Edward Snowden accuses Israel cybersecurity firm of enabling Kashoggi's murder (5')
There are, as far as I know, no polls on the percentage of people in the United States who know that the war is still going on, but it seems to be pretty low. Polling Report lists no polls at all on Afghanistan in the past three years. For longer than most wars have lasted in total, this one has gone on with no public discussion of whether or not it should, just annual testimony before U.S. Congress that this next year is going to really be the charm. Things people don’t know are happening are not polled about, which contributes to nobody knowing they are happening.
Possible reasons for such ignorance include: there have been too many wars spawned by this one to keep track of them all; President Obama claimed to have “ended” the war while explicitly and actually not ending it, and pointing this out could be impolite; a war embraced by multiple presidents and both big political parties is not a useful topic for partisan politics; very few of the people suffering and dying are from the United States; very similar stories bore journalists and editors after 17 years of regurgitating them; when the war on Iraq became too unpopular in the United States, the war on Afghanistan was fashioned into a “good war” so that people could oppose one war while making clear their support for war in general, and it would be inconvenient to raise too many questions about the good war; it’s hard to tell the story of permanent imperial occupation without it sounding a little bit like permanent imperial occupation; and the only other story that could be developed would be the ending of the war — which nobody in power is proposing and which could raise the embarrassing question of why it wasn’t done 5, 10, or 17 years ago.
The war is not the longest U.S. war ever.
Among those who know the war exists, a group I take to include disproportionately those involved in fighting it and those trying to end it, a popular claim is that it is the longest U.S. war ever. But the United States has not formally declared a war since 1941. How one picks where a war starts and stops is controversial. There is certainly a strong case to be made that the never-ending war-sanctions/bombings-war assault on Iraq has been longer than the war on Afghanistan. There’s a stronger case that the U.S. war on Vietnam was also longer, depending on when you decide it began. The war on North (and South) Korea has yet to be ended, and ending it is the top demand of a united Korean people to their Western occupiers. The centuries-long war on the indigenous peoples of North America is generally ignored, I believe, principally because those people are not legally or politically thought of as actual real people but more as something resembling rodents. And yet it is important to recognize that none of the wars taught in U.S. school texts took even a tiny fraction of this length of time, and that even applying the same name (“war”) to (1) things that happened for limited and scheduled durations in empty fields between soldiers with primitive weapons *and* to (2) endless aerial and high-tech assaults on people’s towns and cities is questionable.
Military glory is to glory as military justice and military music are to justice and music.
Military glory is to glory as military justice and military music are to justice and music.
For most of the duration of this war, participation in which is supposed to be called glorious, the top cause of death in the U.S. military has been suicide. What more powerful statement can someone make against glorifying what they have been engaged in than killing themselves? And sending more people off to kill and die in order not to disrespect the people who have already killed themselves, so that they not have killed themselves “in vain,” is the definition of insanity squared — it’s insanity gone insane. That it may be common sense doesn’t change that; it just gives us the task of causing our society to go sane.
Benjamin Franklin is still right: There is no good war.
When it became convenient for politicians and others to present Afghanistan as “the good war,” many began to imagine that whatever had been done wrong in Iraq had been done right in Afghanistan: the war had been U.N. authorized, civilians had not been targeted, nobody had been tortured, the occupation had been wisely planned; the war had been and was just and necessary and unavoidable and humanitarian; in fact all the good war needed was more of what it was, while the bad war in Iraq needed less. None of these fantasies was true. Each was and is blatantly false.
“They started it” is always a lie, because it’s always used to start Something.
“They started it” is always a lie, because it’s always used to start Something.
Most everyone supposes that the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and has stayed there ever since as a series of “last resorts,” even though the Taliban repeatedly offered to turn bin Laden over to a third country to stand trial, al Qaeda has had no significant presence in Afghanistan for most of the duration of the war, and withdrawal has been an option at any time. The United States, for three years prior to September 11, 2001, had been asking the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden. The Taliban had asked for evidence of his guilt of any crimes and a commitment to try him in a neutral third country without the death penalty. Those don’t seem like unreasonable demands. At the very least they don’t seem irrational or crazy. They seem like the demands of someone with whom negotiations might be continued. The Taliban also warned the United States that bin Laden was planning an attack on U.S. soil (this according to the BBC). Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik told the BBC that senior U.S. officials told him at a U.N.-sponsored summit in Berlin in July 2001 that the United States would take action against the Taliban in mid-October. He said it was doubtful that surrendering bin Laden would change those plans. When the United States attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the Taliban asked to negotiate handing over bin Laden to a third country to be tried, dropping the demand to see any evidence of guilt. The United States rejected the offer and continued a war in Afghanistan for many years, not halting it when bin Laden was believed to have left that country, and not even halting it after announcing bin Laden’s death. Perhaps there were other reasons to keep the war going for a dozen years, but clearly the reason to begin it was not that no other means of resolving the dispute were available. Punishing a government that was willing to turn over an accused criminal, by spending 17 years bombing and killing that nation’s people (most of whom had never heard of the attacks of September 11, 2001, much less supported them, and most of whom hated the Taliban) doesn’t appear to be a significantly more civilized action than shooting a neighbor because his great-uncle stole your grandfather’s pig.
Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.
Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.
Blame is, contrary to popular opinion, not a finite quantity. I don’t deny an ounce of it to Bush or Cheney or every single member of the U.S. Congress except Barbara Lee, or just about every employee and owner of U.S. corporate media, or numerous profiteers and weapons dealers and death marketers of all variety. I blame history teachers, military recruiters, NATO, every member of NATO, the UN Security Council, the people who designed the UN Security Council, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Steven Spielberg, and — I’m confident in saying — a lot more people than you blame. I don’t exclude them and I am not right now ranking them. But I would like permission to point out that Tony Blair belongs in this list and not on some panel discussing the principles of liberal humanitarian slaughter. Blair was willing to go along with Bush’s attack on Iraq if Bush attacked Afghanistan first. Attacking a country because it would make marketing an attack on another country easier is a particularly slimy thing to do.
Afghanistan is Obama’s war.
Afghanistan is Obama’s war.
Barack Obama campaigned on escalating the war on Afghanistan. His supporters either agreed with that, avoided knowing it, or told themselves that in their hero’s heart of hearts he secretly opposed it — which was apparently sufficient compensation for many when he went ahead and did it. He tripled the U.S. forces and escalated the bombings and creating a campaign of drone murder. By every measure — death, destruction, financial expense, troop deployment — the war on Afghanistan is more Obama’s war than anyone else’s.
Trump lied like the others.
Candidate Trump said: “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghans we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.”
President Trump escalated and continued the war, albeit at a much smaller scale than Obama had. And he had lied about the amount of money being spent. The notion that it could all be spent on useful things in the United States either underestimates the amount of money or overestimates U.S. greed and powers of imagination. This amount of money is so vast that one would almost certainly have to spend it on more than one country if spending it on useful human and environmental needs.
The people in charge of the war don’t believe in it any more than the troops they order around.
The view that further war, in particular with drones, is counterproductive on its own terms is shared by: —U.S. Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August 2014: “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict.”
—Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer, who says the more the United States fights terrorism the more it creates terrorism.
—The CIA, which finds its own drone program “counterproductive.”
—Admiral Dennis Blair, the former director of National Intelligence: While “drone attacks did help reduce the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan,” he wrote, “they also increased hatred of America.”
—Gen. James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “We’re seeing that blowback. If you’re trying to kill your way to a solution, no matter how precise you are, you’re going to upset people even if they’re not targeted.”
—Sherard Cowper-Coles, Former U.K. Special Representative To Afghanistan: “For every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge.”
—Matthew Hoh, Former Marine Officer (Iraq), Former US Embassy Officer (Iraq and Afghanistan): “I believe it’s [the escalation of the war/military action] only going to fuel the insurgency. It’s only going to reinforce claims by our enemies that we are an occupying power, because we are an occupying power. And that will only fuel the insurgency. And that will only cause more people to fight us or those fighting us already to continue to fight us.” — Interview with PBS on Oct 29, 2009.
—General Stanley McChrystal: “For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.”
— Lt. Col. John W. Nicholson Jr.: This commander of the war who left that position last month, like most of the people above, pulled “an Eisenhower” and blurted out his opposition to what he’d been doing on his last day of doing it. The war should be ended, he said.
The Afghans have not benefitted
It’s much desired in the United States to imagine that wars benefit the people bombed, and then to lament and point to their ignorant inability to feel grateful as a sign that they are in need of more bombing. In reality, this war has taken a deeply troubled and impoverished country and made it 100 times worse, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, creating a refugee crisis being addressed courageously by Pakistan, and helping to destabilize half the globe.
The purposes have not been admirable.
The purposes have not been admirable.
Invading Afghanistan had little or nothing to do with bin Laden or 9-11. The motivations in 2001 were in fact related to fossil fuel pipelines, the positioning of weaponry, political posturing, geo-political posturing, maneuvering toward an invasion of Iraq, patriotic cover for power grabs and unpopular policies at home, and profiteering from war and its expected spoils. These are all either indefensible arguments or points that might have been negotiated or accomplished without bombs. During the course of the war its proponents have often been quite open about its actual purpose.
Permanent bases make war permanent and do not bring peace.
They just cut the ribbon for new construction at Camp Resolute Support. Can a ground breaking at Fort Over My Dead Body be far behind. It’s important that we understand that permanent peace-bringing bases are neither.
The U.S. has no responsibility to do something before it gets the hell out.
After the United States gets out, Afghanistan will continue to be one of the worst places on earth. It will be even worse, the longer the departure is delayed. Getting out is the principle responsibility. The United States has no responsibility to do anything else first, such as negotiating the future of the Afghan people with some of their war lords. If I break into your house and kill your family and smash your furniture, I don’t have a moral duty to spend the night and meet with a local gang to decide your fate. I have a moral and legal responsibility to get out of your house and turn myself in at the nearest police station.
The ICC is teasing, but what if it starts to enjoy the teasing?
The international criminal court has never prosecuted a non-African, but has claimed for years to be investigating U.S. crimes in Afghanistan (and for the last four years, Israel's in Gaza). What if people began encouraging it to do its job. Not that I would suggest such a thing.
International Criminal Court. Post Office Box 19519. 2500 CM The Hague. The Netherlands. otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi. int. Fax +31 70 515 8555.
Too many wars is a reason to end them.
That there are too many wars to keep track of them all is a reason to end each one and to end the entire institution of war before it ends us, as it has spiraled far out of control.
The damage is unlimited.
The damage to Afghanistan is immeasurable. The natural environment has suffered severely. Cultures have been damaged. Children have been traumatized. U.S. culture has been poisoned and militarized and made more bigoted and paranoid. Americans have lost freedoms in the name of freedom. The financial tradeoff has been unfathomable. The complete case is overwhelming.
Peace is possible, without military intervention.
Because things are only getting worse.
November has been quite a month, so far, in Afghanistan. The level of violence has been appalling and the most serious recent atrocity was yet another suicide bombing in Kabul. It killed over fifty people and injured twice that many but didn’t merit a Trump tweet, which isn’t surprising because he doesn’t seem to be interested in the place. Further, as reported by the Washington Post on November 19, he hasn’t visited a single country in which his troops are fighting.
Because things are only getting worse.
November has been quite a month, so far, in Afghanistan. The level of violence has been appalling and the most serious recent atrocity was yet another suicide bombing in Kabul. It killed over fifty people and injured twice that many but didn’t merit a Trump tweet, which isn’t surprising because he doesn’t seem to be interested in the place. Further, as reported by the Washington Post on November 19, he hasn’t visited a single country in which his troops are fighting.
The reason he hasn’t visited his troops in such areas is because he is a coward. He lacks the courage to go anywhere near a war zone. He is below contempt, but he could gain a little bit of respect if he ordered the US and NATO to get out of Afghanistan.
Early in November the New York Times summed up the shambles in Afghanistan by stating: In the past week, the Times confirmed that 118 members of the security forces were killed, a significant increase over the previous week, but, unusually, there were no confirmed deaths of civilians. Fighting spread to nine provinces, but the emphasis shifted to the south as cold weather intensified in the north. An entire battalion of Afghan border soldiers was wiped out in western Farah Province, and the Taliban tried — unsuccessfully so far — to take over Jaghori District in Ghazni, an anti-insurgent stronghold.
On November 3 yet another US soldier was killed by a member of Afghanistan’s military forces. On the same day, twenty Afghan soldiers were reported missing after a Taliban attack in Uruzgan Province, and on November 5, six policemen and seven soldiers were killed in Ghazni, two Afghan Humvees were blown up, 17 policemen were killed in Kandahar Province and seven soldiers in Herat.
Seven soldiers were killed on November 7, two of them in Nangarhar Province in an airstrike by United States aircraft while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was visiting foreign troops in Herat. The following day seventeen soldiers were killed along with eight policemen.
After the NYT’s report that no civilians had been killed in the first week, the situation changed dramatically and the Taliban killed 15 civilians and 10 members of the special forces in Ghazni on November 11, then “In the western province of Farah, at least 37 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in overnight attacks by Taliban fighters on checkpoints that triggered hours of fighting, local officials said on November 12.” That was the day that a loonie of Islamic State killed at least six civilians and wounded 20 others in a suicide bombing in Kabul.
Stoltenberg told foreign soldiers in Herat they “have to remember that you are in Afghanistan because NATO is in Afghanistan to make sure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for international terrorism. So this is about helping the Afghans but also about helping ourselves. It is in our security interest to make sure that Afghanistan not once again becomes a platform, a territory, a country where terrorist organizations can prepare, plan attacks against our own countries.”
This is fallacious nonsense, but he’s got to say it because there is no real reason for the NATO presence in Afghanistan. In the words of the World War One dirge sung by British soldiers in France, “We’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here . . .”
They got there because the United States was hell-bent on war. And this war has had a most significant and disastrous spin-off that the drum-thumpers didn’t think about. It has shown the world that there has been yet another war which the US couldn’t and can’t win.
The foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan — almost 3,500 of them, 1,892 American combatants — have died for nothing. The entire war has been a disgraceful catastrophe. The US-NATO fiasco was well described by US Colonel David Davis in 2012: The United States, along with over 40 NATO and other allied nations, possesses the most sophisticated, powerful, and technologically advanced military force that has ever hit the field of combat.
They do, actually, have the finest and most well trained soldiers that exist anywhere; they have armored vehicles of every type, to include MIA2 Main Battle Tanks; artillery, mortars, advanced rockets, precision guided missiles, and hand-held rocket launchers; U.S. & NATO have a wholly uncontested air force composed of NATO’s most advanced ground attack fighter jets, bombers, AWACS controllers, spy planes, signals-interception aircraft, B 1 bombers, attack helicopters, and massive transport jets to ferry our troops and critical supplies where they are needed; they have thousands of unmanned aerial drones both for intelligence collection and missile-launching; they have a helicopter fleet for personnel transport and attack support; they have an enormous constellation of spy satellites; logistics that are as limitless as the combined weight of the industrial world; we have every technological device known to the profession of arms; they are able to intercept virtually every form of insurgent communication to include cell phones, walkie-talkies, satellite phones, email, and even some ability to eavesdrop on otherwise private conversations; a remarkably capable cohort of intelligence analysts that are as educated, well trained and equipped to a degree that used to exist only in science fiction; and our various nations have the economic wherewithal to spend $10s of billions each month to fund it all. And for almost 10 years they have pitted this unbelievable and unprecedented capability against: A bunch of dudes in bed sheets and flip-flops.
(Just like the Israelis against the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.)
Remember Obama's General Petraeus? In 2010 he declared “We must demonstrate to the people and to the Taliban that Afghan and International Security Assistance Forces are here to safeguard the Afghan people and that we are in this to win. That is our clear objective.”
But they lost. And there’s no point in reinforcing failure. US-NATO forces failed to follow almost every Principle of War, and they paid the price.
They must all get out of Afghanistan. Now.
BRASIL
Juca Guimarães: A escola pública foi concebida no Brasil como um espaço de debate, que busca formar jovens cidadãos autônomos, capazes de análises próprias, diálogos e ponderações. Para isso, são consideradas fundamentais as disciplinas de sociologia, filosofia e artes, além de conteúdos que contemplem temas como diversidade e política.
Essa concepção é confrontada pelo programa Escola Sem Partido, citado pelo candidato Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) como prioridade no seu projeto de reforma da educação pública, que também inclui o ensino a distância.
Para o educador e pedagogo Gaudêncio Frigotto, alguns dos conceitos do programa Escola Sem Partido já são realidade em algumas escolas públicas do país, e dão uma amostra dos problemas que podem ser causados com sua ampliação.
“O caráter deste movimento está marcado por uma visão moralista e por uma perspectiva de gerar não o diálogo, não o desenvolvimento dos sujeitos autônomos, mas incutir nos jovens, na família e nos pais a perspectiva do ódio”, disse o especialista em políticas públicas para a educação.
“O caráter deste movimento está marcado por uma visão moralista e por uma perspectiva de gerar não o diálogo, não o desenvolvimento dos sujeitos autônomos, mas incutir nos jovens, na família e nos pais a perspectiva do ódio”, disse o especialista em políticas públicas para a educação.
Depois das eleições do primeiro turno, uma professora da rede pública de São Paulo foi hostilizada na sala de aula por ter iniciado um debate sobre política.
"Eu fui para uma sala do ensino médio onde os alunos são Bolsonaro, porque os pais são eleitores deles. Aí a gente conversando sobre política ficou tenso. A ponto de eu não conseguir entrar na sala de aula depois. A sala não tem me recebido bem. Um dos alunos que estavam na discussão cabulou uma aula minha. O outro ficou jogando ‘indiretinhas’ conversando com outro amigo”, disse a professora, que pediu para não ser identificada na reportagem.
Em outra escola pública de São Paulo, no Tremembé, na periferia da zona Norte, a intolerância virou caso de polícia.
A professora de sociologia Odara Dèlé teve a porta da sala de aula marcada com uma suástica nazista. Além de expressões racistas e misóginas. Segundo a professora, o conservadorismo e a intolerância dos alunos é crescente, em paralelo com a campanha de Jair Bolsonaro.
A professora de sociologia Odara Dèlé teve a porta da sala de aula marcada com uma suástica nazista. Além de expressões racistas e misóginas. Segundo a professora, o conservadorismo e a intolerância dos alunos é crescente, em paralelo com a campanha de Jair Bolsonaro.
“Dentro das suas casas, eles podem ter esses pensamentos e esses discursos, mas muitas vezes eles não trazem para a escola. Mas quando tem uma figura pública que apoia essa postura do ódio contra o outro, você tem essa intensificação”, disse a professora, que desenvolveu um aplicativo para ensinar a cultura afro-brasileira.
Dèlé conta que, nos últimos meses, as manifestações de intolerância do grupo conservador de alunos aumentou com ofensas a alunos gays e mulheres, chegando à violência física.
“A incompreensão com o outro está sendo valorizada. Como educadores temos que contrapor esses discursos”, disse.
Frigotto alerta também para a participação do projeto Escola Sem Partido na engrenagem de desmonte do ensino público no Brasil.
"Embora seja inconstitucional, com parecer no Supremo, ele está disseminado na sociedade. É o epílogo, o final dramático, de um processo que vem de longe. Dizendo primeiro que a escola pública era má gerida e que deveria ser gerida por critérios privados, depois que a escola pública dava conteúdos demais, depois que a escola pública desenvolvia na licenciatura a formação de professores que aprendiam disciplinas inúteis como filosofia, sociologia, arte, cultura etc. E agora diz-se que o professor deve ser treinado na ‘arte do bem ensinar’, para virar um tipo de robô teleguiado por pacotes vendidos por institutos privados”, disse.
"Embora seja inconstitucional, com parecer no Supremo, ele está disseminado na sociedade. É o epílogo, o final dramático, de um processo que vem de longe. Dizendo primeiro que a escola pública era má gerida e que deveria ser gerida por critérios privados, depois que a escola pública dava conteúdos demais, depois que a escola pública desenvolvia na licenciatura a formação de professores que aprendiam disciplinas inúteis como filosofia, sociologia, arte, cultura etc. E agora diz-se que o professor deve ser treinado na ‘arte do bem ensinar’, para virar um tipo de robô teleguiado por pacotes vendidos por institutos privados”, disse.
Em entrevistas para jornais, Bolsonaro afirmou que o ensino a distância serviria para combater a doutrinação marxista e reduzir as despesas do Estado com os alunos. Diferentemente da proposta de Fernando Haddad, que vê como investimentos todos os recursos aplicados na melhoria da educação.
A Constituição
PALESTINA
The Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, approved passing a bill into law that allows execution of Palestinian prisoners, Hebrew-language news sites reported on Monday.
Netanyahu reportedly gave the green light, on Sunday, to members of his Likud policitical party to support the law on the execution of Palestinian prisoners, a law introduced in 2017 by the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which is headed by the Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman.
At the time, Lieberman said that the bill would be a powerful deterrent to Palestinians, "We must not allow terrorists to know that after a murder they have committed, they will sit in prison, enjoy the conditions and may be released in the future."
Despite that Israel currently has a law allowing death penalty, it has not been carried out since 1962 when the Jewish state executed Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann.
However, the current law allows Israeli military courts to only hand down the death penalty if a panel of three judges impose a unanimous decision.
The proposed bill would remove this condition which would allow Israeli civilian and military courts to carry out executions against Palestinians convicted of murder. In addition, it would require military courts to carry out executions by a majority of only two judges instead of full consensus by all judges.
Many Palestinian politicians and human rights activists have already denounced the bill and expressed concern that it will give Israel "legal cover to target Palestinians," and argued that although it does not define a specific group, it is “intended mainly for the Palestinian people."
The controversial bill had previously passed its preliminary vote in January with 52 votes in favor and 49 opposing.
According to prisoners rights group Addameer, currently there are 5,640 Palestinian prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons, of whom 465 are in administrative detention, 53 are female prisoners, 270 are child prisoners, and 50 are under the age of 16.
In Gaza, Israeli soldiers have wounded a young Palestinian man whose photo has become recognized worldwide as a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
With a Palestinian flag in one hand and a slingshot poised in the other, the photo of 22-year-old A'ed Abu Amro has drawn comparisons with the iconic French Revolution painting, Liberty Leading the People.
On Monday, Abu Amro was taking part in protest at the northern Gaza border against Israel's 11-year-old land, air and sea blockade when Israeli troops intervened. Abu Amro was wounded in the leg by live bullets.
He protests every Friday and Monday with friends.
"If I get killed, I want to be wrapped in the same flag. We are demanding our right of return, and protesting for our dignity and the dignity of our future generation," Abu Amro told Al Jazeera late last month.
The photo, which went viral on social media and attracted international attention, was taken by Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mustafa Hassona during a demonstration demanding the lifting of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
"I don't go to protests to get pictures of me taken, but this has encouraged me to continue demonstrating," he earlier told Al Jazeera.
For nearly seven months, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have protested along the fence with Israel demanding their right of return to the homes and land their families were expelled from 70 years ago.
Meanwhile, MBS is doing his job of leaking Netanyahu's boots to crush the Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia is barring more than one and a half million Palestinian citizens of Israel from travelling on temporary Jordanian passports to perform the Islamic pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah in the holy city of Mecca, Middle East Eye can reveal.
The measure is part of Saudi Arabia's new policy to stop issuing visas for Hajj and Umrah to Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, East Jerusalem, and, most recently, to Palestinians living in Israel, who hold temporary travel documents issued by Jordan or Lebanon - a policy that became effective on 12 September.
This Saudi move affects 2.94 million Palestinians in total across these states, who have no access to any other form of travel document allowing them to go to Saudi Arabia, where millions of Muslims travel each year on pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Several travel agents spoken to by MEE in Israel, East Jerusalem and Jordan said that they were informed by Jordan's Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs that the Saudi embassy in Amman told them to not apply for visas for anyone seeking to travel to Mecca on a temporary Jordanian passport.
Israeli-Saudi agreement
A Jordanian source, with an inside knowledge of his country's diplomatic affairs, told MEE that the Saudi decision is part of a bilateral agreement with Israel to put an end to the "Palestinian identity and the right of return for refugees".
"Saudi Arabia is pressuring Jordan to naturalise the Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and now Palestinians in Israel. The same could happen in Lebanon. Then, you will not have a Palestinian refugees problem," the source said.
"It is all part of a bilateral agreement
#StopTheWar is a hashtag coming from many activists in #Gaza who urge the international community to hinder Israel’s attempts to launch another large-scale aggression against the occupied, blockaded, unlivable, and exhausted Gaza Strip. #GazaUnderAttack.
The people of Gaza have been subjected to decades of expulsion, occupation, siege and massacre. They have now seized control of their Fate. They are risking life and limb as they protest nonviolently to reclaim their basic rights. It takes just one minute to send a video showing your support for Gaza in its moment of truth. Do it now! Send your videos to METOOGAZA.COM.
The people of Gaza have been subjected to decades of expulsion, occupation, siege and massacre. They have now seized control of their Fate. They are risking life and limb as they protest nonviolently to reclaim their basic rights. It takes just one minute to send a video showing your support for Gaza in its moment of truth. Do it now! Send your videos to METOOGAZA.COM.
Renowned scientists urge cientific Community to consider the facts before engaging in activities with Israeli colonial-based Ariel University, and not engage any attemps to use science to normalise Israel(s occupation of the Palestinian territory. Check it out here.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário