Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From Russia Today
Israel bombs Lebanon to destroy own downed drone – reports
Edited time: June 21, 2015 12:18
A blast has been reported near the town of Saghbein in a remote area of Lebanon’s western Bekaa, sources told agencies. Hezbollah-run Al Manar TV said, an Israeli drone was downed in the area and the airstrike was Israel’s attempt to destroy it.
A Lebanese security source told Reuters that the cause of the blast “is still not 100 percent clear but most probably it was an Israeli airstrike to destroy their drone.”
#BREAKING: Israel raid destroys own crashed drone in Lebanon: security source
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) June 21, 2015
“An Israeli air strike was launched this morning to destroy one of their drones that crashed in the mountains outside Saghbine yesterday,” a security source told AFP.
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From PressTV
Israeli forces shoot Palestinian teen dead in East al-Quds
Israeli forces have reportedly shot and killed a Palestinian teenager in an area in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
According to reports, the Palestinian boy was killed in the area of al-Amud on Sunday morning.
The identity of the boy has not been revealed, yet. Reports, however, say that he was an 18-year-old boy living in the occupied West Bank.
Following the incident, the Israeli forces sealed off the Bab al-Amud, or Damascus Gate, which is one of the main entrances to the Old City in East al-Quds.
The Israeli soldiers involved in the deadly shooting claimed that the Palestinian boy had stabbed and wounded an Israeli policeman at the gate.
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From PressTV
Israel wages major bid to ward off BDS boycott campaign
As the global anti-Israel protest campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement gains momentum, the Israeli regime has launched a major bid against the movement and its threat of economic sanctions targeting Israel.
Even Israeli opposition leaders recently joined the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in waging diplomatic and economic war against the BDS, a growing coalition of Palestinian and international institutions and groups that Tel Aviv claims is “inherently anti-Semitic” and bent on its termination, the US-based Defense News reported Friday.
According to the report, even Israeli military firms, led by Elbit Systems, are bracing for international protests against their products, trade partners and subsidiaries as Tel Aviv struggles with its push to undermine the movement and its anti-Israeli boycott campaign.
BDS has already claimed credit for prompting Barclays Bank and Norway’s pension fund to divest from Elbit stocks as wells as cancelling a small research satellite project with an Elbit subsidiary in Brazil and for causing disruptions at three Elbit factories or subsidiary facilities in Europe.
To mark the anniversary of last summer’s Israeli military onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, the movement is calling for a mass protest rally on July 6 at UAV Engines, an Elbit subsidiary near the British city of Birmingham.
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From Russia Today
ISIS fighters plant mines and bombs in Palmyra – monitor
Islamic State militants have planted mines and bombs in the ancient part of the central Syrian city of Palmyra, a UNESCO landmark, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The monitoring group said it was unclear whether the fighters were planning to destroy the remains of the ancient city, or had planted the mines in a bid to stop government forces from advancing.
“They have planted [them] yesterday. They also planted some around the Roman theater, we still do not know the real reason,” the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdulrahman, told Reuters.
Fears have been running high that after falling into jihadists’ hands, Palmyra would suffer the tragic fate of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, Iraq, which they devastated in March.
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From Russia Today
‘Slovakia to Slovaks’: Thousands join anti-Islamization protest in Bratislava, dozens arrested (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
At least 140 people have been arrested in Slovakia’s capital, where thousands gathered for an anti-immigration and anti-Islamization rally, according to local media reports. The march turned violent as protesters scuffled with police.
The march was organized by the Alternativna cesta group via Facebook. It was called to protest against Brussels’ proposal to tackle the influx of migrants to the EU by imposing compulsory national quotas that require EU countries to accept a specific number of new migrants, most of whom arrived in Italy or Greece.
Slovak media say the march drew thousands of protesters, while the Facebook page for the event claims that about 14,000 people took part in the rally.
The activists, who said they are against the ‘Islamization of Europe’ and migrants from the Middle East and Africa, were chanting slogans like “Slovakia to Slovaks,” “Stop Islamization in Europe; Together Against dictate of Brussels; Europe for Europeans!”
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From PressTV
French FM warns Israel over illegal settlement activities
The French foreign minister has called for the resumption of stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks, warning that Tel Aviv’s continued settlement expansion in the occupied lands scuttles the chances of a deal between the two sides.
“What’s important is that negotiations restart,” Laurent Fabius told reporters during a visit to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Saturday.
He stressed, however, that the prospect of a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians will recede if the Tel Aviv regime continues illegal land grab in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“We need the rights of the Palestinians to be recognized because without justice there can be no peace,” added the top French diplomat.
Fabius’ comments come after French lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a motion to recognize Palestine as an independent state last December.
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From PressTV
Israel’s ex-minister for military affairs not detained in London
Israeli former minister for military affairs, Shaul Mofaz, has arrived in London and gone to his hotel despite earlier speculations about his arrest over war crimes.
Mofaz, scheduled to attend a conference in London, landed in the British capital late on Saturday on a flight from Tel Aviv, and went through customs and border control without being arrested.
Earlier, there were speculations that he might have been arrested upon his arrival over war crimes he committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank during his 2002–2006 tenure.
Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs and the Israeli embassy in London had struggled frantically ahead of Mofaz’s trip to prevent his potential arrest, which could be considered an embarrassment for the Israeli regime.
However, British ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould had notified Mofaz and the Israeli embassy in London that they could not secure diplomatic immunity for the former minister.
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From Ynet News
Israeli Arab MK to join Gaza-bound flotilla
Politicians attack and defend MK Dr. Basel Ghattas after he tells Ynet he plans to join pro-Palestinian flotilla currently making its way to Gaza.
MK Basel Ghattas of the Joint Arab List on Sunday confirmed to Ynet that he intends to board a solidarity flotilla from Greece to Gaza.
Ghattas is not the first Arab MK to board a flotilla: Five years ago, his colleague from the Joint Arab List, MK Hanin Zoabi, was on the Mavi Marmara, a flotilla that was raided by Israeli commandos in 2010.
From The Times of Israel
After shooting, Confederate flag sets off Republican debate
Romney says southern banner seen as ‘a symbol of racial hatred’; Lindsey Graham: It’s ‘a part of who we are’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012, called for the immediate removal of the Confederate battle flag from outside the South Carolina Statehouse, scrambling the 2016 GOP presidential contenders into staking a position on a contentious cultural issue.
Some still steered clear from the sensitive debate, even after the shooting deaths of nine people in a historic African-American church in Charleston further exposed the raw emotions about the flying the flag.
Many see the Confederate flag as “a symbol of racial hatred,” Romney tweeted on Saturday. “Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims.”
The former Massachusetts governor joins President Barack Obama and civil rights leaders in calling for the flag to come down as the nation grapples with Wednesday’s murders. The man charged with the crimes, Dylann Storm Roof, held the Confederate flag in a photograph on a website and displayed the flags of defeated white-supremacist governments in Africa on his Facebook page.
Romney’s statement prompted most of the Republican Party’s leading presidential contenders to weigh in on flying the Confederate battle flag, although few took a definitive position one way or the other. Many instead expressed personal dislike for the flag, but suggested it was up to the people of South Carolina to decide.
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From The Times of Israel
Fabius expected in region to push French peace initiative
French FM set to meet Netanyahu, Abbas to discuss UN resolution setting 18-month timeframe for deal
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is expected in Jerusalem and Ramallah on Sunday to promote his country’s proposal for restarting peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
He is scheduled to meet separately with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“What’s important is that negotiations restart,” Fabius told reporters during a visit to Cairo, where he held what he said were intensive talks with Egyptian officials on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“We need Israel’s security to be totally assured, that is essential, but at the same time we need the rights of the Palestinians to be recognized because without justice there can be no peace,” Fabius said.
“From this point of view, when settlement building continues, (the prospect of) a two-state solution recedes,” he said.
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From The Times of Israel
Netanyahu said to deny US request to disavow Oren op-ed
PM tells US Ambassador Dan Shapiro he won’t discuss MK’s opinion piece; Likud No. 2 denies ex-envoy’s claims US left Israel high and dry
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected an American request to publicly distance himself from the criticism aimed at the White House by former ambassador Michael Oren, according to an Israeli newspaper.
Oren, now a member of the Knesset with the Kulanu party, wrote an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday accusing US President Barack Obama of intentionally abandoning Israel.
The op-ed has drawn unhappy reactions from the US, including an angry phone call from US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro to Netanyahu, asking the prime minister to renounce Oren’s ideas in a public statement, according to a report in Haaretz Thursday.
Netanyahu refused Shapiro’s request and said he had no intention of publicly addressing the piece, an anonymous source told the newspaper.
The prime minister said Oren was no longer a public official but a politician belonging to another party and therefore he saw no reason he should intervene, Israel’s Army Radio reported, citing a statement from Netanyahu’s office.
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From The Times of Israel
Counter-boycott push beats back divestment in Sweden
Supermarket chain reverses decision to boycott Israeli products after intense phone and email campaign
A Swedish supermarket chain has reversed a decision to boycott Israeli products following a counter-campaign by activists in the Scandinavian country.
Three stores in the Swedish city of Varberg affiliated with the national Coop chain have canceled their embargo on products from Israel. The Varberg Consumer Association had voted in March to impose the boycott, according to Swedish daily Expressen. The decision was made when only 22 of the organization’s 16,000 members were present, Swedish Radio reported.
The stores imposed a boycott of settlement goods four years ago, but were urged by a pro-Palestinian petition to extend that embargo to all Israeli imports.
The vote went unnoticed until it was written about in a local newspaper, the Israeli news site Ynet reported, prompting a strong response from local pro-Israel activists and the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Isaac Bachman.
“We didn’t argue on the basis of Israel’s political positions, rather on the basis of fair trade and against discrimination of any country,” Bachman told Ynet.
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