20 mar 2020
Israeli Paramedics of the Israel's National Emergency Pre-Hospital Medical Organisation at the coronavirus national operations center, perform a coronavirus test exercise on a volunteer on 26 February 2020 in the central Israeli city of Kiryat Ono
Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has caused an unprecedented global pandemic. This has spread fear, suffering and needless death around much of the world.
Due to the genuine and serious threat to public safety, governments are taking steps usually only witnessed in wartime to curb freedom of movement in an effort to halt the spread of the virus.
The British government, however, has been far too slow to take the threat to public health seriously. Richard Horton, the editor of respected medical journal The Lancet lamented on Wednesday that the government has wasted precious time in the fight against the virus.
The “rapid and rigorous work” of Chinese scientists in identifying the virus and writing about it in his journal “was an urgent warning to the world. We owe those scientists enormous thanks,” Horton wrote in the Guardian.
“Why did it take the UK government eight weeks to recognise the seriousness of what we now call Covid-19? …
After weeks of inaction, the government announced a sudden U-turn on Monday, declaring that new modelling by scientists at Imperial College had convinced them to change their initial plans.”
Horton didn’t pull his punches, but seems confident the tide can now be turned. Let us hope that he is correct and that the right lessons have been learned.
Meanwhile, in occupied Palestine the Israelis are leveraging the pandemic to further increase their control of the already suffering Palestinians living under Israel’s military dictatorship in the West Bank, and in the Gaza Strip under siege and occupation.
What’s more, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by Western liberals on Thursday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved to tighten his grip on the state, sidelining calls for him to step down to make way for former general Benny Gantz. With Netanyahu’s approval, Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, imposed “emergency” measures to track people’s movements via their mobile phone data.
Such all-pervasive violations of privacy have long been used against the Palestinian population by Israel’s racism regime, with not a peep of objection from any Israelis apart from a minority of marginalised dissidents.
Now, though, it seems that the “oppressive policies and practices developed and used in contexts of occupation, also end up being used by the occupying power against its own citizens,” to quote the Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh.
Yuval Noah Harari, a relatively apolitical Israeli author, decided for once to tweet about the prime minister: “The first coronavirus dictatorship,” is how he described Netanyahu’s power play. tweet
“Netanyahu lost the elections,” claimed Harari, “so under [the] pretext of fighting corona, he has closed the Israeli parliament, ordered people to stay in their homes, and is issuing whatever emergency decrees he wishes. This is called a dictatorship.”
Harari has a point, but was seemingly ignoring the military dictatorship that Israel has imposed on Palestinians without interruption since 1948. As is usual for most Israelis, he was treating the Palestinians as if – at best – they are invisible.
Netanyahu’s son Yair, a well-established Twitter troll, shot back that Harari was a “lier [sic] and hater of your own country! He won!”
Another bizarre Covid-19 story out of Israel this week was about the Mossad, its notorious spy agency and death squad. Mossad is most noted for murdering Palestinian leaders and using forged passports in doing so from countries such as the UK and Ireland with which it supposedly has friendly relations.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Mossad has “obtained” 100,000 test kits for the new coronavirus from overseas. The initial report on this, from an Israeli news channel, “appeared to leave ambiguous whether the agency had taken the test kits without permission.”
Having taken them “without permission” seems like a very roundabout way of saying that, actually, Mossad agents stole them. Not to worry though. Our intrepid Jerusalem Post reporters “confirmed” that the deadly Israeli spy agency had actually obtained its haul “with consent”.
Exactly how the Post claimed to have “confirmed” this is not at all explained in their article, nor did it say whose “consent” was given. It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, that the independent “confirmation” of this information consisted of a journalist asking the newspaper’s Mossad sources, who swiftly proceeded to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. Case closed.
While there is a theoretical possibility that the test kits were bought legitimately, the involvement of a secretive, clandestine and brutal spy agency seems to suggest otherwise.
However, another line in the paper’s report hinted at another explanation. “Some of the countries involved” in selling the kits “do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.” Who has very friendly links with Israel, but no formal diplomatic relations?
Could the virus testing kits have been sold to Israel via Mossad by Saudi Arabia, the UAE or one of the other oppressive Gulf dictatorships? They are known to have serious under-the-table contacts with Israel, which have become fairly overt in recent years.
If that is the case, then the citizens of those countries will be asking why the test kits were sent to Israel and not used for their own wellbeing. Either that or Mossad is making the entire “consent” story up and its agents really did steal them.
Furthermore, the Jerusalem Post warned that, “Additional Mossad operations are expected soon, which could bring up to four million test kits to Israel.” Let’s hope for their sake that the spooks will be more successful next time.
A postscript to this story reveals that Israel’s most notorious spies managed to bungle yet another operation. It has emerged that Mossad’s agents did not even take the right stuff, because the virus test kits were “incomplete”, claimed the Post.
While the headline of the online version of the relevant article has been edited, an earlier version pointed out that the kits are, in fact, “unusable”. According to Haaretz, they are the wrong type altogether.
Nevertheless, the Jerusalem Post’s warning about “additional Mossad operations” has to be taken seriously. Such ineptitude is unlikely to be repeated.
Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has caused an unprecedented global pandemic. This has spread fear, suffering and needless death around much of the world.
Due to the genuine and serious threat to public safety, governments are taking steps usually only witnessed in wartime to curb freedom of movement in an effort to halt the spread of the virus.
The British government, however, has been far too slow to take the threat to public health seriously. Richard Horton, the editor of respected medical journal The Lancet lamented on Wednesday that the government has wasted precious time in the fight against the virus.
The “rapid and rigorous work” of Chinese scientists in identifying the virus and writing about it in his journal “was an urgent warning to the world. We owe those scientists enormous thanks,” Horton wrote in the Guardian.
“Why did it take the UK government eight weeks to recognise the seriousness of what we now call Covid-19? …
After weeks of inaction, the government announced a sudden U-turn on Monday, declaring that new modelling by scientists at Imperial College had convinced them to change their initial plans.”
Horton didn’t pull his punches, but seems confident the tide can now be turned. Let us hope that he is correct and that the right lessons have been learned.
Meanwhile, in occupied Palestine the Israelis are leveraging the pandemic to further increase their control of the already suffering Palestinians living under Israel’s military dictatorship in the West Bank, and in the Gaza Strip under siege and occupation.
What’s more, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by Western liberals on Thursday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved to tighten his grip on the state, sidelining calls for him to step down to make way for former general Benny Gantz. With Netanyahu’s approval, Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, imposed “emergency” measures to track people’s movements via their mobile phone data.
Such all-pervasive violations of privacy have long been used against the Palestinian population by Israel’s racism regime, with not a peep of objection from any Israelis apart from a minority of marginalised dissidents.
Now, though, it seems that the “oppressive policies and practices developed and used in contexts of occupation, also end up being used by the occupying power against its own citizens,” to quote the Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh.
Yuval Noah Harari, a relatively apolitical Israeli author, decided for once to tweet about the prime minister: “The first coronavirus dictatorship,” is how he described Netanyahu’s power play. tweet
“Netanyahu lost the elections,” claimed Harari, “so under [the] pretext of fighting corona, he has closed the Israeli parliament, ordered people to stay in their homes, and is issuing whatever emergency decrees he wishes. This is called a dictatorship.”
Harari has a point, but was seemingly ignoring the military dictatorship that Israel has imposed on Palestinians without interruption since 1948. As is usual for most Israelis, he was treating the Palestinians as if – at best – they are invisible.
Netanyahu’s son Yair, a well-established Twitter troll, shot back that Harari was a “lier [sic] and hater of your own country! He won!”
Another bizarre Covid-19 story out of Israel this week was about the Mossad, its notorious spy agency and death squad. Mossad is most noted for murdering Palestinian leaders and using forged passports in doing so from countries such as the UK and Ireland with which it supposedly has friendly relations.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Mossad has “obtained” 100,000 test kits for the new coronavirus from overseas. The initial report on this, from an Israeli news channel, “appeared to leave ambiguous whether the agency had taken the test kits without permission.”
Having taken them “without permission” seems like a very roundabout way of saying that, actually, Mossad agents stole them. Not to worry though. Our intrepid Jerusalem Post reporters “confirmed” that the deadly Israeli spy agency had actually obtained its haul “with consent”.
Exactly how the Post claimed to have “confirmed” this is not at all explained in their article, nor did it say whose “consent” was given. It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, that the independent “confirmation” of this information consisted of a journalist asking the newspaper’s Mossad sources, who swiftly proceeded to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. Case closed.
While there is a theoretical possibility that the test kits were bought legitimately, the involvement of a secretive, clandestine and brutal spy agency seems to suggest otherwise.
However, another line in the paper’s report hinted at another explanation. “Some of the countries involved” in selling the kits “do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.” Who has very friendly links with Israel, but no formal diplomatic relations?
Could the virus testing kits have been sold to Israel via Mossad by Saudi Arabia, the UAE or one of the other oppressive Gulf dictatorships? They are known to have serious under-the-table contacts with Israel, which have become fairly overt in recent years.
If that is the case, then the citizens of those countries will be asking why the test kits were sent to Israel and not used for their own wellbeing. Either that or Mossad is making the entire “consent” story up and its agents really did steal them.
Furthermore, the Jerusalem Post warned that, “Additional Mossad operations are expected soon, which could bring up to four million test kits to Israel.” Let’s hope for their sake that the spooks will be more successful next time.
A postscript to this story reveals that Israel’s most notorious spies managed to bungle yet another operation. It has emerged that Mossad’s agents did not even take the right stuff, because the virus test kits were “incomplete”, claimed the Post.
While the headline of the online version of the relevant article has been edited, an earlier version pointed out that the kits are, in fact, “unusable”. According to Haaretz, they are the wrong type altogether.
Nevertheless, the Jerusalem Post’s warning about “additional Mossad operations” has to be taken seriously. Such ineptitude is unlikely to be repeated.
19 mar 2020
Mossad, Israel’s espionage agency, delivered some 100,000 new coronavirus test kits collected overseas to Israeli laboratories “in an overnight operation”, Channel 12 News reported today. video
According to Israel Hayom, “in the next few days, the Mossad will facilitate the delivery of 4 million additional kits”, with agency director Yossi Cohen “said to be personally overseeing the operation”.
The reports added that Mossad’s “cyber staff is currently assisting the Ministry of Health in writing unique software and applications for dealing with the virus”.
“This is an unusual event, in which all the intelligence and security agencies of the State of Israel are mobilising to assist efforts to curb the spread of the virus,” Israel Hayom added.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that he wants Israeli labs to “reach 5,000 daily tests as part of the efforts to defeat the coronavirus outbreak”, the report noted.
Yesterday, meanwhile, “following reports that the medical teams nationwide are running dangerously low on protective gear”, the country’s Defence Minister Naftali Bennett ordered the ministry’s Procurement Administration to purchase all necessary supplies overseas.
As of this morning, according to official data, 529 Israelis have tested positive for COVID-19, with six patients considered to be in a serious condition.
The government has urged citizens to stay at home, while cultural and recreational spaces, as well as educational institutions, have been closed.
The only foreigners allowed entry to the country are those who can prove they are able to self-isolate for two weeks upon arrival.
According to Israel Hayom, “in the next few days, the Mossad will facilitate the delivery of 4 million additional kits”, with agency director Yossi Cohen “said to be personally overseeing the operation”.
The reports added that Mossad’s “cyber staff is currently assisting the Ministry of Health in writing unique software and applications for dealing with the virus”.
“This is an unusual event, in which all the intelligence and security agencies of the State of Israel are mobilising to assist efforts to curb the spread of the virus,” Israel Hayom added.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that he wants Israeli labs to “reach 5,000 daily tests as part of the efforts to defeat the coronavirus outbreak”, the report noted.
Yesterday, meanwhile, “following reports that the medical teams nationwide are running dangerously low on protective gear”, the country’s Defence Minister Naftali Bennett ordered the ministry’s Procurement Administration to purchase all necessary supplies overseas.
As of this morning, according to official data, 529 Israelis have tested positive for COVID-19, with six patients considered to be in a serious condition.
The government has urged citizens to stay at home, while cultural and recreational spaces, as well as educational institutions, have been closed.
The only foreigners allowed entry to the country are those who can prove they are able to self-isolate for two weeks upon arrival.
6 jan 2020
The deceased American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell were Israeli spies who used underage girls to blackmail politicians into giving information to Israel, according to their alleged Mossad handler.
The couple reportedly ran a “honey-trap” operation in which they provided young girls to prominent politicians from around the world for sex, and then used the incidents to blackmail them in order to attain information for Israeli intelligence.
The claims are being made by the alleged former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe in a soon-to-be-released book “Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales” in which he said that he was the handler of Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell, who was also an Israeli espionage agent and was the one who introduced his daughter and Epstein to Mossad.
“See, f**king around is not a crime. It could be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime,” Menashe wrote in the book. “But f**king a fourteen-year-old girl is a crime. And he was taking photos of politicians f**king fourteen-year-old girls—if you want to get it straight…They [Epstein and Maxwell] would just blackmail people like that.”
The handler Ben-Menashe, himself an Iran-born Israeli businessman who says he worked for Mossad from 1977 to 1987, is a mysterious figure who was arrested in 1989 in the US on charges of arms dealing. He was acquitted in 1990, however, only after a jury accepted that he was acting on behalf of the Israeli state. Israel then denied that Menashe has any links with its intelligence services and attempted to distance itself from him, despite the fact that other news reports both in the US and Israel confirmed he was acting on the country’s behalf.
The new book, which also speculates that Maxwell may have worked for other governments as a double or triple agent, says that despite reports Epstein and Ghislaine met in the early 1990s in New York, they in fact met earlier through her father who introduced Epstein to Mossad before Ghislaine joined in the activities later.
Jeffrey Epstein, who was facing charges for sex trafficking minors, was found dead in his New York prison cell on 10 August. According to official reports he committed suicide, but there has been much speculation and evidence put forward that he was in fact killed, with many stating he may have been assassinated due to his knowledge of the figures he blackmailed and the acts they committed.
The statements made by Ben-Menashe are so far unsubstantiated, but if proven true they would provide significant evidence of Israel being involved in the blackmail of senior and prominent politicians and figures in the US.
This would only add to the state’s already-revealed track record of manipulating Western nations’ political systems, as was seen in the revelations of the Israeli lobby’s attempt to “take down” British and US politicians revealed in the past few years.
The couple reportedly ran a “honey-trap” operation in which they provided young girls to prominent politicians from around the world for sex, and then used the incidents to blackmail them in order to attain information for Israeli intelligence.
The claims are being made by the alleged former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe in a soon-to-be-released book “Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales” in which he said that he was the handler of Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell, who was also an Israeli espionage agent and was the one who introduced his daughter and Epstein to Mossad.
“See, f**king around is not a crime. It could be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime,” Menashe wrote in the book. “But f**king a fourteen-year-old girl is a crime. And he was taking photos of politicians f**king fourteen-year-old girls—if you want to get it straight…They [Epstein and Maxwell] would just blackmail people like that.”
The handler Ben-Menashe, himself an Iran-born Israeli businessman who says he worked for Mossad from 1977 to 1987, is a mysterious figure who was arrested in 1989 in the US on charges of arms dealing. He was acquitted in 1990, however, only after a jury accepted that he was acting on behalf of the Israeli state. Israel then denied that Menashe has any links with its intelligence services and attempted to distance itself from him, despite the fact that other news reports both in the US and Israel confirmed he was acting on the country’s behalf.
The new book, which also speculates that Maxwell may have worked for other governments as a double or triple agent, says that despite reports Epstein and Ghislaine met in the early 1990s in New York, they in fact met earlier through her father who introduced Epstein to Mossad before Ghislaine joined in the activities later.
Jeffrey Epstein, who was facing charges for sex trafficking minors, was found dead in his New York prison cell on 10 August. According to official reports he committed suicide, but there has been much speculation and evidence put forward that he was in fact killed, with many stating he may have been assassinated due to his knowledge of the figures he blackmailed and the acts they committed.
The statements made by Ben-Menashe are so far unsubstantiated, but if proven true they would provide significant evidence of Israel being involved in the blackmail of senior and prominent politicians and figures in the US.
This would only add to the state’s already-revealed track record of manipulating Western nations’ political systems, as was seen in the revelations of the Israeli lobby’s attempt to “take down” British and US politicians revealed in the past few years.
