Grayzone Project articles and reports on Israel-Palestine

Kamala Harris Netanyahu
Israel-Palestine

Clasping Hands with Israel’s PM Netanyahu, Kamala Harris Reveals Herself as a ‘Progressive Except for Palestine’

Kamala Harris’ support for Israel doesn’t square with her progressive policies at home.

By Hamzah Raza

This article was originally published at AlterNet.

As the second black female senator in American history, Kamala Harris has been a pioneer in American politics. Many consider her to be a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Harris has even been branded by the New York Times as a “‘Top Cop’ in the era of Black Lives Matter,” a tip of the hat to the former California attorney general’s progressive politics and support for issues of social justice. But while Harris has been praised as someone who fights racism in the United States, some critics feel she has failed to be consistent in that approach abroad.

On November 20, California Sen. Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Through the meeting, Harris ignored the avalanche of officially sanctioned anti-black racism in Israel, turned her back on historic black solidarity with the Palestinian cause and ignored the human rights demands of Palestinians living under apartheid. She revealed herself as the latest in a long line of “Progressives Except for Palestine,” and one of the most egregious examples given her personal and political background.

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Michael Flynn
Israel-Palestine

Michael Flynn’s Indictment Exposes Trump Team’s Collusion With Israel, Not Russia

The indictment of Michael Flynn undermined the Russiagate narrative while implicating another foreign power in a plot to meddle in American politics: Israel.

By Max Blumenthal

This article was originally published at AlterNet.

When Congress authorized Robert Mueller and his team of lawyers to investigate “links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” opponents of the president sensed that sooner or later, hard evidence of Trump’s collusion with the Russian government would emerge.

Seven months later, after three indictments that did little, if anything, to confirm the grand collusion narrative, Mueller had former National Security Council advisor Michael Flynn dragged before a federal court for lying to the FBI. The Russia probe had finally netted a big fish.

As the details of the Flynn indictment seeped out into the press, however, the bombshell was revealed as another dud. To the dismay of many Trump opponents, nothing in Flynn’s rap sheet demonstrated collusion with Russia. Instead, the indictment undermined the Russiagate narrative while implicating another, much more inconvenient foreign power in a plot to meddle in American politics.

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sebastian gorka jerusalem post vitezi rend
Israel-Palestine

Exposing the Shocking and Continuing Alliance Between Zionism and Anti-Semitism

An in-depth discussion with renowned Palestinian scholar Joseph Massad details the alliance between Zionism and anti-Semitism.

By Max Blumenthal / AlterNet

At its annual gala this November, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) feted Sebastian Gorka alongside fellow Trump White House alumni Steven Bannon and Sean Spicer. The ZOA’s president, Morton Klein, has established a special relationship with the Trump administration, going out of his way to defend Gorka against accusations of Nazi sympathies.

On the eve of Trump’s election, Gorka appeared in nationally televised interviews clad in a black uniform bearing the medal of the Vitezi Rend, a Hungarian fascist group that collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. Speaking at a conference organized by the right-wing Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post in May, Gorka defended his wearing the medal, proclaiming, “My father was awarded a medal in 1979 by anti-communist members of a splinter order outside Hungary … I am proud to wear that, as a response to everything that we face today.”

Vitzezi Rend has appeared on a US State Department list of “organizations under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany,” and its late founder, Miklos Horthy, reportedly declared, “I have always been an anti-Semite throughout my life.” During the anti-communist White Terror that took place between 1919 and 1921 in Hungary, Horthy presided over some 60 pogroms, and attacks on Jews continued through the 1920’s. When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Horthy participated in the deportation of 437,000 Jews to concentration camps.

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free syrian army
Israel-Palestine, Syria

How a Free Syrian Army Unit Uncovered the Rebels’ Israeli Connection and Switched Sides

Before the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group the Golan Brigade was targeted for destruction by Israel and Al Qaeda, it was allied with them.

By Rania Khalek / AlterNet

QUNEITRA, SYRIA – Ahmad Kaboul has big shoes to fill. Earlier this summer, his childhood friend and commanding officer of the Golan Brigade, Majed Hamoud, was killed by Jabhat Al Nusra, Syria’s al Qaeda affiliate, which now goes by the name Hayat Tahrir Al Sham.

Founded as one of the dizzying array of fighting units in Syria’s six-year civil war, the genesis of the Golan Brigade was one of the most remarkable. The brigade was established in 2014 by Syrian fighters who had defected from the Free Syrian Army rebel group after they made a shocking discovery: their unit had been coordinating with the Israelis.

After switching sides to support the Syrian government, they witnessed the Israeli military providing direct air cover for attacks launched against them by Al Qaeda. The Israelis even tried to kill Majed on several occasions before Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Nusra, finally did him in.

This July, I met veterans of the Golan Brigade and heard their stories. They painted a picture of the war that stood almost entirely at odds with the dominant narrative of the conflict spun out in Western mainstream media. And this is perhaps why they have received so little attention.

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