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Masks off: Netanyahu vows to annex all settlements, starting with Jordan Valley, if elected

netanyahu annex west bank election
© Avshalom Sassoni
Benjamin Netanyahu announces that if reelected, he will extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, September 10 2019.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that if he is re-elected, he will express Israeli sovereignty over all the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, starting with the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu said the steps would be taken in coordination with the administration of US President Donald Trump. He revealed that Trump intends to announce his Middle East peace plan the day after the September 17 election.

"This is an historic opportunity that we may not have again," Netanyahu said in his statement that he delivered at Ramat Gan's Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel.

Pointing to a map of the Jordan Valley, he said Israel could carry out the plan without annexing a single Palestinian and while ensuring that Palestinians maintain complete freedom of movement.

Comment: What a disgusting display of Zionist sycophancy.

RT reports:
The annexation of the Jordan Valley will be Netanyahu's first step if elected next week, the Prime Minister said, with further land claims to come after the publication of US President Donald Trump's long-awaited Israel-Palestine peace plan. Netanyahu called the plan a "historic opportunity" to negotiate the future of the region with Trump.

Though he did not address the matter directly, some observers took Netanyahu's bold pronouncement as evidence that the annexation had been coordinated with Trump. However, the Israeli leader instead asked voters for the mandate to make Israel's case to the US.

"Who will negotiate with Trump, who will conscript him on our side?" he asked, "me or Lapid and Gantz?" referring to opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz.



Some commenters, however, saw Tuesday's announcement as mere election bluster. The speech was "a clear play by Likud for right-wing votes," wrote Israeli journalist Neri Zilber.

"It's a meaningless policy/diversion tactic to wrest control of the agenda and take votes away from other right-wing parties," Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer commented. "He hasn't got an annexation policy. Yet."


Speaking shortly before Netanyahu's announcement, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called his Israeli counterpart the "chief destroyer of the peace process," and warned that "any foolish move he makes will have negative consequences for him in the domestic and international arena."

Though it lies within Palestinian territory, the area concerned is currently under full Israeli control, and has been since the signing of the Oslo Accords by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in 1993 and 1995. The Jordan Valley makes up 60 percent of the West Bank's territory, but is sparsely populated.

Though "annexation" is a headline-grabbing word, Netanyahu had already ruled out an Israeli withdrawal from the area earlier this summer. Speaking with US National Security Advisor John Bolton in June, Netanyahu stated that any future peace plan with the Palestinians must guarantee Israel a presence in the Jordan Valley, which he said "guarantees stability and security for the entire region."

Before hanging on to power in April's election, Netanyahu also said he would move to annex the West Bank if elected, claiming "a Palestinian state will endanger our existence."



Chess

Maduro convenes Defense Council to address Colombia's 'war-mongering' behavior

marine
© REUTERS/Vitaly Nevar
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has convened a National Defense Council to discuss Colombia's alleged attempts to send terrorists and turncoat officers to Venezuela to disrupt its military infrastructure.

In a televised address on Monday, Maduro pulled no punches as he went on yet another verbal offensive against Colombia and its president, Ivan Duque, accusing his government of plotting attacks on public infrastructure, as well as on civilian and military sites.

"I have decided to convene, in accordance with Article 323, the Defense Council to address the issue of the warlike threat of the government of Colombia against our beloved homeland of Venezuela," the embattled Maduro said.

Maduro further insisted that he has evidence to support his claims about Colombia's nefarious plans to topple his government and impose Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Satellite

US General Dunford warns Russia, China, North Korea, Iran are trying to 'contest' US space supremacy

space wars
© CC0
The remarks come a week after the Trump administration's reactivation of 'Space Command' - a DoD unit aimed at 'defending America's vital interests in space.' President Trump has called outer space "the next warfighting domain," possibly putting the US commitment to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty into question.

The United States has several major adversaries, including Russia, which challenge US supremacy in space, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford has indicated.

"In the 1990s, when we fielded a lot of capabilities in space, we assumed that space would be uncontested. And space today is contested," Dunford said, while speaking at a panel at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC on Thursday.

"Adversaries to include North Korea, to include Russia, to include China, to include in a developmental way Iran, have all developed capabilities that threaten our space capabilities," the general added.

Comment: The only reason that China, Russia, etc. are even considering the development of space-based militarization is because the US is so consumed with the goal of "full spectrum dominance" - and so willing to throw away previous treaties and agreements that have been in place for decades.


Megaphone

'Pulp fiction': Kremlin says alleged CIA mole was a minor official with no access to Putin

putin
© Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin
A former official identified in media reports as a CIA asset in Russia worked in the presidential administration but never had access to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has claimed, adding that the man was fired several years ago.

US media reported on Monday that US intelligence carried out an operation in 2017 to extract a high-level Russian official who had worked as an informant for the CIA.


Comment: This story is partly about portraying Trump as Putin's stooge, which is just a sad and pathetic attempt at smearing Trump at this point. But, imagine if the situation were reversed - a Russian intelligence agent was found to be embedded in Trump's cabinet and hastily spirited back to Russia. The media would be crowing from the hills about "Russian aggression" and Putin's evil tactics to undermine the great holy American nation. Yet when the US does it, not an eye is batted and essentially the media pats the CIA on the head for doing a good job attempting to undermine the evil Russians. The hypocrisy of the West knows no bounds.


The incendiary claim has triggered a race to identify the alleged spy. Kommersant, a Russian daily, reported on Tuesday that the official may have been a man named Oleg Smolenkov.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Smolenkov worked in the government, but said he did not hold a senior position and was fired in 2016 or 2017.

Comment: This is a pathetic attempt by CIA to try to sow doubt in Russia. If they had someone sending 'secrets for decades' how come the US got its ass handed to it in Syria? How come they have been unable to do anything to stop Russia's rapid expansion on the world stage?


Snakes in Suits

Brexit: Johnson tells Varadkar a no-deal Brexit 'would be a failure'

varadkar bojo
© Dara Mac Donaill / The Irish Times
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (right) and British prime minister Boris Johnson at Government Buildings on Monday.
British prime minister Boris Johnson said he wants a Brexit deal by October 18th and said a no-deal Brexit would be a failure the British and Irish governments would be responsible for.

Ahead of a meeting at Government Buildings in Dublin this morning with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Johnson said he believed a Brexit deal was still possible by the EU summit in October.

"I think what the British people want us to do is to deliver a deal and to get on and take us out on October 31st."


Comment: This is true. But there are no real signs that this will come about.


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Attention

"Jewish race is a special race": Likud member tells Arab lawmaker during debate over surveillance cameras at voting stations

Kippah
© AP Photo / Jens Meyer
The Jewish legislator made similar remarks when arguing with the same opponent a year ago; at the time, he called Jewish people the "smartest, most special" people in the world.

In a heated parliamentary debate, a lawmaker for Israel's ruling party referred to Jews as a "special race" before telling an Arab member of the Knesset that he could not make a moral argument because of his opposition to Jewish statehood.

Likud party member Miki Zohar, head of the Knesset Regulatory Committee, told pro-Palestinian Knesset member Ahmad Tibi on Monday: "The Jewish race is a special race and I am glad to be part of it. If you don't like it, deal with it."

"You can't preach morals to us because you are anti-Zionists, against the principle of the Jewish state."

Comment: One can imagine that what some Zionists say behind closed doors is even worse: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:


Info

Bernie Sanders trots out Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate

linda sarsour
© John Moore/Getty Images
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders enlisted the services of far-left activist Linda Sarsour to campaign for him this week as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders tweeted Sarsour's remarks in a video that went viral Friday night and Saturday morning. Sarsour has come under fire for her harsh criticism of Israel, defense of Sharia Law, and refusal to condemn Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. She has also been accused by Jewish organizations of holding anti-Semitic views.

Comment: See also:


Eye 1

CNN claims key CIA spy 'extracted' from Moscow because 'Trump can't keep a secret'

Kremlin Moscow Russia
© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia (file photo)
A high-level US spy inside the Russian government was evacuated in 2017 due to fears he could be exposed by President Donald Trump, CNN claimed in a report the White House, Moscow and the CIA have all rejected as fake news.

US intelligence "successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government" in mid-2017, the network reported citing anonymous sources described as "multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge" of the secret mission.

The operation was supposedly launched after the May 2017 visit to the White House of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, over concerns that Trump and his administration "repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy," in CNN's words.

Chess

British Parliament votes down Johnson's 2nd motion to force snap elections

House of Commons UK Britain parliament
© Reuters / UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor
British Labour Party politician Hilary Benn speaks after Speaker John Bercow delivered a statement in the House of Commons in London, Britain September 9, 2019.
The British Parliament has rejected for the second time PM Boris Johnson's bid to call early elections before a crucial EU summit in October, dealing yet another blow to the Brexit-pushing UK leader.

Johnson did not succeed in his second attempt to force early general elections Monday evening, having failed to pass a two-thirds threshold needed to secure the poll.

MPs voted 293 in favor and 46 against the proposal after a fiery debate.

Russian Flag

'I couldn't protect myself with law': Freed Russian journalist Vyshinsky recalls Ukraine jail time

Kirill Vyshinsky
© Sputnik / Iliya Pitalev
Kirill Vyshinsky arrives in Moscow as part of detainee exchange with Ukraine.
The case was made up against him in Ukraine to help then-President Petro Poroshenko win re-election, but the plan backfired and merely tainted Kiev's international reputation, freed Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinsky has told RT.

The head of the RIA Novosti Ukraine news agency was detained at his home in Kiev in May 2018 and charged with high treason over allegedly being involved in a "hybrid information war" against Ukraine, which carries a term of up to 15 years behind bars.

Vyshinsky spent 470 days in pre-trial detention, saying that "the hardest thing was the living conditions because it's a shock when someone first enters prison. I had in my hands a small bag for toiletries, a toothbrush and tooth paste."

Comment: See also: