Bennett will oust Netanyahu as Israeli PM under reported deal

Rightwinger Naftali Bennett, 49, who boasted of killing Arabs, will replace Benjamin Netanyahu under a deal reached tonight with centrist Yair Lapid, Israeli media are reporting.

BY MONDOWEISS EDITORS JUNE 2, 2021

YAIR LAPID, NAFTALI BENNETT AND MANSOUR ABBAS IN IMAGE PURPORTING TO SHOW THEM REACHING A DEAL. JUNE 2, 2021.

Right-winger Naftali Bennett is to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister under a power-sharing deal announced by centrist Yair Lapid just ahead of a midnight deadline tonight in Israel.

Netanyahu has served as prime minister since 2009, the longest term of any Israeli p.m. He has so far survived a series of four elections in two years as Israeli politics stalemated.

The deal would give Bennett, 49– who has adamantly opposed a Palestinian state, pushed for annexation of West Bank lands, and bragged of killing Arabs — a wide-ranging coalition of political support from Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, which has 17 seats in the Israeli parliament, to right-wing New Hope party, a breakaway from Netanyahu’s party, to Labor and Meretz on the center-left.

But Jewish parties only get Bennett to 58 votes, and Bennett needs 61 votes. The deal also depends on three Palestinian members of parliament in the rightwing Islamist party, the United Arab List, or Ra’am. Ra’am head Mansour Abbas reportedly sought promises from the Jewish leaders– and all Israeli government coalitions are made of Jewish parties to the exclusion of Palestinians — not to demolish Palestinian villages inside Israel. Abbas reportedly also wanted regressive promises regarding LGBTQ freedoms. i24 News says Abbas signed on to the government without the details of his cooperation being hammered out.

Israeli media say the deal– which includes a rotation agreement in which Lapid would take over as prime minister later — won’t be final till there is an actual vote of the Knesset in a week’s time in favor of the leadership. Benjamin Netanyahu is sure to pull as many political strings as he can to make the deal fall apart. Axios is reporting that Bennett would be sworn in next week if the deal holds.

YAIR LAPID CALLS ISRAELI PRESIDENT RIVLIN AT 11:22 P.M. ON JUNE 2 TO SAY HE HAS REACHED A DEAL TO FORM A GOVERNMENT, WITH NAFTALI BENNETT, LEFT. IMAGE APPEARED ON I24 NEWS.

Bennett served as a minister in Netanyahu’s government. He and other right-wingers have now betrayed the PM. The son of American Jews who immigrated to Israel under its Jewish “law of return” that discriminates against Palestinians, Bennett made a fortune in high-tech in the U.S. before entering politics in Israel.

“Tonight we begin a new beginning,” Labor Leader Merav Michaeli announced minutes ago. “Tonight we succeeded… The Change government is something that so many citizens of Israel were wanting. We have a long way to go.”

Michaeli indicated to her own voters that she had compromised. A sticking point had been her appointment as Justice Minister. Michaeli reportedly gave way to right-winger Ayelet Shaked of Bennett’s Yamina (rightwards) party on the ministry and even on a judicial appointments committee in order to facilitate the deal.

MERAV MICHAELI OF LABOR ANNOUNCING THE DEAL. TEL AVIV, JUNE 2, 2021. PHOTO OF I24 NEWS SHOT.

The left has made many concessions to get the deal, says Owen Alterman of i24 News; and its voters have accepted them quietly in order to get rid of Netanyahu.

One potential opening for Netanyahu is the opposition to the new government by a right-wing member of Naftali Bennett’s party, Uri Ohrbach. But he had reportedly agreed not to block the deal.

Lapid forms coalition government in Israel, ending Netanyahu era

Sara Lemel, Sebastian Engel and Stefanie Jaerkel

 Jun 2, 2021

Tel Aviv (dpa) - Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party formed a coalition government with the help of the small Arab party Ra'am shortly before a midnight deadline, concluding the era of long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

After weeks of talks among the various parties, Lapid will officially announce his success to President Reuven Rivlin later Wednesday, his spokesperson said.

"The chairperson of Ra’am, Mansour Abbas, signed a document which allows the chairperson of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, to inform the president he has succeeded in forming a government after agreements were reached," Lapid's spokesman said.

"Mansour Abbas and Yair Lapid signed a coalition agreement to form a unity government."

The agreement came shortly before a deadline passed for Lapid to form a government, as his 28-day mandate to forge a working majority was to end at 2100 GMT.

Coming more than two months after Israel's elections, it followed high-pressure efforts to bring together eight parties, some of them far apart on the political spectrum.

The new government is expected to be sworn in on June 14.

Lapid, until now opposition leader, needs the support of a simple majority of the 120 lawmakers in the Knesset.

His coalition will include the ultra-right Yamina (Rightwards) party, according to local media reports. It was seen as kingmaker following the vote.

Yamina head Naftali Bennett and Lapid agreed to rotate the role of prime minister, with Bennett taking on the post for the first two years, before he is replaced by Lapid, according to reports.

Lapid would begin in the role of foreign minister.

His party is in the political centre, and was the second strongest force in the March election after Netanyahu's right-wing conservative Likud.

Lapid entered politics after a career as a television host, and served as finance minister in a previous Netanyahu government.

Netanyahu has led the country since 2009, and had already served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, making him Israel's longest-serving head of government.

The seven small parties united under Lapid's Yesh Atid (There is a Future) were joined above all by their rejection of Netanyahu, who is the subject of a corruption trial.

Otherwise they have divergent political goals.

Bennett's pro-settler Yamina differs widely from other coalition partners such as Meretz, the Labour Party and Ra'am, which support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state - differences which could complicate the work of Lapid's coalition.

Earlier, Yesh Atid and Benny Gantz's centrist Blue and White alliance announced they had successfully concluded coalition negotiations the previous night.

In early May, 56 lawmakers voted that Lapid should form a government, after Netanyahu had previously failed to do so.

The formation follows an extended political crisis, with four elections held in two years, each failing to produce a clear majority.

Lapid announces: I have succeeded in forming a government

Naftali Bennett will be Prime Minister for the first two years and then Yair Lapid will serve as Prime Minister. Rivlin: I expect the Knesset to convene as soon as possible to approve the government as required.

Elad Benari , Jun 02 , 2021 

Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett
Spokesperson


In accordance with paragraph 13(b) of Basic Law: The Government (2001), Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid informed President Reuven Rivlin that he has been able to form a government.

Lapid conveyed his message at 11:22 p.m. on Wednesday evening, by telephone and e-mail.

Lapid spoke to the president on the phone and informed him that the government will comprise Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Yamina, Labor, Yisrael Beytenu, New Hope, Meretz and Ra’am.

Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett will be Prime Minister and Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid will be Alternate Prime Minister.

After approximately two years there will be a changeover, after which Lapid will become Prime Minister and Bennett will become Alternate Prime Minister.

The President thanked Lapid and said, “I congratulate you and the heads of the parties on your agreement to form a government. We expect the Knesset will convene as soon as possible to ratify the government, as required.”

Lapid said, "I commit to you Mr. President, that this government will work to serve all the citizens of Israel including those who aren't members of it, will respect those who oppose it, and do everything in its power to unite all parts of Israeli society."

After a conversation with President Rivlin and in accordance with the Basic Law: The Government, Lapid also informed the Speaker of the Knesset of his message to the President and of the fact that he has succeeded in forming a government.

Lapid called upon the Speaker of the Knesset to fulfil the legal responsibility incumbent upon him and call a special session of the plenary as soon as possible during which he will inform the Knesset that Yesh Atid Chairperson, Yair Lapid, has succeeded in forming a government.

The chairman of the Religious Zionist Party, MK Bezalel Smotrich, blasted the formation of the new government: “Get this through your heads: Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Matan Kahana, Nir Orbach, Idit Silman and Abir Kara signed, for the first time in the history of Israel, a coalition agreement with an anti-Zionist party and a supporter of terrorism. It was possible to form a right-wing government and they torpedoed it and consciously preferred the left and supporters of terrorism. We will not forget nor forgive.”

MK Miki Zohar, chairman of the Likud Knesset faction, said, “The left is celebrating, but this is a very sad day for the State of Israel. Bennett, Sa’ar and Shaked should be ashamed.”

 HEY BOUGIE

Labour figure elected Israeli president, midnight deadline for PM

Yair Lapid has until midnight on Wednesday to present a final deal to form a government.

Wednesday 02/06/2021

A file picture shows Labour veteran Isaac Herzog elected Israel’s 11th president on June 2, 2021. (AFP)

JERUSALEM — Isaac Herzog, a veteran Labour politician was elected president Tuesday, to a largely ceremonial role that is meant to serve as the nation’s moral compass and promote unity.

The anonymous vote was held among the 120 members of the Knesset, or parliament. Herzog will be Israel’s 11th president, succeeding Reuven Rivlin, who is set to leave office next month after seven years in office.

Herzog, 60, is a former head of Israel’s Labour Party and opposition leader who unsuccessfully ran against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 2013 parliamentary elections.

He is the scion of a prominent Zionist family. His father, Chaim Herzog, was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations before being elected president. His uncle, Abba Eban, was Israel’s first foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations and United States. His grandfather was the country’s first chief rabbi.

Herzog defeated Miriam Peretz, an educator who was seen as an outsider. She was also seen as closer to the country’s dominant conservative and nationalist political camp.

Since resigning from parliament, Herzog has for three years been head of the Jewish Agency, an influential organisation that works closely with the government to promote immigration to Israel. He was widely seen as the favourite because of his deep ties to the political establishment. He will hold office for a single seven-year term starting July 9.

The president, while largely a ceremonial head of state, is tasked with tapping a political party leader to form governing coalitions after parliamentary elections. Israel has held four national elections in the past two years amid a protracted political crisis.

The president also has the power to grant pardons, creating a potentially sensitive situation as Netanyahu stands trial for a series of corruption charges.

— Edging out Netanyahu —

In the race to form the cabinet, Israel’s opposition leader moved closer to unseating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday after agreeing terms with several parties including one led by Defence Minister Benny Gantz, a spokesman said.

Yair Lapid, a centrist tasked with forming the next governing coalition after the conservative Netanyahu failed to do so in the wake of an inconclusive March 23 election, has until midnight (2100 GMT) on Wednesday to present a final slate.

Lapid, a 57-year-old former TV host and author, has yet to clinch a deal with his main partner, nationalist Naftali Bennett, who would serve as premier first under a proposed rotation between the two men.

Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Gantz’s centrist Blue and White said in a joint statement they had “agreed on the outlines of the government and core issues relating to the strengthening of democracy and Israeli society”.

Gantz would remain defence minister in the new cabinet, the parties said.

Netanyahu, 71, has sought to discredit Bennett and two other rightists negotiating with Lapid, saying they were endangering Israel’s security, an allusion to efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear programme and manage ever-fraught Palestinian ties.

Deals have also been reached with the left-wing Meretz and centre-left Labour parties as well as with former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, a Lapid spokesman said.

The United Arab List was also negotiating to join the coalition. If it does, it would be the first time in Israel’s history that an independent Arab party became a member of the government.

If Lapid misses Wednesday’s deadline, marking the end of a 28-day presidential mandate to put together a coalition, parliament will have three weeks to agree on a new candidate.

Should that fail, Israel will hold another election, its fifth in some two years.

Former centre-left politician Isaac Herzog elected Israel's president in wake of Israel-Palestine clashes

Former centre-left politician Isaac Herzog has been elected as the country's president, a role that is largely ceremonial but also meant to promote unity among ethnic and religious groups.

Reuters

Jerusalem

June 2, 2021

Presidential candidate Isaac Herzog (left) shakes hands with Yariv Levin, Speaker of the Knesset, during a special session of the Knesset whereby Israeli lawmakers elect a new president, at the plenum in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Israel's parliament on Wednesday elected former centre-left politician Isaac Herzog as the country's president, a role that is largely ceremonial but also meant to promote unity among ethnic and religious groups.

Herzog beat rival candidate Miriam Peretz, an educator and mother of two Israeli infantry officers killed in battle, by a vote of 87 lawmakers to 26.

He will assume the presidency next month, replacing Reuven Rivlin, who is ending his seven-year term.

First elected to parliament in 2003, Herzog, 60, went on to lead the Labour party and hold several portfolios in coalition governments. His most recent public post was as head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which encourages immigration.

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Defeated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2015 national ballot, Herzog was picked as president as his former nemesis faced possible toppling by a cross-partisan alliance of challengers.

ALSO READ | Netanyahu’s opponents race to finalise coalition govt ahead of midnight deadline

The struggle over the premiership has set off rancour in Netanyahu's religious-rightist base. Many left-leaning Israelis have long demanded his ouster as he is under trial on corruption charges - which he denies.

Last month's fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza also touched off rare mob violence among the Jewish majority and Arab minority within Israeli cities.

"It is essential, really essential, to tend to the open wounds that have been opened in our society recently," Herzog said in parliament, accepting the appointment.

"We must defend Israel's international standing and its good name in the family of nations, battle anti-semitism and hatred of Israel, and preserve the pillars of our democracy."

Herzog, a lawyer, is a son of the late Israeli president Chaim Herzog, who also served as his country's ambassador to the United Nations.

He is popularly known by his childhood nickname "Bougie", a combination of the Hebrew word for doll "buba" and a word for toy used by French children, "joujou".
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Why Israel is angry

The success of Palestinian activism in Jerusalem angered the Israeli authorities, who launched a violent campaign to suppress it.


OPINION
Opinions|Israel-Palestine conflict

2 Jun 2021

Jalal Abukhater

Israeli forces face Palestinian protesters at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque on May 21, 2021 [Reuters/Ammar Awad]


We are witnessing a new dawn for the Palestinian national movement. Today, we are the most optimistic and hopeful we have ever been in the past two decades. With Jerusalem at the centre of this resurgent national spirit, the Palestinian movement once again stands united in resisting the Israeli occupation, apartheid, political persecution and colonial violence.

The protest action that began in Jerusalem engulfed the entire nation. We were one in rejecting the forced evictions and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, the infringements on religious rights of Christian and Muslim Palestinians and the brutal bombardment of Gaza. On May 18, Palestinians across historic Palestine closed their businesses and lifted the Palestinian flag, joining an historic general strike against Israeli colonialism

Palestinians were not deterred by the barbaric bombing of civilians in Gaza, nor by the Israeli lynch mobs which attacked Palestinian citizens of Israel, nor by Israel’s increasingly violent policies targeting Palestinians in the occupied territories.

This unity has terrified the Israeli state. After the ceasefire announced between Israel and the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, it launched a revenge campaign, targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel. The campaign, dubbed “law and order”, aimed to intimidate and terrorise into silence and submission the Palestinians who dared to take to the streets in a show of national solidarity.

Adalah, a human rights organisation and legal centre based in Israel, called the mass arrests by Israeli police a “militarised war against Palestinian citizens of Israel”, adding that the police intended to “intimidate and to exact revenge – ‘to settle the score’ in the police’s own words, as punishment for their political positions and activities”.

Predictably, there was no security campaign to restore “law and order” in Israeli communities that went on a rampage, attacking Palestinians, their homes and businesses. In fact, the Israeli police picked up where the lynch mobs left off, ramping up the racist, colonial violence against Palestinians.

In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli police subjected to “stop and search” and violently assaulted and arrested Palestinian youths. Palestinians were even detained for “giving police the finger” and in some cases, the complicit Israeli courts approved police requests to extend detention as further punishment.

Since the beginning of May, the Israeli authorities have issued 155 administrative detention orders against Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. This means 155 more Palestinians are now arbitrarily jailed for a minimum of six months without charges, with the total of administrative detainees in Israeli jails now reaching 500.

The raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque, which triggered the escalation in the first place, did not cease either. Less than three days after announcing a ceasefire with the Palestinian factions in Gaza, Israeli forces stormed the premises of the mosque again, attacking worshippers, forcing many out while arresting youth who protested. Their aim was to clear the way for extremist Jewish activists to enter Al-Aqsa, in a move of showing Israeli dominance over the Muslim holy site.

The Israeli wrath was also unleashed on to Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where forced evictions of Palestinians shocked the world and put the international media spotlight on the issue of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem. Since the end of Ramadan in mid-May, the Israeli police have imposed a blockade on the neighbourhood, denying entry to all Palestinians who are not its residents. Jewish settlers are of course free to come and go even if they do not reside in Sheikh Jarrah.

The increased aggression of the Israeli police was apparent on May 18, when I and other Jerusalemites headed to Sheikh Jarrah to show solidarity with the Palestinian families. They were violent for no reason, spraying foul-smelling skunk water and shooting rubber bullets, sponge-tipped bullets and stun grenades.

The following day, 16-year-old Jana Kiswani, a resident of the neighbourhood, was shot with a sponge-tipped bullet in her back, as she stood at the front door of her yard. She suffered fractures in her spine and severe bruising in her lungs.

The violence we saw in Sheikh Jarrah over the past few weeks is not coincidental. The Israeli authorities are angry that the local youth-led grassroots organising under the hashtag, #SaveSheikhJarrah, has now grown into a massive movement, capturing the attention of millions of people around the world. The Israeli ire was apparent not only in the violence they unleashed on the neighbourhood but also in their decision to whitewash murals that Palestinian residents had painted on the walls of their own houses and to threaten them with fines if the murals return. Needless to say, the murals reappeared the next morning.

Although the Israeli court postponed the hearing on the eviction of seven Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah to June, it is clear that the Israeli authorities have no intention of slowing down the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and the rest of historic Palestine.

Palestinians in Silwan, the Jerusalemite town my family originally comes from, also continue to face the same threats of evictions and home demolitions based on the same “legal” grounds the Israeli courts have deployed in Sheikh Jarrah. Some 100 Palestinians from 18 households in Silwan are fighting for their right to remain in their homes. The fact that – as Amnesty International and other organisations have pointed out – forced evictions amount to war crimes has not dissuaded the Israeli government from pushing forward with this brutal plan to maintain “a solid Jewish majority in the city”, as laid out officially in the Jerusalem municipality’s master plan.

Its ethnic cleansing campaign is aided by settler organisations, such as Ateret Cohanim and Nahalat Shimon International, which are registered in the United States as non-profits and are able to fundraise tax-free to help evict native Palestinians from their land. In this battle, Palestinians have only themselves and international grassroots solidarity to rely on. And yet, they keep going even when their oppressor feels the most emboldened.

Despite the continuing Israeli repression of the Palestinian protests and activism, the spirit of the Palestinian national movement is alive, well and thriving, with Jerusalem at its heart. The youth of this city and all of historic Palestine radiate courage and their energy is contagious. They are capturing the hearts and minds of people around the world, opening their eyes to the Israeli crimes and apartheid, and delivering one moral defeat after another to the Israeli regime.

Our voice is powerful. We are united, we feel dignified, and are proudly and unashamedly saying “we are Palestinians and we are here to stay!”


The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Jalal Abukhater, a Jerusalemite, holds an MA in International Relations and Politics from the University of Dundee.

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The Belarusian 'Pressure Chamber' Threat That Drove Activist To Attempt Suicide

June 02, 2021 
By Volha Zharnasek
Michael Scollon
RFE/RL's Belarus Service

Stsyapan Latypau is carried out of the courtroom after stabbing himself in the neck.

Belarusian activist Stsyapan Latypau, jailed for more than six months on charges he denies, was locked behind bars in a Minsk courtroom on June 1 when he was given the chance to question a character witness who had been called to testify on his behalf.

Latypau addressed the man, his own father, and dropped the bombshell that he had been threatened in detention by the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption (GUBOPiK).

"Father! After meeting, the GUBOP came to see me. He promised that if I did not admit my guilt, I would get the 'pressure chamber,' and criminal cases would be filed against my relatives and neighbors. I have already been in the pressure chamber -- for 51 days. So, prepare yourself."

Latypau, standing on a bench so guards could not reach him, then raised his hands and stabbed himself in the neck with a pen.

As he slumped onto the bench, guards fumbled to find the key to the courtroom cell while onlookers watched aghast. Eventually, the guards gained entry, and the bloody and heavily bandaged activist was carried to a waiting ambulance.

WATCH: Who Is The Man Who Cut His Own Throat In A Belarusian Court?

Who Is The Man Who Cut His Own Throat In A Belarusian Court?

That a prisoner in Belarus would rather kill himself than face the pressure chamber is not isolated to Latypau, who is accused of leading mass protests for trying to keep the authorities from removing a courtyard mural dedicated to the country's opposition movement.

According to rights watchdogs and former inmates, "pressure chambers" in Belarusian jails and prisons are literally torture chambers, and the threat of being sent there is enough to drive many to take drastic measures.

The chambers are often described as cells that contain hardened criminals who are working with the authorities.

Syarhey Ustsinau of Legal Initiative, a Belarusian NGO that helps people file cases with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), told Current Time on June 1 that detainees are sent to the chambers to have a confession beaten out of them by fellow inmates.

Human rights activist Mikhail Zhamchuzhny, who spent 6 1/2 years in prison on politically motivated charges, explained to RFE/RL's Belarus Service what it means to spend time in a "pressure chamber."

He said that every pretrial detention center in the country has one, in violation of international law, and that the authorities claim the chambers are needed for secret but official purposes.

SEE ALSO:
Belarus Protesters Tell Of Police Abuse And Torture

Zhamchuzhny said the cells reserved to be used as a "pressure chamber" are usually about 4x6 meters and completely soundproofed with wall panels and double doors. In other cases, he said, normal cells are used and music is pumped in to cover detainees' screams.

Detainees are well aware of the chambers' existence, and the fear of being sent there is immense.

"I have often witnessed convicts or defendants open up [admit to crimes] just in front of the door of the pressure chamber," Zhamchuzhny said.

The rights activist said that others attempt to avoid being sent to the chambers by maiming themselves. This is because an open, bleeding, wound will require detainees to be hospitalized, sparing them torture for at least a little while.

Some detainees do try to pass the test of the "pressure chamber," but the outcome depends on the strength of their will and resilience to threats, Zhamchuzhny said.

Others have mentioned the strong influence such threats can have on those detained amid Belarus's brutal crackdown on mass anti-government demonstrations that erupted after strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka was named the winner of the country's disputed August 9 election.

Alesya Kakhanouskaya told RFE/RL in May that her son, Yauhen Kakhanouski, was beaten until he confessed to charges related to his participation in the protests.

"The testimony was beaten out of him," she said. "When they started threatening to put him in a 'pressure chamber'...he gave up and implicated himself."

In court, Kakhanouski pleaded not guilty, saying he had confessed under psychological and physical pressure.

Crisis In Belarus



Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country's legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.

"I was beaten by the police in the stomach, on the head, and on the legs, threatened to be sent to a 'pressure chamber' if I did not give the testimony as it should be," Kakhanouski told the court. "I signed [the confession] without reading, because I was afraid that they would beat me again."

In the end Kakhanouski was found guilty of participating in mass riots and sentenced to serve more than 3 1/2 years in prison.

Legal Initiative's Ustsinau said that the torture of demonstrators has not stopped since the protests against Lukashenka's electoral victory began.

He said that while most instances of torture took place in the first week of the mass demonstrations, from August 9 to 13, " they are still tortured today, they are tortured in prisons."

"There are many cases when in the courts people stated that they were beaten in order to obtain confessions," Ustinov said, adding that the courts simply do not pay attention to retractions

The Belarusian 'Pressure Chamber' Threat That Drove Activist To Attempt Suicide (rferl.org)

ABUSIVE WORKPLACE

Family of man who killed self after 5-hour scolding sues ex-employer in Japan

June 2, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)

A member of the bereaved family of a man who killed himself in 2016 is seen speaking to reporters after filing the damages suit with the Sendai District Court, in this photo taken in Sendai's Aoba Ward. (Mainichi/Mie Omokawa)

SENDAI -- The family of a man who took his own life while working as a care manager at a medical corporation in this northeastern Japan city has sued the former employer, claiming that his suicide was triggered by a superior's harassment toward him, including a lengthy rebuke lasting as long as five hours.

The bereaved family of the then 41-year-old employee of Midorijuji, a medical corporation in Sendai's Taihaku Ward, brought the case to the Sendai District Court on June 1, demanding the firm pay some 63 million yen (about $570,000) in compensation. The man killed himself in October 2016.

The plaintiffs said they filed the suit to coincide with the first anniversary of power harassment being added to the criteria for recognizing workers' compensation related to mental illness.

According to the complaint, the man was working at Midorijuji's affiliate firm operated by the head of the medical corporation and others, and was involved in the development of hydrogen energy. From around March 2016, he started getting called in to his superior's room repeatedly on the grounds of mistakes he made at work. At one point, his superior chastised him for as long as five hours, including the rebuke, "You idiot!"

The worker was later diagnosed with depression among other conditions, and left the firm in June 2016. He subsequently started working at a different corporation, but went missing in October that year. His body was found the following month.

At a press conference following the filing of the suit, the man's wife told reporters, "Rebuking someone to the point of letting them break down is power harassment. I filed this suit to let it widely be known to society how much such language and actions hurt people, as I think my husband is not the only victim."

The wife earlier applied for workers' compensation in September 2017, but the Sendai Labor Standards Inspection Office turnd down the request in September the following year, prompting the wife to file a complaint. After the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare revised the recognition criteria for work-related compensation in June last year, the Miyagi Labor Bureau accordingly nullified the Sendai labor inspection office's decision not to pay compensation to the wife. In response, the Sendai office recognized the case as eligible for industrial compensation.

A lawyer representing Midorijuji commented, "Through the court procedures, we'd like to ask the bereaved family to provide counterarguments to our corporation's claims, and reveal the facts."

(Japanese original by Mie Omokawa, Sendai Bureau)

***

-- Suicide prevention hotline in Japan with English support

TELL Japan (English): https://telljp.com/

Telephone hotline: 03-5774-0992 (Daily)

Online chat: https://telljp.com/lifeline/tell-chat/

Counseling inquiries: 03-4550-1146 (Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-3 p.m.)

A selection of emergency numbers with multilingual support is also provided at the bottom of their home page.

SCHADENFREUDE 

Anti-vaxxer hospitalised with Covid after saying vaccines would wipe out ‘stupid people’

Christian broadcaster says he believes vaccines are used to commit ‘genocide’

Gustaf Kilander
Washington, DC@GustafKilander

Rick Wiles says Covid-19 vaccines are a plot to carry out ‘global genocide’

Rick Wiles, a right-wing Christian talk show host and anti-vaxxer has been hospitalised with Covid-19 after saying vaccines would wipe out “stupid people”.

Less than a month ago, Mr Wiles said he would never get vaccinated. His website, TruNews, announced over the weekend that had been infected and taken to hospital where he had been given oxygen. The announcement was reported by Right Wing Watch.

TruNews has pushed conspiracy theorists considered to be racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and Islamophobic. The outlet has called President Obama a “demon from hell” multiple times. Mr Wiles has said that Mr Obama “spiritually sodomised the nation”.

The right-wing broadcaster told his audience last month that he wasn’t getting vaccinated because he believed the vaccines were being used to commit a “genocide,” to kill hundreds of millions of people.

“I am not going to be vaccinated,” Mr Wiles said. “I’m going to be one of the survivors. I’m going to survive the genocide ... The only good thing that will come out of this is a lot of stupid people will be killed off. If the vaccine wipes out a lot of stupid people, well, we’ll have a better world.”

TruNews has said that eternal damnation would await anyone mocking Mr Wiles’s affliction.

“Already, the naysayers and mockers have started with their taunts,” the website said. “Let them speak their foolish words and let them mock. It will only serve to be used to fuel their flames of torment in hell unless they repent.”

TruNews suddenly suspended its broadcast last week, announcing that it was “experiencing a sudden cluster of flu and COVID among some employees and their relatives”.

The outlet then said on Sunday that Mr Wiles had been hospitalised.

TruNews has announced that Lauren Witzke, a Republican Senate candidate in Delaware in 2020, will fill in and co-host his nightly TV programme for the next two weeks.

The Daily Beast reported that Ms Witzke has pushed conspiracy theories related to QAnon, antisemitism, Flat Earth, and 9/11

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In new tally, decade of war in Syria killed nearly 500,000 people

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the conflict has claimed 494,438 lives since it erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. The war monitor has since confirmed an additional 105,015 deaths following months of documentation efforts supported by its network of sources on the ground.

Tuesday 01/06/2021

A file picture shows a Kurdish Syrian woman walkingwith her child past the ruins of the town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab. (AFP)

BEIRUT – A decade of war in Syria has left nearly half a million people dead, a war monitor said Tuesday, in a new toll that includes 100,000 recently confirmed deaths.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the conflict has claimed 494,438 lives since it erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

The previous tally, issued by the Observatory only in March this year, stood at more than 388,000 dead.

— Months of documentation —

The war monitor has since confirmed an additional 105,015 deaths following months of documentation efforts supported by its network of sources on the ground.

“The overwhelming majority of these deaths occurred between the end of 2012 and November 2015,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said, referring to the latest additions.

Of the recently confirmed fatalities, more than 42,000 are civilians, most of them dying under torture in Syrian regime prisons, according to the monitor.

Abdel Rahman said that a lull in the fighting allowed his organisation to investigate reports of deaths that had not been included in the overall tally for lack of documentation.

“It provided us with a window to document tens of thousands of cases for which we lacked evidence,” he said.

With government forces having reconquered large swathes of Syria and a ceasefire still holding along the main front line in Idlib region in the northwest, violence levels are at their lowest since the start of the conflict.

— Prison deaths —

The new figures published by the Observatory bring the total civilian death toll to 159,774, with attacks by Syrian government forces and allied militia accounting for the majority of fatalities.

The Observatory also documented a total of at least 57,567 deaths in government prisons and detention centres since 2011, up from the 16,000 confirmed deaths it reported in March.

It also reported 168,326 deaths among Syrian soldiers and allied militia, with troops accounting for more than half of the tally.

The conflict has killed 68,393 jihadists, mostly members of the Islamic State group or of organisations linked to Al-Qaeda, as well as 79,844 other rebels.

A deal brokered by Turkey and Russia in March 2020 froze a government offensive on the rebel-controlled Idlib enclave which many feared would have caused human suffering on a scale yet unseen in the conflict.

The attention on both sides has since turned to battling the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 saw the lowest number of conflict-related deaths since the start of the war with 10,000, according to the Observatory.

Today the Damascus government controls more than two-thirds of the country after a string of Russia-backed victories since 2015.

President Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000, was re-elected in May for a fourth seven-year term.

The war has forced more than half the country’s pre-war population to flee their homes.

  

Al-Aqsa: Israeli settlers break into mosque as 35th Palestinian killed in West Bank

The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf said that settlers had toured the site 'provocatively', having entered from the Morrocan Gate

Israeli settlers entering al-Aqsa Mosque complex through the Moroccan Gate on 30 May 2021 (Screengrab)

By Mustafa Abu Sneineh
Published date: 2 June 2021 

Dozens of Israeli settlers broke into the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday, flanked by police officers, as Israeli authorities placed restrictions on Palestinians entering the mosque in the Old City.

Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, which manages and administers Islam's third-holiest mosque, said that 61 settlers had toured the site “provocatively” after entering from the Moroccan Gate.

The Waqf said that the identities of Palestinians entering the complex were checked by Israeli police at the gates.

The al-Aqsa Mosque was one of the flashpoints of the violence in May. Israeli forces stormed the site in the month of Ramadan and assaulted Palestinian worshippers, firing rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at them.

EU leaders condemn attacks on ICC probe into Israeli war crimesRead More »

Israeli settlers regularly tour the al-Aqsa Mosque through the Moroccan Gate, which leads to the Western Wall plaza. They are always accompanied by police and members of the intelligence services, and sometimes by Israeli officials, including ministers and Knesset members.

In May, Israeli settlers were not allowed to enter the complex for almost 20 days during Palestinian protests in Shiekh Jarrah and Damascus Gate, and later the bombing of the Gaza Strip.

They resumed their tours on 23 May, two days after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Two days before, Israeli security forces fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and teargas at worshippers who had gathered to celebrate the announcement of the ceasefire.

At the height of the Covid-19 outbreak, in early 2020, the complex was closed altogether for 69 days, finally reopening on 31 May. During the closure, Israeli authorities still allowed settlers to tour and enter the site.
Palestinian killed in West Bank

Elsewhere, Israeli forces arrested 17 people in various cities of the West Bank, including Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and al-Bireh on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, an NGO.

On Wednesday, Fadi Sadiq Mousa Washhah, 34, from the village of Birzeit, north of Ramallah, succumbed to his wounds, two weeks after being shot by the Israeli army at the entrance of al-Bireh, near Ramallah.

Washhah was shot in the head with a live bullet, according to the Wafa news agency, and placed in intensive care.

He was a former political prisoner who spent a total of eight years in Israeli jails, five of them while studying political science at Birzeit University. He had been wounded several times during confrontations with Israeli forces.

Washhah became the 35th Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces or far-right settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since protests against the Israeli forced eviction of residents of Sheikh Jarrah started in early May.

Two Palestinian citizens of Israel were also killed in May: Mousa Hassouneh in Lod, and Mohammad Kiwan in the town of Umm al-Fahm, in the north of Israel.

The New York Tides: Is discourse on Israel-Palestine truly shifting?

A few recent articles have prompted speculation that the pro-Israel tide is turning in the US mainstream media - but what's really needed is a sustained war on the Zionist narrative

Belen Fernandez
2 June 2021 


The New York Times has finally cast a spotlight on the Palestinians' plight (AFP)

On 23 May, the New York Times ran a lengthy front-page article titled “The Misery of Life Under Occupation”, recounting the personal stories of various Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem subjected to lifetimes of misery by the state of Israel.

The article appeared just days after a ceasefire halted the Israeli military’s latest bout of butchery in the Gaza Strip, which killed 248 Palestinians - including 67 children - and was touched off by, inter alia, Israel’s ethnic cleansing operations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

Bret Stephens used his own platform at the Times to argue mid-carnage against delusional demands from the left - like an immediate ceasefire in Gaza

Among those profiled in the Times piece was Muhammad Sandouka, 42, who was forced to tear down his own family’s Jerusalem home after being given a choice between do-it-yourself demolition and Israeli government demolition - the latter option also entailing a $10,000 fee to be paid by Sandouka, for the privilege of being made homeless.

The alleged reason for disappearing the Sandouka home: it was interfering with touristic views of the Old City.

Stressing that “no Palestinian is insulated from the occupation’s reach”, the Times writers note that - for the approximately three million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem - the impending forcible removal of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah was a “story [that] was exceptional only because it attracted an international spotlight”.

And yet, the front-page story is itself pretty exceptional, appearing as it does in a publication that has long been known for whitewashing Israeli atrocities and portraying the slaughter of Palestinian children as a legitimate component of Israel’s “self-defence”.

Decades of victimisation

To be sure, the US newspaper of record has never been terribly concerned with humanising the Palestinian story or conveying a reality of more than 70 years of victimisation. This particular article is even more unusual in that, in addition to underscoring the systematic nature of Israeli oppression, it also casts Palestinian violence as a logical outcome of the “occupation’s provocations” - which are a “constant and key driver of the conflict, giving Hamas an excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf attackers grievances to channel into killings by knives or automobiles”.

Granted, the cause-and-effect relationship could be more rigorously explained, but, as far as western corporate media coverage goes, it certainly beats the normal reduction to “terrorism” of every instance of Palestinian violence occurring in reaction to quantitatively and qualitatively superior Israeli violence - which is what started the whole “conflict” in the first place.

Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian man during a protest against the seizure of Palestinian farmland by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank on 13 January 2021 (AFP)   LOOKS MORE LIKE A TEENAGER

Other deviations from the discourse-as-usual have prompted hopeful speculation that the tide may be turning in favour of the truth. At the end of April, Human Rights Watch reported that Israel is “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” - which was not exactly a news flash, but hey, better late than never.

In the aftermath of the report, the use of the apartheid designation and general criticism of Israeli crimes have, it seems, been increasingly mainstreamed. A Washington Post opinion piece by Raphael Mimoun, for example, bears the headline: “Zionism cannot produce a just peace. Only external pressure can end the Israeli apartheid.” Mimoun, who was himself born into a Zionist community in France and later lived in Israel, affirms: “The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is, by every definition, apartheid.”
'Sea change' in US discourse

Another Washington Post article by foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal helpfully makes clear that the “apartheid” arrangement applies not only to Palestinians under occupation but to Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well, who are also subject to institutionalised discrimination.

Over at the Mondoweiss website, a pleasantly astonished Philip Weiss draws attention to a New York Times op-ed by Basma Ghalayini, who declares that “legitimate resistance cannot be a right only for those Palestinians who believe exclusively in nonviolent self-defence - not in the face of the violence we endure”.

Sheikh Jarrah: Clashes, scuffles, conflict - western media's euphemisms for Israel's violence  Read More »

Weiss remarks: “Some observers speak of a sea change in the American discourse, and of course point to the Congressional Democrats who are willing to challenge the Israeli narrative”. The Financial Times, for its part, reckons that the “conversation on Israel-Palestine is changing”. Add to this all of the social media speculation about “turning tides”.

The thing about tides, though, is that they’re always turning. Take actor Mark Ruffalo, who came in with one Twitter tide (“Sanctions on South Africa helped free its black people - it’s time for sanctions on Israel to free Palestinians”) and went out on the next, after the bloodbath in Gaza (“I have reflected & wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’”…).

Celebrity socialite Paris Hilton also rode a very brief, and immensely befuddling, pro-Palestinian wave on Twitter.

Other celebrities have proved rather more durable - like supermodel sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid and singer Dua Lipa, the featured co-villains of a ludicrous advertisement published in the New York Times about Hamas’s alleged desire for “a second Holocaust”. In other words, the same publication that ran Ghalayini’s piece and the exposé on the “misery of life under occupation” also happily played host to an almost comically fear-mongering campaign to demonise three famous people for supporting Palestinian rights.

Call it the New York Tides.

Cascade of Zionist propaganda

The Times also continues to devote plenty of space to the likes of foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, whose opinions include that it is “logical” for Israel to bomb civilian populations. Following the latest round of carnage, Friedman lamented that “Israel’s use of sophisticated air power, no matter how justified and precise, triggered a set of images and video, in the age of social networks, that inflamed and energized Israel’s critics around the world”.

After all, you can’t get much more precise than 67 children in 11 days. The real culprits in the whole matter, obviously, are the international critics of Israel.

Bret Stephens, meanwhile, used his own platform at the Times to argue mid-carnage against delusional demands from the left - like an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to West Bank settlement construction, and expedited negotiations for Palestinian statehood. Regarding Israel’s crippling and illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, Stephens wagers that “the end of the so-called blockade… would turn the steady trickle of military equipment into the strip, most of it from Iran, into a cascade”.

Under the guise of objectivity, media outlets have taken to placing more fact-based accounts alongside the traditional cascade of Zionist propaganda

This is the same Stephens who, during the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza that wiped out 2,251 Palestinians, among them 299 women and 551 children, assured readers of the Wall Street Journal that “Palestine Makes You Dumb” - and that “to argue the Palestinian side, in this war, is to make the case for barbarism”.

Nowadays, the case of the Times illustrates how, under the guise of objectivity, media outlets have taken to placing more fact-based accounts alongside the traditional cascade of Zionist propaganda. But imagine this for a moment: say I own a newspaper, and I run a couple of articles stating that the Earth is round and a bunch of articles stating that the Earth is a trapezoid. In the end, I’m not presenting two equal sides of an argument. I’m either schizophrenic or a liar.

Tidal wave of truth

For all of the mainstream articles out there defending the apartheid designation, there are plenty accusing Human Rights Watch and anyone else using the A-word of antisemitism - a preferred Zionist tactic for drowning out rational discussion.

So what to do to try to ensure that the current prospect of a turning tide doesn’t mutate into a one-step-forward-two-steps-back scenario?

As the authors of the Times article on Sandouka et al write, the occupation’s “provocations do not stop when the fighting ends”. Nor, it bears adding, does Israel’s war on Palestinians ever really end, even when the bombs are not physically raining down.

For starters, then, what’s needed is sustained media coverage of the in-between periods - a war on the Zionist narrative, as it were, and a commitment to dismantling the foundations that have underpinned crimes against humanity for more than seven decades.

In short, what’s needed is a tidal wave of truth.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Belen Fernandez is the author of Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine.