75th Anniversary of Al Nakba • May 15, 1948: A Brief History of Palestine and Its People

The Road to Nowhere by Ismail Shammout 1930-2006. He was expelled from Lydda in 1948. The plight of the refugees is depicted in many of his most famous paintings.

Palestine, the mythic “land without people for a people without land” was already home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919.

The standard Zionist position is that they showed up in Palestine in the late 19th century to reclaim their ancestral homeland. Jews bought land and started building up the Jewish community there. They were met with increasingly violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the Arabs’ inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend themselves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up to today.

The problem with this explanation is that it is simply not true.

75th Anniversary of Al Nakba • May 15, 1948: End the Catastrophe imposed on the Palestinian People! Support Palestinian Resistance until Liberation!

Commemoration of 75th Anniversary of the Nakba, Toronto, May 13, 2023

May 15 is the day we commemorate Al Nakba – the Catastrophe – a day marking a “continuous journey of pain, loss and injustice” for the Palestinian people. It marks the day that some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war. Palestinians were forced from their lands and homes due to military attacks by Zionist forces, supported by the British and U.S. governments. The Israeli Zionist forces attacked 774 cities and villages, and occupied 80 per cent of the Palestinian soil after killing nearly 15,000 Muslim and Christian civilians. Those who survived were forced to migrate to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and neighbouring countries, such as Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

When Jews praised Mussolini and supported Nazis: Meet Israel’s first fascists

Disinformation about Ukraine features the poppycock that a Jew cannot be the head of a state comprising neo-Nazis. Meanwhile, components of Hebrew fascism are still evident in Israel’s right wing, 80 years on | Haaretz, July 20, 2019

Members of the fascist Brit Habiryonim Revisionist underground. Its ties with Mussolini’s regime lasted until at least 1938. Its aim was to get the country’s youth to see the light about nationalism. Credit: Jabotinsky Institute

Palestinians mark Land Day by stepping up the resistance

Thousands attend funeral March 16, 2023 for four Palestinians killed in Jenin by Israeli Defence Forces.

This year on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of Land Day, the Palestinian people are joined by those in the diaspora and the peoples of the world in demanding that the Israeli government be held to account for its violation of international humanitarian law and stop the genocide it is committing against the Palestinian people.

Stéphane Dion: Let them eat cake

The government of Canada is no less responsible for the climate of chaos and violence which prevails at this time in Europe and the Middle East. It claims a non-combat role in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon while it props up the invasions by the U.S. and European powers, and the groups that engage in acts of terror under the guise that they form a legitimate opposition. Canada claims that its model of “strength in diversity” should be followed by all countries while it works to overthrow secular and independent states in West Asia and North Africa claiming that it supports freedom of religion and the rights of women.

CPC(M-L) opposes hypocritical attempts to promote “Canadian values” in a way that deprives the people of their right to conscience. The questions which concern matters of war and peace, security and rights concern the peoples everywhere. CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians to go all out to make sure it is they, and not the rulers who have brought Canada under U.S. command, who determine Canada’s role internationally.

Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, met with Adel Al Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa on Dec. 17, 2015 and issued the following statement : “I congratulated the Minister on his leadership in bringing together the Syrian opposition parties, an important step toward a much-needed political resolution to the crisis.” After the U.S., the feudal and theocratic Saudi monarchy is the second-largest purchaser of arms exported from Canada, its second most important ally after Israel, and organizer of the Riyadh conference in mid-December of “jihadists” terrorist factions.

What is the “much-needed political resolution”? It’s rather like the smoke arising from pouring oil on the fire.

World Zionist Organization to invest $8.5 millions of state funds for West Bank outpost legalizations

We are posting a report from the Haaretz Israeli newspaper on a scheme to “promote(d) the legalization of outposts and their connection to the electricity grid.” How can these outposts in the occupied West Bank be legalized by linking to the settlements, which are themselves illegal and in violation of international law?

(July 12) – In recent weeks, the World Zionist Organization Settlement Division has mapped dozens of outposts to determine where improvements in security can be made, and where help in planning is required ahead of legalizing them.

Land for new US embassy in Jerusalem was owned by Palestinians before 1948, files show

The fact is that the vast majority of the land in the state of Israel is land that is owned by Palestinians (TS)

Ahead of U.S. President Biden’s visit to Israel and the West Bank, Palestinian families in the U.S. and East Jerusalem present documents – including rental contracts going back decades – testifying that they owned the land before it was seized by Israel after the 1948 war

Millions of Yemenis hold mass rallies condemning continued war and siege

by Emad Almarshahi

(March 7 ) – Millions of Yemenis in the capital Sana’a and other provinces staged mass rallies to denounce the oil blockade and aggression against Yemen.

Speeches in the UN and killings on the ground

Mourners carry the body of Osama Subuh during his funeral in the occupied West Bank village of Burqin on 26 September | Oday DaibesAPA images

On the eve of Bennet’s trip

To the UN General Assembly 

The army killed five Palestinians. 

Now the armed forces are girding 

For an escalation in the Occupied Territories. 

Along Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway 

Huge signs declare:

“Peace is the future 

Of our children – 

Celebrating the first anniversary 

Of the peace accords.”

This refers, of course,

To the accords 

 With the UAE and Bahrain. 

Peace with the Palestinians?  

Who needs it?

Gush Shalom Statement, Sept. 29, 2021

Ancient fossilized fish found in Egypt that survived in hot waters

Fossilized fish dating back 56 million years have been discovered in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, shedding light on a time period when Earth was experiencing massive warming | ALAA OMRAN

Remains of an early whale from 40 million years ago lies on the desert pavement of Wadi El-Hutan, 100 km south of Cairo. About 400 skeletons of ancient water life such as mammals and reptiles have been identified in what used to be an ancient shoreline | CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP via Getty ImagesAlaa Omran

CAIRO (June 16) — An Egyptian research team that includes Egypt’s Mansoura and Tanta universities, the American University of Cairo and the University of Michigan recently discovered the remains of vertebrate fossils from sediments dating back 56 million years at a site in Egypt’s Eastern Desert.

The scientific journal Geology published last month the details of the discovery of creatures that withstood highly elevated global temperatures at a site that is today in the Egyptian desert.

4,000-year-old city discovered in Iraq

A group of Russian archaeologists made an impressive discovery in Iraq’s Dhi Qar governorate, where an ancient settlement about 4,000 years old was found.

A woman walks toward the Great Ziggurat Temple, a massive Sumerian stepped mudbrick construction dedicated to the moon god Nanna that dates back to 2100 B.C. in the ancient city of Ur, Dhi Qar province, Iraq, June 15, 2020 | Asaad Niazi/AFP via Getty Images

A woman walks toward the Great Ziggurat Temple, a massive Sumerian stepped mudbrick construction dedicated to the moon god Nanna that dates back to 2100 B.C. in the ancient city of Ur, Dhi Qar province, Iraq, June 15, 2020 | Asaad Niazi/AFP via Getty Images

By Adnan Abu Zeed

(July 9) – A group of Russian archaeologists discovered June 24 an ancient settlement about 4,000 years old in Dhi Qar governorate in southern Iraq. The discovery was made in the area of Tell al-Duhaila, which is home to more than 1,200 archaeological sites, including the Great Ziggurat of Ur site from the Sumerian era, and the royal tomb. Treasures similar to the ones that were found in the tomb of Egypt’s Tutankhamun’ tomb were unearthed.

Germany: An enduring enemy of the Palestinian struggle

Germany’s contribution to the colonisation of Palestine over the years has been ideological, financial, physical and military | JOSEPH MASSAD*

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier meets Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Jerusalem on July 1, 2021 | AFP

(July 16) – German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Israel two weeks ago and met Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, whose American parents came from San Francisco to colonise Palestine in July 1967. Bennett has boasted: “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life and there’s no problem with that.”  

Canada – Shameless enabler of Israel’s crimes against humanity

Canada’s Ambassador to Israel Deborah Lyons hosts dinner party at the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv to honour Canadians who serve in the Israeli military, January 16, 2020.

By Margaret Villamizar

For all their laments about the violence and civilian lives lost in Gaza and Israel, the U.S. and Canada stand exposed as shameless enablers of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. Under the hoax of upholding high ideals they refuse to condemn Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians it has trapped inside Gaza, asserting that Israel has a right to defend itself against those who are resisting its crimes against the Palestinian people — the annexation of more and more of their lands as part of its policy of ethnic cleansing.

Cuban parliament condemns Israel’s ‘indiscriminate bombing’ in Gaza

Declaration of the International Relations Commission of the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Republic of Cuba:

The International Relations Commission strongly condemns the indiscriminate bombing of the State of Israel against the Palestinian population in Gaza, which has so far resulted in the deaths of at least 122 people, including 31 children, as well as hundreds of injuries and injuries and extensive material damage.

We demand once again the immediate cessation of the acts of violence carried out by the Israeli army against the defenceless Palestinian people and of the expansionist and colonising policies of the State of Israel.

We also denounce the ongoing support of the United States government for the crimes committed by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian civilian population.

We call on parliamentarians around the world, as well as the international community in general, to act urgently and decisively to force the State of Israel to put an end to its crimes against the Palestinian population and respect the Charter of the United Nations, International Law and the pertinent resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

We emphasise the urgent need to reach a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, based on the creation of two States, which allows the Palestinian people the right to self-determination and to have an independent and sovereign State, based on the pre-1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Havana, May 14, 2021

PCC (Spanish) | Monday, 17 May 2021 | Click here for original article

The Illegitimate State of Israel (I): Zionist Terrorism and Crimes in Palestine – 1939-1945

A series published on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Al Nabka, May 15, 2023

Complied and edited with an introduction by Tony Seed based on the Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem authored by the late Issa Nakhleh

The Illegitimate State of Israel, Part I – 1939-1945 

The Illegitimate State of Israel Part II – 1946 (forthcoming)

The Illegitimate State of Israel, Part III – 1947 (forthcoming)

The Illegitimate State of Israel, Part IV – 1948 (forthcoming)

The Conspiracy to Expel and the Expulsion of Palestinian Arabs, Part V – 1948 (forthcoming)

Introduction

(Updated May 23, 2021) – On May 14, 1948, the Zionist state of Israel was established by unilateral declaration in defiance of the United Nations and international law on the basis of 33 massacres, terrorism and the dispossession and mass expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian people from their land by the foreign-armed Zionist state and its militias with the backing of the great powers, the United States in the first place, as well as Canada. Some 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee. Palestinians were forced from their lands and homes due to military attacks by Zionist forces, supported by the British and U.S. governments. The Israeli Zionist forces attacked 774 cities and villages, and occupied 80 per cent of the Palestinian soil after killing nearly 15,000 Muslim and Christian civilians.

Of this population, approximately one-third were forced to migrate to the West Bank, another third to the Gaza Strip, and the remainder to neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, registered as refugees with the United Nations and forcibly denied the right of return.

Another 350,000 were dispossessed in 1967 following the Six-Day War during which Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. The number of Palestinians in the Diaspora now numbers over 5 million people. “We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return … The old will die and the young will forget,” said David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel, in 1949. But the young ha, both those born in Palestine and those born in Canada, have not forgotten.

For the information of readers, we are serializing in five instalments chapters from the Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem (1999), a 1,000-page work in two volumes by the late Issa Nakhleh*, a distinguished lawyer and statesman, which provide detailed information on the years 1939-1948, as to the nature and methods of the illegitimate Zionist conquest of Palestine of May 15, 1948. These are not otherwise available on the Internet. Much of the information is derived directly from British Colonial files in London. To proceed directly to this exhaustive work, scroll down the page.

Montreal Rally supports Palestinian Resistance

On Monday, May 10 at 5:00 pm in Montreal, in immediate response to the attempted eviction of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Jerusalem and Israeli state police violence deployed against the Al-Aqsa mosque since May 7, Montreal’s Palestinian community and its allies held a protest rally in front of the Israeli consulate. Speaker after speaker condemned state terrorism and hailed the Palestinian people’s steadfast resistance to this barbarism. They defended the Palestinian people’s right to be, their right to resist, their right to live in peace and to recover their stolen lands. The youth were in the forefront at the action, in large numbers.

Stand with the Palestinian Resistance to expulsion and annexation!

The eyes of the world are on Palestine as the heroic Palestinian people fiercely resist Israeli terrorism and violence intended to expel them from their homes and occupy their properties in occupied East Jerusalem. Hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children face losing their homes. For several days now the Israeli military has carried out brutal attacks against the Palestinians of the area who have stood together as one. Israeli military and police have attacked the protesters with batons, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them. “Skunk water” and tear-gas have been fired into Palestinian homes to force the occupants to abandon their dwellings.

Roman baths discovered during city works in Jordanian capital

The haphazard discovery of Roman ruins in Amman sparked questions about the fate of antiquities in the city’s downtown area amid calls for expanding the excavations | Mohammed Ersan, Al-Monitor

People watch as workers uncover the ruins of a recently discovered Roman archaeological site in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Dec. 14, 2020. According to local media, the archaeological site was uncovered during works to install a water drainage system | KHALIL MAZRAAWI/afp/AFP via Getty Images.

AMMAN (December 27) — Jordanian authorities discovered on Dec. 12 antiquities dating back to the Roman era underneath the main street of downtown Amman, when they were excavating the area for installation of a water drainage system for flood control.

Condemn the assassination of Iran’s top scientist in terrorist attack

Force cannot be used to sort out conflicts nor can any terrorist attack be justified

January 4, 2020. Toronto demonstration against U.S. aggression against Iran is one of many across Canada in January.

We are reposting a principled editorial of TML Weekly condemning the assassination of a leading Iranian scientist on November 27. Two days later Israel reportedly murdered a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday, November 29, in a drone strike along the Syria-Iraq border. According to several Arab media outlets, citing Iraqi officials, three more people were killed alongside the commander, identified as Muslim Shahdan. Al Arabiya, quoting Iraqi intelligence sources, reported Shahdan’s car was targeted after he crossed the al-Qa’im border crossing into Syria. The Lebanese TV network Al-Mayadeen, however, denied the reports, quoting reliable sources. Assassination is a preferred method of Israel.

As a reminder, well before the establishment of the illegitimate state of Israel in contravention of the UN Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, Zionists were assassinating anti-Zionist Jews who opposed their colonial and racist project. The terrorism file contains at least 44 names of Jews who were murdered – not by the Palestinian Arabs – but by those trained in European state terrorism.((Nahum Barnea and Danny Rubenstein, Davar, 19 March 1982). Today assassination and violence has become the preferred method of control of both Israel and its imperialist sponsors to control and quell all opposition.

Ecalating the demographic war: The strategic goal of Israeli racism in Palestine

By Ramzy Baroud

The US of A(rms)

The United States dominates the global arms trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the Middle East | WILLIAM D. HARTUNG

Infrastructure of US bases in the Middle East | David Vine

The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the endlessly war-torn Middle East. There, believe it or not, the U.S. controls nearly half the arms market. From Yemen to Libya to Egypt, sales by this country and its allies are playing a significant role in fuelling some of the world’s most devastating conflicts. But Donald Trump, even before he was felled by Covid-19 and sent to Walter Reed Medical Center, could not have cared less, as long as he thought such trafficking in the tools of death and destruction would help his political prospects.

This Day. The death of Serena Shim, journalist

Serena Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, remembered six years after her suspicious death near Turkey. Much of the monopoly media and Chrystia Freeland’s self-styled Media Freedom Coalition consisting of 21 NATO countries have forgotten that crime, but Press TV still wages an unrelenting campaign on behalf of its former journalist. This can also be compared to the cause célèbre of the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and former Saudi intelligence agent, also in Turkey. While this “media freedom” coalition and the Washington Post do not seem bothered by the Saudi regime’s crimes against people in Syria or Yemen or even inside Saudi Arabia, they were offended that Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman dared to kill a person employed by an American newspaper. All other journalists killed in conflict from Ukraine to Palestine are deemed propagandists and disposable, according to the official rationale set by NATO in 1999 to justify the bombing of Serbian TV stations during the war on Yugoslavia.

By Press TV 

(October 18) – Six years after her suspicious death, Press TV reporter Serena Shim is remembered as one of the first journalists to have exposed the involvement of the US-led Western countries and their regional allies in igniting the foreign-sponsored terrorism in Syria, a daring act of investigative journalism for which she paid with her life.

LEBANON’S DILEMMA – A revolving identity crisis

On September 1, 1920 French General Henri Gouraud proclaimed from the porch of the Pine Residence in Beirut the creation and independence of the state of Greater Lebanon under the colonial mandate of the League of Nations represented by France. France also received Syria which it separated from Lebanon, while Britain was awarded Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq.

This series of five articles was originally written in January and February this year by Ghassan Kadi. We are publishing it today on the occasion of the centenary of Lebanon to enlighten readers on the historical role played by French colonialism in the sectarian divide-and-rule strategy of the Levant (Greater Syria) and the internal forces in motion at that time and their role today. France and Britain together separated the region into Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq by secret agreement (Sykes-Picot) during World War I, which they received following the war with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey and Germany as “trustee”. The series also brings out the character of the internal institutions established in Lebanon on September 1, 1920 by the armed forces of France.

Lebanon: The Hezbollah-France twist

France and other powers, including Canada, are exploiting the Beirut port disaster. Their recipe is “white man’s burden.” Macron of France is in the forefront. He presupposes that the people of Lebanon are not capable of exercising their sovereignty, that they cannot exercise control over their lives themselves and that there is a need for a power standing above them, usurping all that belongs to them and giving nothing to them in return. This is the notion of a “benevolent dictator” or of the “divine right of kings”, notions needed by the plutocracy, those who claim that they are destined to be the “trustees” of the people, because they alone consider themselves capable of ruling over the people.

By GHASSAN KADI 

The intriguing twists and turns following the catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s Sea Port have thus far had international repercussions, beginning with the visit of French President Marcon to Beirut just three days after the disaster; a visit that could hardly be classified as a visit of a foreign head of state to another country.

Marcon did not go to Lebanon just to meet with Lebanese President Aoun, even though the two did meet.

The Iranian Jews who joined the Islamic Revolution

Thousands flocked from Tehran’s synagogues to protests, led by their rabbis. Jewish delegates met with Khomeini to express support for his struggle. A groundbreaking study sheds light on the life of Iranian Jews, their complex view of Zionism and their surprising stance on the Islamic Revolution | Ofer Aderet in Haaretz.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran. Newspapers termed the December 11, 1978, protest a “demonstration of millions.” The Jews were there.

Lior Sternfeld is dismissive of the Israeli drama series “Tehran.” In contrast to many others, Sternfeld, a historian who specializes in modern Iran, wasn’t bothered by the final episode of the popular show, in which our aircraft turn back – and not safely – from their mission to bomb a nuclear reactor. What irked Sternfeld was the episode in which the protagonist, Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan, takes shelter with her Jewish aunt, who remained in Tehran even after the 1979 revolution. The aunt broke off her ties with the rest of her family, all of whom immigrated to Israel, and she established a model Muslim family with a husband who holds a senior government job and a daughter who demonstrates in support of the regime. However, at the moment of truth, when the relative – the Zionist spy – needs help, she opens the door and hides her from the authorities.

Protests against Britain’s criminal role in Yemen

Taking a stand against British imperialism | Lucy Nichols, Counterfire

Demonstration against the Yemen war and Britain’s involvement, London, July 5, 2020

Protests took place around the country to highlight and condemn the atrocities of the Yemen war, which has now been raging for five years. Hundreds of young people marched on July 5 through central London in solidarity with the millions of Yemenis suffering the evils of war, in addition to cholera, famine and Covid-19.

Gaza goes dark under new terror campaign

Gaza’s electricity supply has been cut to around three hours a day as Israeli bombing of the besieged Palestinian enclave has continued for ten consecutive days.

Heavy damage was reported after an Israeli drone targeted the a neighbourhood south-east of Gaza City, while civilian property was damaged by an Israeli warplane as it bombed the town on Beit Hanoun.

This Day. Khaled al-Asaad

A martyr of modern science. Five years ago – on August 18th, 2015 – a prominent Arabic scientist, archeologist and researcher Khaled al-Asaad was executed by ISIS at the age of 83 years. Most of his life he devoted to researches of the ancient city of Palmyra (Syria). Due to his efforts, Palmyra became a UNESCO world heritage site. He also researched numbers of texts in the Aramaic language, translating them. He published 20 scientific works, mostly about results of archeological excavations and researches in Palmyra. For 40 years (1963-2003), he was the principal custodian of the Palmyra site. In 2003 he retired but continued to work there, publishing new researches. In 2015, prior to the capture of Palmyra by ISIS, the elderly scientist organized evacuation of the Palmyra museum, archeological artifacts and its antiquities. However, he himself was captured by ISIS. After weeks of tortures he didn’t reveal the location, where the evacuated antiquities were hidden. On August 18th, he was beheaded publicly on a square, being accused of participation in conferences with ‘infidels’.

– Dmytriy Kovalevich

Lebanon’s future: Lebanon’s Mutasarrifate Take II

Ghassan Kadi’s thoughts about the crisis facing Lebanon

(August 10) – Most of the current instability in the Levant and the whole Middle East is inadvertently and inadvertently a result of the obsession about Israel’s security; both from the Israeli as well as the American sides. That said, many of the region’s problems are deep-rooted and go back to times before Israel was created and before America had any influence.

The Beirut sea-port explosion

Ghassan Kadi’s initial thoughts about the Beirut Port explosions

(August 5) – I have mourned Beirut time and time again, but with all the cities I have lived in, Beirut will always be my favourite. After all, how can I ever forget its hustle and bustle before the infamous fifteen year long civil war that started on Sunday the 13th of April 1975? I was a student back then, with very limited financial resources, but back then, you didn’t have to be rich to enjoy the rich lifestyle of Beirut.