Latest Plan To Topple PM Anwar – Hishammuddin To Lead 7 UMNO Traitors To Trigger By-Elections If Wins Pulai

Latest Plan To Topple PM Anwar – Hishammuddin To Lead 7 UMNO Traitors To Trigger By-Elections If Wins Pulai



PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang told all and sundry that Anwar-led Unity Government could collapse if Opposition Perikatan Nasional wins the upcoming Pulai parliamentary by-election. Exactly how could the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS – Parti Islam Se-Malaysia), along with its sidekick Bersatu (Malaysian United Indigenous Party) forms a backdoor government with just 74 MPs?



Even if the opposition manages to snatch Pulai, its total Member of Parliaments in the 222-seat Parliament will increase to 75. It’s indeed laughable that the opposition thinks it could topple the current government with just 75 MPs against 147 MPs. Sure, the alliance of Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional might lose its two-thirds majority if Pulai is lost. But the unity government is still intact.



In comparison, the previous backdoor regime of Muhyiddin Yassin had a razor-thin majority of only 114 MPs. Of course, the disgraced man finally lost power after just 17 months – betrayed by a faction of his own ally, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). His chosen successor, “turtle-egg” Ismail Sabri served only 15 months – the shortest-serving prime minister in history.



If both illegitimate and un-elected premiers could survive for 33 months with just 114 MPs, surely Anwar – armed with more than 140 MPs – could last till the next 16th General Election. So, was power-crazy Hadi hallucinating after smoking weed, or high on “ketum”? After all, he had made a similar claim in the run-up to the six state elections held earlier this month.



In truth, both Bersatu president Muhyiddin and PAS president Hadi were cocksure, or at least fantasized, that Perikatan Nasional could snatch crown jewel Selangor from Pakatan Harapan. The “green wave” that swept through Malaysia during the 15th General Election last November, however, failed to turn into a “tsunami” which the Opposition had hoped for.



The failure to capture Penang, Selangor or Negeri Sembilan means both ruling government and the opposition returned to the status quo. It also means Perikatan Nasional could have received its maximum support from the conservative Malays. It has reached its peak. The only way to go, therefore, is for the wave to subside. The opposition has to wait for another 4 years at the ballot box.



But the crooks don’t have four years. Muhyiddin might end up in prison like former PM Najib Razak. His dubious spending in the RM600 billion Covid scandal is still alive and kicking. Bersatu may quit Perikatan Nasional, or PAS may kick out Bersatu. The distrust has begun as PAS greedily grabbed everything, including state executive councillors (Exco) and all four states (Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu).



Poor Muhyiddin is now left with not a single state to administer, even though his party has won more parliamentary and state seats than in the 2018 General Election. Before his betrayal in the infamous “Sheraton Move” in early 2020, Bersatu was given the privilege to run the states of Johor, Perak and Kedah. It’s a matter of time before the party followers leave in droves.



That’s why Perikatan Nasional top leadership keeps creating new narratives that the unity government would “collapse soon”. It is part of the old school of psychological warfare to give hope to party followers and to prevent them from quitting. Without power and access to federal resources, the opposition parties find it hard to feed its grassroots and grease the machinery.



But how does Hadi plan to snatch power and shamelessly create yet another backdoor government? The religious extremist has actually dropped all the hints when he said – “We need an extra seat in Pulai and a few others, so we have to be patient.” Crucially, he has also expressed hope that UMNO would change its mind and “repent” – suggesting a grand betrayal.



The opposition’s game plan is pretty easy. Hishammuddin Hussein, the cousin of crooked Najib Razak, will play the most important role to destabilize his own party – UMNO – if Pulai seat is captured. That’s why Hadi said the opposition needs the extra seat in Pulai. That extra seat will be interpreted as a sign that conservative and radical Malays have breached the UMNO fortress in Johor.




Previously, UMNO insiders claimed that 15 MPs, including 2 lawmakers from Anwar’ own party – PKR (People’s Justice Party) – were ready to switch sides, and re-contest under the Opposition banner after the mass resignations. Leading the UMNO traitors, saboteurs and provocateurs would be Hishammuddin, who has been suspended by his own party for 6 years.



Hishammuddin was responsible for instigating 10 Barisan Nasional MPs to support rival Perikatan Nasional chairman Muhyiddin Yassin as 10th Prime Minister after the 15th national polls that produced a hung Parliament. The list included Barisan component parties – two lawmakers from MCA (party president Wee Ka Siong and Wee Jeck Seng) and one MP from MIC (Saravanan).



While anti-hopping law prevents lawmakers from jumping ship unless it is through en-bloc defection (meaning UMNO president Zahid Hamidi agrees to withdraw support for the unity government), a lawmaker who resigns is free to join another political party and still be able to contest without any penalty. This is due to a loophole – either deliberately or ignorantly designed.



However, there were some problems with the earlier plan. There’s no guarantee that all the 15 MPs who resign and re-contest will win back their respective seats. For example, MCA president Wee Ka Siong retained his Ayer Hitam seat due to UMNO-Malay votes, as did Wee Jeck Seng (Tanjung Piai) and Saravanan (Tapah). Even Hishammuddin wasn’t sure he can retain Sembrong seat if he were to contest under Perikatan Nasional banner.



Another issue was that nobody knows if the so-called “green wave” will repeat itself. It was because of this reason that the plan was temporarily suspended, waiting for the six state election results. If the tsunami did not happen, there was no reason to commit “kamikaze” by resigning only to lose all the 15 MPs. Obviously, the results of the six state elections are not conclusive.



Hishammuddin, who has been extremely silent since the plot was exposed, does not have the balls to resign en masse after the half-baked PAS’ wave. Playing safe and unwilling to take the risk, he wanted more concrete proof that UMNO can be neutralized if he were to start a rebellion by quitting the party and trigger by-elections. Pulai by-election will be that benchmark.



In fact, the outcome of the six state elections last month showed that Malay voters have not only rejects UMNO, but also Bersatu. Muhyiddin’s party has failed to wrestle Selangor, and was merely riding on PAS grassroots and machinery to win its seats. This has raised the question whether the green wave was only strong in the northern part, gradually losing its steam when reached Selangor before stopping in Negeri Sembilan.



If Perikatan Nasional is indeed unstoppable, it will win Pulai. However, only 7 UMNO MPs are ready to vacate their seats to make way for by-elections. Some have chicken out after the results of the six state elections. This is why Hadi said in order to change government; the opposition needs to win Pulai and a “few others” – clearly referring to Hishammuddin and his minions.



Interestingly, even if Hishammuddin-led UMNO traitors were to defect, the pressure on Zahid to resign may not be strong enough to convince the party president to abandon his former mentor Anwar Ibrahim. Assuming the party loses 7 MPs, it still has 19 MPs whilst the unity government still possesses 140 MPs. This also explains why Hadi said he hopes that UMNO would change its mind and “repent”.



PAS still hopes it could persuade – and scam – the top leadership of UMNO the same way it did in 2020 to form a so-called Malay-Muslims government once again. But the people of Johor – Bangsa Johor – is a different kettle of fish. Sultan Ibrahim of Johor, in his latest interview, has raised the importance of national unity, the future of the state, and the significance of China to Malaysia.



Identifying himself first as a “Malaysian”, the Sultan takes pride in his “Bangsa Johor” concept. He emphasized that he had never sidelined any other ethnic community in the country. Heck, he has even mooted the idea of a new political party – Parti Bangsa Johor. Essentially, Hishammuddin, PAS and Bersatu will be up against the Bangsa Johor and Sultan Ibrahim.

MP demands Razali, PAS to apologise over 54k China migrants claim

MP demands Razali, PAS to apologise over 54k China migrants claim


Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng has demanded a public apology from Bersatu information chief Razali Idris and PAS over their claim that some 54,000 China nationals are in the process of being granted Malaysian citizenship.

Otherwise, Lim said he would lodge a police report against both Razali and PAS.

“I give 24 hours to Razali and PAS who made those false, lying, slanderous and malicious allegations to publicly apologise and withdraw the related statements or I will file a police report against them,” he said in a statement today.

Lim (right, above) claimed the allegations made by Razali and PAS were against the law, citing Sections 499, 504, 505 (b) and 505 (c) of the Penal Code, Section 4 of the Sedition Act, Section 233 (1) of the Communications and Multimedia Act as well as Sections 4(1) and 8A of the Printing Presses and Publications Act.

The allegations about the China nationals had first emerged on social media earlier this month, claiming that they were being granted citizenship to become “DAP voters”.

PAS had yesterday posted a series of tweets amplifying Razali’s demands that the MACC probe the allegations about the China nationals being granted citizenship.

Razali also asked for a probe to be carried out against Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and the National Registration Department for denying the claim.

In response to Razali’s statement, Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli urged Saifuddin to lodge a police report against PAS for criminal defamation in perpetuating the citizenship allegation.

To this, Razali told Rafizi to not be a “busybody” and reiterated that MACC must probe the allegations.

Razali also denied that making such calls was defamatory.

3 BN members denied bid to challenge Umno’s ‘no contest’ exemption

FMT:

3 BN members denied bid to challenge Umno’s ‘no contest’ exemption

Umno had in their general assembly approved a motion for the post of president and deputy president not to be contested at the party elections.

Three BN members claimed that the home minister’s exemption allowing the top two posts in Umno, held by Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (right) and Mohamad Hasan, to remain uncontested is unconstitutional. (Bernama pic)


KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court here denied applications filed by three Barisan Nasional (BN) members to challenge home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail’s decision to exempt the top two posts in Umno from being contested at the party elections last January.

Justice Amarjeet Singh dismissed the leave applications by Satarriah Abdul Karim, Zaidi Abdul Majid and P Vellasamy on grounds that the courts cannot inquire into matters involving political parties, as stated in Section 18C of the Societies Act.

The court made no order to costs.

Satarriah, Zaidi and Vellasamy claimed that Saifuddin’s decision contravened Article 8(1) of the Federal Constitution on equality, adding that it had denied other members the chance of challenging the incumbents for the post of president and deputy president.

“The applicants were denied their rights to be heard by the minister before coming to his decision. Until today, there is no reasonable explanation from the minister for his decision,” they claimed in their applications.

At the 2022 Umno annual general assembly on Jan 14 this year, the party approved a motion for the post of president and deputy president not to be contested at the party elections.

The trio pointed out that the Registrar of Societies (RoS) had launched a probe of possible violation of Umno’s constitution over the no-contest motion for the top two posts.

They had wanted the court to quash Saifuddin’s decision exempting the posts from being contested. They also named Umno and the RoS as defendants in their suit.

Lawyer Thalia Rohaina Abdul Latiff represented the BN members, while senior federal counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly appeared for Saifuddin and the RoS.

No need for partnerships with ‘scheming’ leaders, says Zahid

FMT:

No need for partnerships with ‘scheming’ leaders, says Zahid

The Umno president says PAS may have a hidden agenda behind their support to revive the Muafakat Nasional partnership.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the ban on the 3R issues was not too broad.


PUTRAJAYA: Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi says the party does not intend to revisit partnerships with “scheming” party leaders.

Commenting on former Umno leader Tajuddin Abdul Rahmam’s suggestion for Umno and PAS to revive Muafakat Nasional (MN), Zahid said such partnerships should not be manipulative.

Zahid also said that PAS might have a “hidden agenda” for wanting to revisit the partnership with Umno.

“I don’t think we need to revisit partnerships with scheming party leaders,” he said after attending a dinner with delegates from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Yesterday, FMT reported that PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the party was ready to work with Umno once again through the MN pact, but not with leaders who were willing to team up with DAP.

He believed that most of Umno’s members still had a fondness for the MN alliance, which the two parties formalised in 2019, as they wanted Malay political parties to be united.

On Monday, Tajuddin said the Malays were still divided and clashing against one another for power despite PAS winning big in the Aug 12 state elections.

The former Pasir Salak MP, who announced the formation of his NGO called “Pasir Salak Bangkit”, urged Umno and PAS to revive its MN alliance.

On another matter, Zahid said former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was questioning the ban on speaking about 3R (race, religion, royalty) issues for his own benefit, saying he disagreed with the former premier that the ban was too broad.

“I don’t think it (the ban) is too general,” he said.

“It only involves three main issues that should not be spoken about because of their sensitivity and they involve matters related to the Federal Constitution,” he said.

Bukit Aman CID chief Shuhaily Mohd Zain was reported as saying that the former prime minister was being investigated for suspected seditious statements intended to incite contempt or disloyalty towards the royal institution.

Cops probing 'Imam Mustaqim' Facebook account for post insulting Sultan of Selangor

Cops probing 'Imam Mustaqim' Facebook account for post insulting Sultan of Selangor

The defamatory post that went viral on social media had accused Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah of not guarding Islam. — Reuters pic

Wednesday, 30 Aug 2023 9:18 AM MYT


KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 — The police said they have opened an investigation into a Facebook account named and owned by one “Iman Mustaqim” following a post that allegedly insulted the Sultan of Selangor.

Federal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) director Datuk Seri Mohd Shuhaily Mohd Zain said the post is considered insensitive and derogatory which could potentially cause disloyalty and unrest among the public, especially on race, religion and the royalty (3R).


“The post was posted on the account page on Aug 28 and the Bukit Aman Classified Crime Investigation Unit (D5) is on the case now,” he said in a statement yesterday.

The case is being investigated under Seksyen 4(1) of the Sedition Act 1948 and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.


Suhaily also urged the public to not speculate and refrain from spreading misinformation which could affect the investigation.


The defamatory post that went viral on social media had accused Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah of not guarding Islam.

Earlier this week, the Malay Ruler ordered the immediate establishment of a special committee to conduct an in-depth and critical study on the competency of state legislative assemblies to enact Islamic laws under state enactments and the jurisdiction of Shariah Courts.

Sultan Sharafuddin, who is also the National Council for Islamic Religious Affairs chairman, said this is due to the number of cases under the jurisdiction of Shariah Courts being challenged at the Federal Court, particularly concerning the competency of state legislative assemblies in formulating and approving Islamic laws, as well as the jurisdiction of the Shariah Courts that preside over them.

ATTENTION MUSLIMS : Muhammad Hijab And Mufti Menke Discuss 24% Muslims In US Left Islam

 

OutSyed The Box

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

ATTENTION MUSLIMS : Muhammad Hijab And Mufti Menke Discuss 24% Muslims In US Left Islam

 

This is actually a growing issue all around the Islamic countries. It is not just affecting Muslims living in the West. It also affects Muslims living inside Muslim countries.

And almost all these Muslims who leave Islam are not converting to Christianity or any other religion. Instead they are becoming atheists. You can just Google 'Atheism in Islamic Countries' and see for yourself the information available.

Iran is almost 100% Muslim. But in a 2020 survey only 40% of Iranians identify themselves as Muslims. The remaining 60% are not. There is also growing atheism in Egypt and Saudi Arabia (of all places).

The following video is less than one minute and it shows Muhammad Hijab and Mufti Menke discussing the issue of growing atheism among Muslims.  Both Hijab and Mufti Menke are well regarded speakers and preachers of Islam. I have some comments after this.

 

The question is why?

My view is the gatekeepers, priests, clergy and the riff raff who have hoisted themselves as the guardians of the faith have failed miserably. Most of them are basically idiots. Fools. That is why Islam is losing its adherents, especially the younger generation.

This is the 21st century and yet these fellows still wrap their heads and shoulders with yards and yards of textiles and fabric - basically to show off their holiness. That they are a cut above. But too many of them behave like fools. So the modern generation laughs at them. The younger generation associate their dress and wardrobe with fear mongering (you will burn in hell), making all kinds of threats, angry sermons and constantly admonishing the people - as though they themselves are angels sent from heaven. 

In truth these monkeys can be the worse examples among the human species entirely. They can be uncivilised, rude, uncouth, they can lie, cheat even murder and steal. All in the name of religion. 

And yet these are the gatekeepers of Islam, the so called guardians of the faith. In the 21st century and in the age of the Internet the younger generations can see through these fellows like looking through glass. 

And they all speak a strange 9th to 12th century language which is becoming more irrelevant to the younger Muslim generations of the 21st century.

And these folks do not know the Quran. The Quran is rarely part of their vocabulary. So they rely on their own theological summaries and interpretations of this and that. 

Then we also had the shockers and the earthquakes. 

Since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948 the worldwide Muslim narrative has been quite hijacked by this one conflict.  Despite Muslims around the world having thousands of their own issues which had or have a more direct impact in their lives the Israeli-Palestinian issue has taken center stage. 

In almost all mosques around the world, almost every Friday sermon would include a prayer for the Palestinians (the "mujahideen fi filistin"). As though that was the only Muslim grievance in the entire world. But this Palestine issue was relevant only during the half hour or one hour when people were attending Friday prayers. The moment they left the mosque the Muslims around the world had other more relevant matters to deal with. Matters that have largely gone unsolved.

The Palestinian issue was also useful for "islamist" politicians and others who used the Palestine conflict to collect money and to play the "kami pembela agama" dangdut.

From the following chart the Islamic countries contribute less than 10% of the world's GDP.  It was much less before 2015 (the year in which this chart begins).  56 Islamic countries with a population of 2.0 billion produce less than 10% of the world's output. Much of these are commodities (oil and gas). Value added manufacturing is a tiny fraction.

So the Islamic countries are obviously not even self sufficient. How are they going to 'save the world'? More people are becoming aware of this never changing reality about the Muslims. Including the younger generations of Muslims who are now leaving Islam (as per the discussion above). 

Then there were the shockers. In 2001 a group of 19 'Muslims' crashed two airplanes into the Twin Towers in New York. Some Arabs celebrated the event but for many Muslims around the world the event was a shocker. An embarrassment. 'Muslims did that?' 

Until today the average Muslim does not know why the 19 Arabs crashed the planes into the Twin Towers. Was it because of Palestine? It was NOT because of Iraq because the Americans did not invade Iraq and Afghanistan until after 9-11. 

What was the exact reason for the 9-11 attack? 

But certainly many Muslims around the world were also embarrassed over the 9-11 attacks. Then the decade long War Against Terror began. That was the decade of Osama bin Ladin and Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was everywhere including here in Malaysia and South East Asia. And again the Al Qaeda stigma did have an embarrassing  effect on many Muslims, especially those living in the west. They did not want to be even remotely linked to the "terrorist" stigma.

I think Osama bin Ladin and the Al Qaeda terrorism did drive some Muslims to leave Islam. I think some Muslims, especially those living in the West, decided 'I am not going to be identified with this in any way. I am leaving'.

Ten years later the Arab Spring began in 2011. Inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwan Muslimin. Another earthquake in the Islamic world. The Arab Spring has become the Arab Hell which is still ongoing until today.  The Arab Spring failed.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Arab Spring was defeated or stalled by the bloodthirsty Salafi/Wahabi ISIS maniacs and their so called "Caliphate". By this time their head chopping and hand chopping went viral on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook etc. This was Achmed the Terrorist's 'I kill you' at its finest. 

 

 

Needless to say all those viral videos of the ISIS headchopping gave a cardiac arrest to many normal and moderate Muslims all around the world. 'Is this what Islam is really? Is this what Muslims should do? Cut off peoples' heads? Chop off their hands by the roadsides?"

I think the ISIS head chopping beginning 2013 drove more Muslims to leave Islam than anything else in this 21st century. I think many young Muslims, especially those living in the West, decided 'I am not going to be identified with this in any way. I am leaving'.

These industrial scale butchery, madness, mayhem, chaos, total collapse of Islamic countries was periodical but quite predictable. About every 10 years there would be some major eruption among the Islamic countries.

Now after 9-11, Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Arab Spring, ISIS we have the complete U-turn in Saudi Arabia. There is MBS or Mohamed Bin Salman the effective "ruler" of Saudi Arabia who has opened bikini beaches in Jeddah, nite clubs in Riyadh, unmarried couples (non Muslims) can check into hotels etc. Salafism is dead in Saudi Arabia.

This too has made many Muslims, especially the young have even more doubts about their religion. From Salafi / Wahabi head chopping to Saudi bikini beaches - all within 10 years.

Granted you (my dear readers) can argue and debate what I am saying here. But by any measure, by any argument,  so much confusing, dysfunctional, contradictory, violent, chaotic and stuck-in-the-9th-century behaviour can (my view is it already has) create serious doubts among young Muslims, especially those living in the west, about their religion.

It all contributes here and there. Hence that discussion above. 24% of Muslims in the US have left Islam. Mosques are about 1/3 full on Fridays.  People are getting tired.

The Israel Lobby’s Useful Idiot

Volume 28, Number 222 — Tuesday, August 15, 2023

The Israel Lobby’s Useful Idiot

To stand up to Israel has a political cost few, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are willing to pay. But if you do stand up, it singles you out as someone who puts principles before expediency.



The Kennedy Promise by Mr. Fish.


By Chris Hedges
Original to ScheerPost




The long nightmare of oppression of Palestinians is not a tangential issue. It is a black and white issue of a settler-colonial state imposing a military occupation, horrific violence and apartheid, backed by billions of U.S. dollars, on the indigenous population of Palestine. It is the all powerful against the all powerless.

Israel uses its modern weaponry against a captive population that has no army, no navy, no air force, no mechanized military units, no command and control and no heavy artillery, while pretending intermittent acts of wholesale slaughter are wars.

The crude rockets fired at Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations — a war crime because they target civilians — are not remotely comparable to the 2,000 pound “bunker-buster” Mark-84 bombs with a “kill radius” of over 32 yards and which “create a supersonic wave of pressure when they explode” that have been dropped by Israel on crowded Palestinian neighborhoods, the thousands of Palestinian killed and wounded and the targeted destruction of basic infrastructure, including electrical grids and water purification plants.

Palestinians in Gaza live in an open air prison that is one of the most densely populated spots on the planet. They are denied passports and travel documents.

Malnutrition is endemic in the Occupied Territories. “High proportions” of the Palestinian population are “deficient in vitamins A, D, and E, which play key roles in vision, bone health, and immune function,”according to a 2022 World Bank report. The report also notes that over 50 percent of those aged six to 23 in Gaza and over half of its pregnant women are anemic and “more than a quarter of pregnant women and more than a quarter of children aged 6–23 months [in the West Bank are] anemic.”

Eighty-eight percent of Gaza’s children suffer from depression, following 15 years of the Israeli blockade, according to a 2022 report from Save the Children and over 51 percent of children were diagnosed with PTSD following the third major war on Gaza in 2014. Only 4.3 percent of the water in Gaza is considered fit for human consumption. Palestinians in Gaza are crammed into unsanitary and overcrowded hovels. They often lack basic medical care. Unemployment rates are among the highest in the world at 46.6 percent.

Zionism’s goal, since before Israel’s inception, has been to displace Palestinians from their land and reduce those who remain to a struggle for basic subsistence, as Israeli historian Professor Ilan Pappe, notes:

“10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches on a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That same evening, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from vast areas of the country.

The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to prevent the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued its own list of villages and neighborhoods to target in keeping with the master plan. Code-named Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew)…

Once the plan was finalized, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s native population, over 750,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods had been emptied of their inhabitants.”

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, 1948. (UN Photo)


These political and historical facts, which I reported on as an Arabic speaker for seven years, four of them as The Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times, are hard to ignore. Even from a distance.

I watched Israeli soldiers taunt boys in Arabic over the loudspeakers of their armored jeep in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. The boys, about 10 years old, then threw stones at an Israeli vehicle. The soldiers opened fire, killing some, wounding others. In the Israeli lexicon this becomes children caught in crossfire.

I was in Gaza when F-16 attack jets dropped 1,000-pound iron fragmentation bombs on densely packed neighborhoods. I saw the corpses of the victims, including children, lined up in neat rows. This became a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory.

I watched Israel demolish homes and apartment blocks to create buffer zones between the Palestinians and Israeli troops. I interviewed destitute families camped in the rubble of their homes. The destruction becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists.

I stood in the bombed remains of schools as well as medical clinics and mosques. I heard Israel claim that errant rockets or mortar fire from the Palestinians caused these and other deaths, or that the attacked spots were being used as arms depots or launching sites.

I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, have never seen any evidence that Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” Ironically, there is evidence of the Israeli military using Palestinians as human shields, which Israel’s High Court deemed illegal in 2005.

There is a perverted logic to Israel’s use of the Big Lie —Große Lüge. The Big Lie feeds the two reactions Israel seeks to elicit — racism among its supporters and terror among its victims.

There is a heavy political price to pay for defying Israel, whose overt interference in the U.S. political process makes the most tepid protests about Israeli policy a political death wish. The Palestinians are poor, forgotten and alone. And this is why the defiance of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is the central issue facing any politician who claims to speak on behalf of the vulnerable and the marginalized.

To stand up to Israel has a political cost few, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are willing to pay. But if you do stand up, it singles you out as someone who puts principles before expediency, who is willing to fight for the wretched of the earth and, if necessary, sacrifice your political future to retain your integrity. Kennedy fails this crucial test of political and moral courage.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at an event in Phoenix in 2017. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)


Kennedy, instead, regurgitates every lie, every racist trope, every distortion of history and every demeaning comment about the backwardness of the Palestinian people peddled by the most retrograde and far-right elements of Israeli society. He peddles the myth of what Pappe calls “Fantasy Israel.” This alone discredits him as a progressive candidate. It calls into question his judgment and sincerity. It makes him another Democratic Party hack who dances to the macabre tune the Israeli government plays.

Kennedy has vowed to make “the moral case for Israel,” which is the equivalent of making the moral case for apartheid South Africa. He repeats, almost verbatim, talking points from the Israeli propaganda playbook put together by the Republican pollster and political strategist, Frank Luntz. The 112-page study, marked “not for distribution or publication,” which was leaked to Newsweek, was commissioned by The Israel Project. It was written in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009 — when 1,387 Palestinians and nine Israelis were killed.

The strategy document is the blueprint for how Israeli politicians and lobbyists sell Israel. It exposes the wide gap between what Israeli politicians say and what they know to be the truth. It is tailored to tell the outside world, especially Americans, what they want to hear. The report is required reading for anyone attempting to deal with the Israeli propaganda machine.

The document, for example, suggests telling the outside world that Israel “has a right to defensible borders,” but advises Israelis to refuse to define what the borders should be. It advises Israeli politicians to justify the refusal by Israel to allow 750,000 Palestinians and their descendants, who were expelled from their country during the 1948 war, to return home, although the right of return is guaranteed under international law, by referring to this right as a “demand.”

Frank Luntz at an event in Des Moines, Iowa, November 2015. (Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)


It also recommends arguing that Palestinians are seeking mass migrations to seize land inside Israel. It suggests mentioning the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Iraq, Syria and Egypt, who fled anti-Semitism and violence in the Arab world after the creation of the Jewish state. The document recommends saying these refugees also “left property behind,” in essence justifying the Israeli pogrom by the pogrom Arab states carried out after 1948. It recommends blaming the poverty among Palestinians on “Arab nations” that have not provided “a better life for Palestinians.”

What is most cynical about the report is the tactic of expressing a faux sympathy for the Palestinians, who are blamed for their own oppression.

“Show Empathy for BOTH sides!” the document reads. “The goal of pro-Israel communications is not simply to make people who already love Israel feel good about that decision. The goal is to win new hearts and minds for Israel without losing the support Israel already has.” It says that this tactic will “disarm” audiences.

I doubt Kennedy has read or heard of Luntz’s report. But he has been spoon-fed its talking points and naively spits them back. Israel only wants peace. Israel does not engage in torture. Israel is not an apartheid state. Israel gives Israeli Arabs political and civic rights they do not have in other parts of the Middle East. Palestinians are not deliberately targeted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Israel respects civil liberties and gender and marriage rights. Israel has “the best judiciary in the world.”

Kennedy makes other claims, such as his bizarre statement that the Palestinian Authority pays Palestinians to kill Jews anywhere in the world along with falsifications of elemental Middle Eastern history, which are so absurd I will ignore them. But I list below examples from the volumes of evidence that implode the Luntz-inspired talking points Kennedy repeats on behalf of the Israel lobby, not that any evidence can probably puncture his self-serving attachment to “Fantasy Israel.”


Apartheid

A Palestinian boy and Israeli soldier in front of the Israeli West Bank Barrier, August 2004. (Justin McIntosh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)


The 2017 U.N. report: “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” concludes that Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.” Since 1967, Palestinians as a people have lived in what the report refers to as four “domains,” in which the fragments of the Palestinian population are ostensibly treated differently but share in common the racial oppression that results from the apartheid regime.

Those domains are:

1. Civil law, with special restrictions, governing Palestinians who live as citizens of Israel;

2. Permanent residency law governing Palestinians living in the city of Jerusalem;

3. Military law governing Palestinians, including those in refugee camps, living since 1967 under conditions of belligerent occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip;

4. Policy to preclude the return of Palestinians, whether refugees or exiles, living outside territory under Israel’s control.

On July 19, 2018, the Israeli Knesset voted “to approve the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law, constitutionally enshrining Jewish supremacy and the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” the Haifa-based civil liberties group Adalah explained. It is the supreme law in Israel “capable of overriding any ordinary legislation.”

In 2021 Israeli human rights group B’Tselem published its report “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.”

The report reads:

“In the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group — Jews — over another — Palestinians. A key method in pursuing this goal is engineering space differently for each group.

Jewish citizens live as though the entire area were a single space (excluding the Gaza Strip). The Green Line means next to nothing for them: whether they live west of it, within Israel’s sovereign territory, or east of it, in settlements not formally annexed to Israel, is irrelevant to their rights or status.

Where Palestinians live, on the other hand, is crucial. The Israeli regime has divided the area into several units that it defines and governs differently, according Palestinians different rights in each. This division is relevant to Palestinians only…Israel accords Palestinians a different package of rights in every one of these units — all of which are inferior compared to the rights afforded to Jewish citizens. “

“Since 1948,” the reports continues, “Israel has taken over 90% of land within its sovereign territory and built hundreds of Jewish communities, yet not one for Palestinians (with the exception of several communities built to concentrate the Bedouin population, after dispossessing them of most of their property rights),” the report reads.

Israeli military forces arriving to demolish the Palestinian community of Khirbet Ein Karzaliyah on Jan. 8, 2014. (B’Tselem, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)


“Since 1967, Israel has also enacted this policy in the Occupied Territories, dispossessing Palestinians of more than 2,000 km2 on various pretexts. In violation of international law, it has built over 280 settlements in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) for more than 600,000 Jewish citizens. It has devised a separate planning system for Palestinians, designated primarily to prevent construction and development, and has not established a single new Palestinian community.”

[“As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state,” said ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2010.

Three years earlier, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”

A former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel, put it even more bluntly. “In the situation that exists today, until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state, in the hope that the status quo is temporary, is an apartheid state.”]

Targeting Civilians

Tanzanians in Dar es Salaam protesting the 2008-2009 Gaza bombardment by Israel. (Muhammad Mahdi Karim, Wikimedia Commons, GFDL)


Contrary to Kennedy’s claims that “the policy of the Israeli military is to always only attack military targets,” the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military, and other branches of the Israeli security apparatus, has been extensively documented by Israeli and international organizations.

The 2010 Goldstone report, which is over 500 pages, investigated Israel’s 22-day air and ground assault on Gaza that took place from Dec. 27, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009. The United Nations Human Rights Council and the European Parliament endorsed the report.

The Israeli attack killed 1,434 people, including 960 civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. More than 6,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, leaving behind some $3 billion in destruction in one of the poorest areas on Earth. Three Israeli civilians were killed by rockets fired into Israel during the assault.

The report’s key findings include that:

“• Numerous instances of Israeli lethal attacks on civilians and civilian objects were intentional, including with the aim of spreading terror, that Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields and that such tactics had no justifiable military objective.

• Israeli forces engaged in the deliberate killing, torture and other inhuman treatment of civilians and deliberately caused extensive destruction of property, outside any military necessity, carried out wantonly and unlawfully.

• Israel violated its duty to respect the right of Gaza’s population to an adequate standard of living, including access to adequate food, water and housing. “

On June 14 of this year, B’Tselem reported that “Top Israeli officials” are “criminally liable for knowingly” ordering airstrikes which were “expected to harm civilians, including children, in the Gaza Strip.”

Contrary to the myth propagated by Kennedy, reports and investigations, both by the U.N. as well as by rights groups, domestic and international, routinely cover suspected or known violations by Palestinian militants when they investigate alleged war crimes. As B’Tselem noted in the same 2019 report, in total, four Israelis were killed and 123 wounded.

Last month, the U.N.’s expert on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Italian international lawyer and academic Francesca Albanese, presented her report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. It makes for very grim reading.

“Deprivation of liberty has been a central element of Israel’s occupation since its inception. Between 1967-2006 Israel has incarcerated over 800,000 Palestinians in the occupied territory. Although spiking during Palestinian uprisings, incarceration has become a quotidian reality. Over 100,000 Palestinians were detained during the First Intifada (1987-1993), 70,000 during the Second Intifada (2000-2006), and over 6,000 during the ‘Unity Intifada’ (2021). Approximately 7,000 Palestinians, including 882 children, were arrested in 2022. Currently, almost 5,000 Palestinians, including 155 children, are detained by Israel, 1,014 of them without charge or trial.”


Torture

Around 1,200 complaints “alleging violence in Shin Bet [The Israeli Security Agency] interrogations” were filed between 2001 and 2019, according to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.

“Zero indictments have been brought,” the committee reports. “This is yet another illustration of the complete systemic impunity enjoyed by the Shin Bet’s interrogators.”

Coercive methods include sexual harassment and humiliation, beatings, stress positions imposed for hours and interrogations that lasted as long as 19 hours as well as threats of violence against family members.

“They said they would kill my wife and children. They said they would cancel my mother’s and sister’s permits for medical treatments,” one survivor said in 2016. “I couldn’t sleep because even when I was in my cell, they would wake me up every 15 minutes… I couldn’t tell the difference between day and night… I still scream in my sleep,” another said in 2017.

Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer expressed “his utmost concern” after a December 2017 ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court exempting security agents from criminal investigation despite their undisputed use of coercive “pressure techniques” against a Palestinian detainee, Assad Abu Gosh. He called the ruling a “license to torture.”

Abu Gosh “was reportedly subjected to ill-treatment including beatings, being slammed against walls, having his body and fingers bent and tied into painful stress positions and sleep deprivation, as well as threats, verbal abuse, and humiliation. Medical examinations confirm that Mr. Abu Gosh suffers from various neurologic injuries resulting from the torture he suffered.”

Civil Liberties

“Gas the Arabs!” graffiti in Hebron, 2008. (Magne Hagesæter, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)


In the November 2022 elections in Israel, a far-right theocratic, nationalist and openly racist coalition took power. Itamar Ben-Gvir, from the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit, “Jewish Power,” party, is the Minister of National Security. Otzma Yehudit is populated with former members of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach party, which was banned from running for the Knesset in 1988 for espousing a “Nazi-like ideology” that included advocating the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as all Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

His appointment, along with that of other far-right ideologues, including Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, effectively jettisons the old tropes liberal Zionists used to defend Israel — that it is the only democracy in the Middle East, that it seeks a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians in a two-state solution, that extremism and racism have no place in Israeli society and that Israel must impose draconian forms of control on the Palestinians to prevent terrorism.

The new coalition government is reportedly preparing legislation that would be used to disqualify almost all Palestinian/Arab Knesset members from serving in the Israeli parliament, as well as ban their parties from standing in elections. The recent judicial “reforms” gut the independence and oversight of the Israeli courts. The government has also proposed shutting down Kan, the public broadcasting network, although that has been amended to fixing its “flaws”. Smotrich, who opposes LGBTQ rights and refers to himself as a “fascist homophobe,” said on Tuesday he would freeze all funds to Israel’s Palestinian communities and East Jerusalem.

Israel has promulgated a series of laws to curtail public freedoms, brand all forms of Palestinian resistance as terrorism, and label supporters of Palestinian rights, even if they are Jewish, as anti-Semites. The amendment of one of Israel’s principle apartheid laws, the 2010 “Village Committees Law,” grants neighborhoods with up to 700 households the right to reject people from moving in to “preserve the fabric” of the community. Israel has over 65 laws that are used to discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens of Israel and those in the Occupied Territories.

Israel’s Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law prevents Palestinian citizens of Israel from marrying Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Interreligious marriage in Israel is also prohibited.

As explained by Jacob N. Simon, who served as the President of the Jewish Legal Society at the Michigan State University College of Law:

“The combination of the blood line related requirements to be considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinical Court and the restriction of marriage requiring religious ceremonies shows an intent to maintain race purity. At its core, this is no different than the desire for pure blooded Aryans in Nazi Germany or pure blooded whites in the Jim Crow Southern United States.”

Those who support these discriminatory laws and embrace Israeli apartheid are blinded by willful ignorance, racism or cynicism. Their goal is to dehumanize Palestinians, champion an intolerant Jewish chauvinism and entice the naïve and the gullible into justifying the unjustifiable. Kennedy, bereft of a moral compass and a belief system rooted in verifiable fact, has not only failed the Palestinians, he has failed us.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”