelis across the Golan armistice line. The Israeli-ISIL cooperation in Golan makes it a much easier location from which to slip Mossad agents into ISIL ranks.

As for Russia learning about the Israeli intelligence on ISIL, they likely already knew about it. The relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin is much closer than that between Putin and Trump. Since Russian airlines fly numerous routes to the Middle East, including Israel, it is inconceivable that Israel had not already informed Moscow about the laptop bomb plot. 

The Unites States Navy most decorated ship (in a single action) by Miko Peled

The Unites States Navy most decorated ship (in a single action)

Part 1: The attack on the USS Liberty, forty-eight years later

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I asked my daughter Tali if she would like to spend Memorial Day this year doing something significant. She is thirteen and even though there are two more weeks of school, Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer. So the weekend is always spent doing fun things, being outdoors with friends, and rarely if ever doing anything that signifies what Memorial Day is about.

“What kind of thing? Are you giving a lecture somewhere?”

“Yes and no,” I replied, “come read this.”

I let her read a message I received from Ronald Kukal, who was the first class petty officer on the USS Liberty, a US navy ship that was attacked and destroyed by the Israeli military on June 8, 1967. Ron is one of the Liberty survivors.

Tali read the message carefully, then looked at me and said:

“Dad, we have to go to this!”

“This” was a Memorial Day in event Maricopa, Arizona in the heart of the Arizona desert, commemorating the USS Liberty.

The USS Liberty is the most decorated ship in the US Navy for a single action, though it was not engaged in battle, in fact being an intelligence gathering ship, it had no battle capabilities and was only armed with 4 fifty caliber machine guns to ward off unwanted boarders. The crew were awarded, collectively, one Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, eleven Silver Stars, twenty Bronze Stars (with “V” on it for valor), nine Navy Commendation Medals, and two hundred and four Purple Hearts. The ship was also awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. But all the survivors were ordered never to speak of what they had experienced. It took many years and a great deal of suffering before the survivors reached the point where they felt they could no longer keep in inside and had to speak up.

On the morning of June 8, 1967, in the midst of a war that Israel had initiated just a few days earlier - and was clearly winning - against Egypt, Syria and Jordan - the USS Liberty was about 17 miles off the Gaza coast, in international waters. For several hours throughout that day Israeli air force reconnaissance planes had been flying over the Liberty, in what seemed like attempts to identify it. The crew felt no threat – quite the opposite, Israel was a US ally. During one recorded debriefing a naval observer from the reconnaissance flight arrived at Israeli air force HQ and sat down with the air-naval liaison officer there. The two officers consulted Janes’ Fighting Ships and learned that the ship they saw earlier in the day was the USS Liberty, a United States Navy technical research ship. [1]

Then, at 1400 hours, (2:00 PM local time) without any warning, Israeli fighter jets launched an attack on USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, attacking with rockets and internal cannons. After the first group of fighter jets had exhausted their ammunition, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter jets continued to attack with rockets, cannon fire, and even napalm. The use of napalm is significant because it is made of a toxic, flammable combination of gel and petroleum that sticks to the skin and causes severe burns. Eight men died as a result of the air attack and the shrapnel and shock of exploding rockets had wounded 75 men.

After the Israeli jets completed their attacks, Israeli torpedo boats began firing torpedoes, killing 26 more men. Survivors reported that the Israeli torpedo boat crews swept the decks of USS Liberty with continuous machine gun fire, targeting communications equipment and any crewmembers that ventured above decks. Survivor Glen Oliphant said, “I personally recall very clearly from my position outside the wardroom -- that the torpedo boats then circled the ship for a long time firing at close range at anything that moved. Men trying to aid their wounded shipmates on deck were fired upon. Men fighting fires were fired upon and I recall seeing their fire hoses punctured by machinegun fire. This went on for several minutes. At one point the boatmen concentrated their fire near the waterline amidships, presumably hoping to blow up the boilers to hasten our demise.” 
Although communication systems were severely damaged the crew somehow managed to get a distress signal to the Sixth Fleet command which then sent out aircraft to defend the Liberty. Shortly after the Sixth Fleet command transmitted an authorization for the rescue aircraft to destroy the attackers, the Israeli torpedo boats halted their attack. At the same time, the Israeli military notified the US Naval Attaché in Tel Aviv that Israeli forces had mistakenly attacked a United States Navy ship, and apologized. The commander of the Sixth Fleet received an order from Washington, DC to turn the rescue planes around. According to several sources the commander questioned the order which was then reiterated to him by President Johnson himself.

Israeli sources claim that Israeli helicopters flew over the Liberty after the attack and offered assistance but their offer was turned down. Several of the survivors mentioned that at one point after the attack an Israeli combat helicopter flew over with civilians which included the US Naval Attaché. A bag with a message for the captain was dropped from the hovering helicopter, which read: “Do you have any casualties?” At this point the ship was barely afloat, bullet ridden, with gaping holes as a result of the torpedo attacks and the blood and body parts of the dead and the wounded were everywhere. Two thirds of the crew had become casualties. According to the survivors, the Captain looked up at the chopper and gave them the finger. The ship and survivors were left to float in the Mediterranean, miraculously not capsizing, for 17 long hours before help arrived to rescue the survivors and take care of the wounded.

Ronald Kukal was first class Petty Officer on the Liberty, this is how he described to me the very moments after the torpedo attack, “I could hear shrapnel flying over my head, and little did I know that shrapnel was killing almost all my men down there.” Ron was also put in charge of body recovery and identification. This took place several days after the attack, which meant that the bodies, many of them in pieces, had been in the water for days. His very words to me were, “I went about the dismal job of picking up the pieces of a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. Can't put it any other way. Most of my shipmates couldn't stand the smell. I smelled nothing.” For many years the survivors were forced to remain silent and the US government and the press said little about the attack.

In his message to me, a message that convinced my daughter to join me on this long road trip from San Diego to Maricopa, rather than stay in town and spend the weekend with friends, he writes:

“The men who survived the Liberty are slowly making their way out of this world, so to speak. This meeting in Maricopa is sort of a last effort on our part to keep the memory of the ship alive […] what our government is hoping for and always has, is the death of all of us, and then the matter will be over […] I don’t know how we have held together but we have. There is no hatred in this group, and really there never has been, we have only wanted justice. I doubt if we will get it.”

Endnote 

1. http://www.ussliberty.org/report/report.htm

 USS Liberty

WRITER

MIKO PELED

Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the US. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. His father was the late Israeli General Matti Peled. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative. He has written a book about his journey from the sphere of the privileged Israeli to that of the oppressed Palestinians. His book is titled “The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.” Peled speaks nationally and internationally on the issue of Palestine. Peled supports the creation of a single democratic state in all of Palestine, he is also a firm supporter of BDS.

ISIL selling human organs from its victims -- but to whom? by Wayne Madsen

 ISIL selling human organs from its victims -- but to whom?

by Wayne Madsen
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Alhakim has made a startling announcement: the bodies of victims of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been found by Iraqi authorities buried in mass graves and they show surgical incisions where kidneys and other body parts have been removed.

Alhakim also stated that a dozen doctors were executed by ISIL in Mosul for refusing to engage in organ harvesting. Outgoing UN envoy to Iraq Nikolay Mladenov confirmed there have been increasing reports of ISIL engaged in human organ harvesting but he would say no more on the subject. The reason is simple. Mladenov, the foreign minister of Bulgaria from 2010 to 2013, was, between 1996 and 1998, the program director of the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundation in Sofia. Thereafter, Mladenov took a job with the World Bank in Sofia. Discussing human organ harvesting in such trouble spots as the West Bank of Palestine and the Balkans is a political "death sentence" for many journalists and politicians, especially someone like Mladenov who once suckled from the bank account teats of Soros. The reason is simple: the global headquarters for human organ harvesting is Israel.

On February 22, 2008, WMR reported:

"Dr. Francis Delmonico is Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and practices transplant surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also the director of medical affairs for the Transplantation Society and an adviser on human transplantation for the World Health Organization (WHO) . . .
Delmonico said there were practical reasons to oppose the commercial marketing of human organs. They include the fact that current transplant resources are shifting away from younger people with 'longer life years from transplant' (LYFT) to older persons with limited longevity and that if a commercial market for kidneys takes shape the "market" will shift away from post-death donors of hearts, pancreas, lungs, and livers, thus impacting the altruistic donor population in favor of the commercial sales of kidneys market.

Delmonico decried the fact that Israel is outsourcing kidney and liver transplants to Colombia and the Philippines. Israel has, in the past, been a center for dubious human organ trafficking operations. It is also the case that Palestinian prisoners in Israel have sought to sell their kidneys to feed their children. The Israel Medical Association is opposing a bill that would allow the donors of certain organs to be reimbursed by the state. The group claims this will 'open the door' to organ sales."A year after our report, the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that Palestinian prisoners who died at the hands of Israeli troops had their organs harvested. The Swedish report was met with howls of "blood libel," "anti-Semitism," "hate speech," and other typical histrionics from Jewish groups around the world, which can always be expected to act on cues from their deep-pocketed financiers. Aftonbladet withstood the Jewish onslaught and stuck by its story. It was later vindicated when a 2000 interview with
Yehuda Hiss, then director of Israel's L. Greenberg Institute of Forensic Medicine, saw him admit that he had harvested organs from dead Palestinians in the 1990s and that the permission of the Palestinian families was never requested. The transplants began with corneas, expanded to skin, and then included kidneys and other organs.

Now comes the charges from Iraq's ambassador that ISIL is removing human organs from its victims. But who are the buyers? Given Israel's tacit support for Syrian rebels, including ISIL and groups like the Al Nusra Front that are allied with it, Israel is the likely customer for the Iraqi body parts in a quid pro quo that only a Dr. Frankenstein could admire. For a nation like Israel that is full of anti-Arab zealots and racists, that sort of animosity does not seem to extend, even under bizarrely antiquated Jewish religious laws, to placing Arab kidneys, livers, and pancreas into the bodies of Israeli Jews in need of organ transplants.


Are one or possibly two Israelis now sporting Kayla Mueller's kidney or kidneys, courtesy of ISIL?

Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and Mossad agents have been witnessed transferring weapons to ISIL units in Iraq's western Anbar province as well as in the area around Quneitra, near the Golan Heights of Syria. In addition, wounded Syrian rebels fighting the government of Bashar al Assad, have been medically evacuated across the Israeli border for treatment in Israeli hospitals. Many of these wounded rebels are either members of ISIL or sympathizers with Al Nusra. In return for Israeli support, ISIL never trains its long-range weapons at Israeli positions but keep them focused on Syrian government forces.  There have also been credible reports that Mossad and the IDF have supplied ISIL with intelligence on Lebanese Hezbollah units in Syria in order that the jihadist radicals launch attacks on the Shi'a Lebanese positions. In fact, ISIL religious dogma instructs its followers that the Shi'as are worse enemies of ISIL than are Jews. U.S. intelligence sources claim that American sources, mostly signals intelligence intercepts of Israeli government communications [carried out by the National Security Agency "special Arabic" linguists, named as such because NSA does not want Jewish members of Congress criticizing it for eavesdropping on Hebrew language communications] have yielded information on Israel's grand design to assist ISIL in Syria in order to destroy Hezbollah.Abdul-Ilah al-Bashir al-Noeimi, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) of the Free Syrian Army, which has refused to expel Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, or ISIL members from its ranks, secretly trained in Israel in 2013 under the guise of his being admitted to thec ountry to undergo medical treatment for wounds he is alleged to have received in Syria.

On a visit to South Africa, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said that it was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel that provided support to ISIL and Boko Haram. Bashir told Euronews: "I said CIA and the Mossad stand behind these organizations [ISIL and Boko Haram] . . . There is no Muslim who would carry out such acts." Bashir's information on Israeli support for ISIL is complemented by a number of Syrian military statements confirming the Jewish state's support for takfiri radicals, including ISIL, fighting in Syria. Israel has also refused repeated Jordanian requests for the IDF to attack ISIL positions in Syria.

Bashir is adding his voice to those who claim that ISIL is not even Muslim but a death cult crafted by Western and Israeli intelligence to split apart the Arab and Muslim worlds so that Israel can take advantage of the chaos.

Some right-wing American Jews insist that the Obama administration uses the term "ISIL" in reference to the Islamic State because the administration covertly wants to stress the similarities of the names "ISIL" and "ISRAEL." If so, the Obama administration deserves much credit for subliminally telling the world who and what is actually behind the rise of ISIL.

ISIL now stands ready to supply Israel with a commodity more precious to Israelis than diamonds or gold: fresh human organs from prisoners executed by ISIL.

So, for the members of the U.S. Congress who will continue to travel to Israel to pay fealty to the Zionist state, remember one thing. One of those Israelis you meet who is all for colonizing the West Bank and who relish in Arab on Arab violence may have inside them the kidney of Kayla Mueller, the U.S. aid worker in Syria kidnapped by ISIL and who also helped the Palestinians in the West Bank, or a liver from an Egyptian Copt executed on a beach in Libya. Think about that before you enjoy your free buffet of kreplach, kneidlach, and kishka.

NSA and Israel targeted Lebanese leaders by Wayne Madsen

NSA and Israel targeted Lebanese leaders

by Wayne Madsen
For years the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU), also known as Unit 8200, which is a Third Party partner of the U.S. National Security Agency, has maintained a massive communications surveillance operation against Lebanon. Of particular interest to ISNU is the highly-advanced fiber optics network installed by Lebanese Hezbollah for its own operations. WMR has learned that in some cases, the Lebanese government has used the Hezbollah network because is affords more security against Israeli eavesdropping than official Lebanese government networks.

The latest release of classified NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden reveal that NSA's Information Technology Directorate (ITD) has maintained a surveillance operation against Lebanese communications since at least 2007. Although the latest released information does not specifically state that Israel receives intercepted signals intelligence gathered by ITD and NSA Georgia from Lebanon, a previously-released NSA-ISNU memorandum of understanding (MOU) states that ISNU is provided "raw SIGINT data (i..e., signals intelligence information that has not been reviewed for foreign intelligence purposes or minimized)."

In January 2007, NSA Georgia at Fort Gordon, Georgia maintained surveillance of Lebanon's leadership, including the "Ministry of Interior, Parliament Members, and Presidential Palace." Also targeted were the former commander of the Common Border Force. Lebanon is the only country in the world with an agency called the "Common Border Force." The presidents of Lebanon at the time of the surveillance were Emile Lahoud and acting president Fouad Siniora, who was previously prime minister. The Interior Ministers was Hassan Sabeh. The prime minister until 2005 was Najib Mikati.
  
Targeted by NSA acting in concert with Israel: President Emile Lahoud [left], Prime Minister and President Fouad Siniora [center], and Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh [right].
According to the United Nations, the Lebanese Common Border Force was "established by the Lebanese Council of Ministers on 28 July 2007, within the context of a pilot project led by Germany along Lebanon's northern border with the Syrian Arab Republic. Responsible for the surveillance and control of Lebanon's northern border with the Syrian Arab Republic to ensure that the passage of all goods is restricted to legal crossing points only, preventing the smuggling of weapons, ammunition and prohibited material through the establishment of permanent and mobile observation points. The Common Border Force brings together elements from the four principal security agencies responsible for border management and security, namely the Lebanese Armed Forces, the Internal Security Forces, General Security and Customs."

Other Lebanese military officers monitored by NSA Georgia were a colonel in the Information Technology (IT) Directorate, a general in the Medical Command, a general whose affiliation was unknown, an instructor colonel in the Army Staff and Command College, and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Defense Ministry.

Incredibly, NSA Georgia gave high priority to downloading from the Lebanese Defense Ministry a document on the Lebanese Armed Forces review of personnel issues regarding retirement, communications, and health care.



The most recent release of documents from NSA also includes one describing how GSM cellular equipment bound for the "Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE)" GSM network were implanted with a "beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction." The beacon, once in place, "called back" to the "NSA covert infrastructure." The call back enabled NSA to "further exploit the device and survey the network." This black bag work was carried out under the auspices of NSA's "Tailored Access Operations" or TAO.

TAO oversees an operation where shipments of computer network devices (servers, routers, etc.) are intercepted. Next, they are redirected to a secret location where TAO/Access Operations (NSA AO-S426), with the support of Remote Operations Center (S321), enable the installation of beacon implants directly into NSA's targets' electronic devices. Hard-target networks around the world provide pre-positioned access points for NSA eavesdropping.

On June 20, 2008, WMR reported: "A cable-based telecommunications system installed by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut was so elaborate, the Israelis could neither destroy it nor eavesdrop on it during Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon, according to an Egyptian intelligence source. It is being reported that the sophisticated Hezbollah system is now being extended to northern Lebanon. In addition to the Israelis, the US National Security Agency (NSA) is having trouble conducting surveillance on the Hezbollah system.


Is NSA doing Israel's dirty work in the Middle East?

. . . It is also believed that the January 2008 car bombing of Lebanese Internal Security Force Information Branch officer, Captain Wissam Eid, a noted communications engineer, may have been linked in some way to the Hezbollah communications network. Although the bombing was blamed on Hezbollah, Syria, Hezbollah's ally, was among the first to condemn Eid's assassination."

NSA, according to the Snowden release, managed to intercept communications on the Hezbollah cable communications system by bugging it with implanted Cisco routers and other devices.

Israel: Human Rights Abuser Writ Large by Stephen Lendman #JSIL

Israel: Human Rights Abuser Writ Large

by Stephen Lendman

Israeli policy is longstanding. Reflecting anti-Palestinian state terror. Institutionalized racism writ large. Vicious repression.

Brutalizing Muslims for not being Jews. Enforcing militarized occupation harshness. Denying Palestinians rights everyone deserves.

According to Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) director Jeff Halper:

"…(T)he 'Zionist answer' to the downward cycle of senseless violence in which Jerusalem finds itself" includes:

"house demolitions, mass arrests, revoking the 'residency' of native-born Jerusalemites, closing Palestinian neighborhoods with concrete blocks, arming Israeli Jewish vigilantes and cheap shots at the last person who believes in a two-state solution, Abu Mazen (Abbas)." 

"Everything, that is, except an end to occupation and a just political solution." 

"This is what happens when a powerful country forgoes any effort to address the grievances of a people under its control and descends into raw oppression."

Netanyahu lied. He's a serial liar. Everything he says lacks credibility. Big Lies substitute. Claiming Israel locked in "the grip of a terrorist onslaught." 

Palestinians face brutalizing Israeli state terror. Police state barbarism writ large. Provoking justifiable Palestinian anger.

Inciting violence. Able to boil over uncontrollably any time. Perhaps into a third intifada. Or pretext for Israeli all-out war on millions of Palestinians.

Risking carnage and displacement matching Israel's so-called War of Independence. Western leaders able to intervene responsibly turn a blind eye. Ignore Israel's worst crimes.

Palestinians isolated on their own. Defenseless against Israel's onslaught. Its killing machine.

Palestinian human rights group Al Haq reported PA forces abusing civilians. Instead of defending them against Israeli state terror.

Targeting peaceful protestors. Demonstrating against IDF and police brutality.

Longtime Israeli collaborator Mahmoud Abbas unleashing PA forces against his own people. Imad Addin Jamal Amro one of many victims.

After Friday, November 7 prayers. Accosting him. Beating him viciously. Until no longer able to stand. Preventing bystanders from helping him.

Arresting him. Beating him severely at Preventive Security headquarters. An officer shouting "die, die." Accusing him of offenses he didn't commit.

Al Haq expressing outrage. Citing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Articles 7, 9 and 14 prohibiting arbitrary arrests and mistreatment.

Article 19 affirming freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Without interference. Prohibiting coercing practices denying them.

Regardless of views. Respecting those of others. In writing, print or orally.

Article 20 prohibiting incitement, discrimination, hostility, violence, and state-sponsored propaganda for war.

Article 21 affirming the right of peaceful assembly. Prohibiting any restrictions.

Article 19 of Palestinian Basic Law affirming free expression rights. Mandating criminal punishment for violators.

Article 11 affirming personal freedom as a natural right. Article 13 stating "no person shall be subject to any duress or torture, and that detainees should receive proper treatment."

Israel violates ICCPR and other human rights laws unaccountably. So do PA forces against their own people. 

It bears repeating. Abbas is a longtime Israeli collaborator. Abusing his own people for special benefits he derives.

According to an unnamed PA source, he ordered no public discussions of Tuesday's synagogue attack.

Canceling media appearances. Issuing a statement following John Kerry saying:

"The Palestinian leadership must condemn this and they must begin to take serious steps to restrain any kind of incitement." 

Abbas then "condemn(ing) the killings of worshipers at the synagogue in Jerusalem and condemn(ing) acts of violence no matter their source."

Equating Tuesday's incident with terrorism. Ignoring Kerry saying:

"To have this kind of act, which is a pure result of incitement, of calls for 'days of rage,' of just irresponsibility, is unacceptable."

Kerry turning a blind eye to daily Israeli state terror. Brutalizing millions of Palestinians.

Murdering them. Torturing them. Including young children. 

Incarcerating thousands in gulag prison hell. Unaccountably. For demanding fundamental democratic freedoms.

Dominating Palestinians through repressive control. Kafkaesque and then some.

Physical control through land theft. Home demolitions. Settlements. Checkpoints. Ghettoization. Agricultural restrictions. 

Permit permission for virtually everything. Military zones. Jews only development. Resource theft.

Borders, air space and offshore waters control. Jews only public spaces. Separation Wall repression. Harassment and intimidation.

Diaspora Palestinians prevented from returning. Claiming Jerusalem as Israel's exclusive capital.

Gazans locked in the world's largest open-air prison. Bureaucratic/legal/militarized control. Including hundreds of restrictive policies. 

Covering virtual all aspects of Palestinian life. Imposing politically motivated conditions virtually impossible to live with. Including:

• allowable home and village construction; 

• building permit restrictions;

• home demolitions for any reason or none at all;

• land expropriation designated for Israeli "public purposes;"

• agricultural restrictions;

• crop destruction for violations;

• licensing and inspection of Palestinian businesses;

• closures anywhere, any time, for any reason; and

• movement and travel restrictions within and outside Israel and Occupied Territories.

Denying fundamental international law guaranteeing human and civil rights. Brazenly ignoring dozens of UN resolutions. Going back decades. 

Condemning or censuring Israeli lawlessness. Deploring its actions. Demanding state-sponsored repression end.

Israel flaunts rule of law principles with impunity. Arrogating to itself the right to do what it damn pleases.

Law or no law. Because Western leaders able to change things do nothing. Turning a blind eye to Israel's worst crimes. 

Washington partnering through military aid. Political support. Mindless of fundamental Palestinian rights. Horrific Israeli mistreatment.

Using violence. Other forms of repression for political, economic and social control. 

Flagrantly violating core international humanitarian and human rights laws. Police state harshness writ large.

In November alone, lawlessly arresting nearly 400 Palestinians. Including young children. In largely pre-dawn raids,

In West Bank and East Jerusalem communities. Around two dozen detained on Thursday alone. Collective punishment writ large. Mass arrests and detentions continue.

Following Operation Protective Edge. Premeditated naked aggression. Murdering over 2,200 Palestinians. Injuring about 11,000 more. 

Affecting hundreds of young children, women, the elderly and infirm. Unrelated to Hamas rockets. Or Israeli national security. 

Launched to prevent Palestinian self-determination. Maintain occupation harshness.

Continue Gaza's blockade. Sabotage Fatah/Hamas unity. Facilitate longstanding Israeli slow-motion genocide. 

Get away with mass murder and then some. Violate international law with impunity.

Academically lynched University of Illinois Professor Steven Salaita calling Israel the only nation able to murder hundreds of Palestinian children and claim victimization.

Western leaders able to make a difference turning a blind eye.

Horrific Palestinian suffering continues. 

Widespread Israeli crackdowns followed Tuesday's synagogue incident. Responding to longstanding Palestinian mistreatment. 

Especially vicious under Netanyahu. Exceeding the worst of Sharonian evil. 

Including extremist settler violence. Notably against children. At play. To and from school. Running errands for parents.

Targeting Palestinian communities. Farmers in fields. Committing vandalism. Mistreatment. At times murder. Unaccountably.

Israeli security forces able to intervene responsibly do nothing. Facilitating wrongdoing.

B'Tselem calling Israeli punitive home demolitions "fundamentally wrong." Ineffective. 

Contravening "basic moral standards." Punishing "people for the of misdeeds of others." Without just cause. Flagrantly violating human rights laws.

Following Tuesday's incident, Israeli security forces are everywhere. Harassing Palestinians. Intimidating them. 

Ignoring settler provocations. Helicopters and drones monitor things overhead. Police violence against Palestinian women in Jerusalem increased.

Dozens of children arrested. Brutally interrogated. Detained without just cause.

Tuesday's incident a pretext for escalated Israeli repression. Its ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, equating Palestinian resisters with Nazis. Terrorists.

Ignoring decades of occupation harshness. Longstanding Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. Slow-motion genocide.

Dermer outrageously suggesting Palestinians intend targeting America. Hamas no different from IS.

Neocon US Senator Ted Cruz (R. TX) expressing "unequivocal support as the Israeli people continue the fight against the terrorists who have declared war on both our nations."

CNN shamelessly giving him air time to express outlandish views. Other media scoundrels operating the same way.

Reporting one-sided views. Proliferating Big Lies. Burying hard truths. 

Ignoring Israeli high crimes. Vilifying Palestinians unjustly. Equating Tuesday's incident with terrorism. 

Indicting all Palestinians for crimes of the few. Turning a blind eye to Israel holding entire communities hostage. 

Collective punishment. State-sponsored terrorism.  Mindless of international law. Palestinians isolated on their own. Victimized for not being Jews.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

#JSIL - "Friends of Israel" dominate UK politics across the spectrum by Wayne Madsen

#JSIL

"Friends of Israel" dominate UK politics across the spectrumThe recent non-binding vote by the British House of Commons recognizing Palestinian statehood in a 274 to 12 vote was only a Pyrrhic victory for those opposed to Israel's attempt to annex the West Bank and obliterate Gaza. Half the members of the Commons, most of them Conservatives, were absent for the vote. The 270 members who voted for the bill, which Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would not implement by officially recognizing Palestinian statehood and establishing an embassy in Ramallah, largely represented the Labor and Liberal Democratic parties.

However, as WMR recently learned at the New Horizon conference in Tehran, all four major British parties -- the Conservatives, Labor, Liberal Democrats, and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) -- all have "Friends of Israel" caucuses. Although the UKIP is currently only represented in the Commons by one member -- Douglas Carswell -- before he switched from the Tories to the UKIP, he was a leading member of the Conservative's "Friends of Israel" caucus. With more UKIP members seen being elected to the Commons, it is certain that Carswell will be the catalyst to bring as many UKIP members as possible under the UKIP Friends of Israel umbrella. Ironically, the UKIP's bloc of Euro-skeptics in the European Parliament was saved as an entity by Robert Iwaszkiewicz, from Poland’s far-right KNP party. Iwaszkiewicz has publicly defended Adolf Hitler and doubts much of what has been reported about the Holocaust.

Some 80 percent of all MPs are members of either the Conservative, Labor, or Liberal Democratic Friends of Israel caucuses with the Conservative Party's Friends of Israel being the largest political group in Western Europe advocating for Israel. 
UKIP's new ally, Polish MEP Iwaszkiewicz, causing heartburn for the UKIP's "Friends of Israel" caucus.

Labor Party and Opposition leader Ed Miliband, who is Jewish, has what is known as the "J Team" advising him on foreign policy. There is only one requirement to serve on the "J Team" and it is that members must be pro-Israeli Jews. But it is not because Miliband is Jewish that he has a "J Team." In fact, Prime Minister Cameron and then-Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major all had their own "J Teams" and none of these prime ministers were Jewish.

As far as senior Cabinet positions, the "Friends of Israel" in each major political party insist that major government posts go to their members. For the current Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government, current and former Tory Friends of Israel Cabinet members include Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Leader of the House of Commons and former Foreign Secretary William Hague, Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, former Defense Secretary Liam Fox, former Foreign Secretary and current Chairman of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith, and Home Secretary Theresa May.

As in the United States with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the UK has its own Jewish-Zionist pressure organization that ensure fealty by Britain's elected leaders to the Israeli and Zionist causes. These groups are the Zionist Federation, which has been lobbying for increased British sanctions against Iran; the Jewish Leadership Council, which has been working to water down British human rights legislation that could subject Israeli leaders to arrest on British soil; the Community Security Trust, which works closely with British law enforcement and intelligence and liaises with Mossad to monitor "threats" against Britain's Jewish community; and the British-Israeli Communications and Research Center (BICOM), which lobbies and pressures journalists and editors to ensure that a constant flow of pro-Israeli propaganda is featured in and promoted by the British news media.  
Left-to-right: Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Labor Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls [who doesn't seem to have any when it comes to standing up to Israel], and William Hague.
There are no "Friends of Israel" caucuses within the regional nationalist parties. One of the reasons Britain's Jewish community rallied against the Scottish independence referendum sponsored by Scotland's Scottish National Party (SNP) government and First Minister Alex Salmond is that there has not and will never likely be an SNP "Friends of Israel" caucus. The SNP, which understands the yearning of Scots to be free, also appreciates the same desire among Palestinians. The following is what SNP MP Stewart Hosie said about his yes vote in Parliament for the recognition of Palestine:"Over twenty years ago the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and Palestine paving the way for recognition of Palestine and laying out agreements between the two countries.

“20 years later however, we have: a Separation wall – which cuts deep into the West Bank; blockades of the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air and mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages which have left four in five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid.

“And most recently, this year, we have seen Operation Protective Edge - seven weeks of Israeli bombardment, Palestinian rocket attacks, and ground fighting killing more than 2,200 people, the vast majority of them Gazans."Hosie was joined in voting for Palestine recognition by all the SNP Members of Parliament: Angus MacNeil, Angus Robertson, Eilidh Whiteford, Michael Weir, and Peter Wishart. The unanimity was the result of the lack of a pro-Israel pressure group within the SNP's ranks. The SNP's unanimity on Palestine was shared by their colleagues from the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru in Parliament. All three Plaid Cymru MPs -- Jonathan Edwards, Elfyn Llwyd, and Hywel Williams -- voted to recognize Palestine.

All of the MPs from the Northern Ireland largely Protestant Democratic Union Party -- Nigel Dodds, William McCrea, Ian Paisley, Jim Shannon and David Simpson -- voted against recognizing Palestine. Earlier this year, a DUP "Friends of Israel" caucus was formed in the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly of Stormont in Belfast with the help of DUP First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy Israeli ambassador in London Eitan Na'eh. However, the sole Northern Ireland MP representing the more liberal Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, who ousted Robinson from his seat in Westminster, voted for Palestine recognition. The Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, which has members in Westminster, Stormont, and the Irish Republic's Dail, has no "Friends of Israel" caucus. However, it does sponsor "Friends of Palestine" chapters in Northern Ireland and the republic.

Mebyon Kernow, which is campaigning for a Cornish Assembly, devolution from London, and autonomy for the English-imposed "Duchy of Cornwall" contrivance, has not adopted a foreign policy plank because its emphasis is currently on regional policies. However, some of its members have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause. If the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Alliance Party, and Sinn Fein are any indication, there will likely not be a Cornish "Friends of Israel" caucus.

The Celtic nationalist parties' opposition to Israel has earned them the wrath of Jewish pressure groups in Britain and Israel, which haul out the usual worn-out canard that they are "anti-Semitic."