Basically the Florida Governor De Santis who would destroy the U.S. Constitution and end free speech in Florida and send Israel Florida taxpayer money to coninue their terrorist enforced apartheid state is working for the Israeli intelligence as a foreign agent against the American people.What a 'patriot'.
Florida's Governor just signed a bill that will censor criticism of Israel ...
7 days ago - On May 31, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that prohibits ... However, the legislation also equates criticism of Israel with ...
GOP megadonors accompany DeSantis on Israel trip
Politico-May 27, 2019
Ron DeSantis in Israel Monday, according to a statement from the governor's office. ... The Florida effort is part of a larger GOP offensive aimed at breaking the Democratic Party's hold on ... Adelson money is fueling that effort.
Florida governor denounces BDS, Airbnb; boosts security funding for ...
JNS.org-Jan 16, 2019
Ron DeSantis called for increased Jewish day-school security funding, ... “Florida is the most Israel-friendly state in the country, and we will not ...
Florida governor goes after Airbnb for delisting West Bank settlement ...
The Times of Israel-Jan 15, 2019
The Times of Israel-Jan 15, 2019
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190612-mossad-involvement-in-israel-anti-bds-campaigns-exposed/
Mossad involvement in Israel anti-BDS campaigns exposed
June 12, 2019
The involvement of Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad in initiatives against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been exposed by a Freedom of Information request.
The request was made by Israeli advocacy organisation Hatzlaha to all ministers, deputy ministers and ministry directors-general, in doing so making the diary schedules of Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan – who has spearheaded Israel’s de-facto war against BDS – publicly available.
The request was made by Israeli advocacy organisation Hatzlaha to all ministers, deputy ministers and ministry directors-general, in doing so making the diary schedules of Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan – who has spearheaded Israel’s de-facto war against BDS – publicly available.
The diaries revealed that last year Erdan met with head of Mossad Yossi Cohen about “the struggle against the boycott”. Although rumours that Mossad has assisted the state in its anti-BDS activities have circulated in the past, today’s disclosure presents further evidence of the intelligence agency’s involvement.
A statement issued by Erdan’s office said that “[he] met during the last term with the heads of the security services to brief them on the ministry’s activities related to the fight against the delegitimization and boycott [BDS] campaign,” stressing the meeting only constituted “a review” of the ministry’s efforts.
However, sources familiar with the activities of the Strategic Affairs Ministry told Haaretz that “the ministry indeed cooperates with the Mossad”.
The diaries also showed that Erdan met with other high-profile security officials last year, including National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, as well as representatives of global Jewish organisations such as the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Congress.
Also included on the schedule were “many meetings” linked to the establishment of “Concert”, a private but partly government-controlled company designed to “covertly advance ‘mass awareness activities’ as part of ‘the struggle against the campaign to delegitimize’ Israel”.
The company has received 128 million shekels ($36 million) in funding from the Israeli government, matching the same amount in private contributions from pro-Israel organisations and individual donors.
The announcement comes just two days after it was revealed that Erdan’s Strategic Affairs Ministry forced 30 fundraising accounts associated with BDS to close in the past two years. The ministry announced that it had forced the closure of ten US-based fundraising accounts and a further 20 in Europe, by directing pro-Israel activists to report the accounts to their host platforms PayPal and DonorBox.
Among those organisations targeted by the shut downs were the BDS National Committee – the movement’s Ramallah-based arm – as well as human rights organisation Al-Haq and UK-based charity Interpal.
Infamous legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin – which regularly fights court battles on Israel’s behalf – was closely involved in pushing for the closures. In December, the same group filed a complaint to DonorBox requesting that BDS’ fundraising account be shut down, prompting the movement’s founder, Omar Barghouti, to label the group “a repressive organisation with clear connections to the far-right Israeli government” that is “engaging in McCarthyite tactics”.
Shurat HaDin is known to have links with Mossad. In 2017 Shurat HaDin head Nitsana Darshan-Leitner released a book titled “Harpoon”, after the codename of the Mossad finance-tracking unit she worked with. Darshan-Leitner revealed how, after Shurat HaDin began to gain traction by suing Palestinians for the Second Intifada, she was invited to Mossad headquarters for a consultation.
After she explained Shurat HaDin’s process, Mossad’s response, Darshan-Leitner claimed, was “what do we have to do to file more lawsuits? What do you need?” This then “evolved into regular briefings, held in quiet cafes, where she would get tip-offs” to assist her work.
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JTA — An Israeli company made up of former Mossad agents that specialized in covertly spreading messages to influence what people believed and how they behaved targeted the boycott Israel movement on American college campuses.
Psy-Group also took credit for turning Bernie Sanders supporters against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton using Facebook during the 2016 US election, the New Yorker reported in “Private Mossad for Hire,” an article by Adam Entous and Ronan Farrow published this week............
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‘Battle-Proven:’ Weapons Expo Shows One Way Israel Profits from Occupation
Hundreds of arms and cybersecurity companies showcase their state-of-the-art weaponry—often tested in Gaza or the West Bank—to war industry dealers from all over the world.
June 10, 2019
The Tel Aviv expo hall hummed with activity.
Inside, Israeli weapons manufacturer and dealer SK Group proudly displayed artillery that was “combat-proven,” having been used by the Israeli Defense Forces. The Israeli spyware company NSO Group Technologies also had its own sleek booth, with representatives who refused to speak to anyone who was not a military or government agent. NSO is the creator of the surveillance software Pegasus which has been reportedly used to persecute, jail, and even kill journalists, activists, and other dissidents in countries like Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
In early June, the tenth annual Israel Defense Exposition took place in the “liberal” capital of Israel. Hundreds of Israeli and international arms and cybersecurity companies showcased their state-of-the-art weaponry to war industry dealers from all over the world.
Among the event’s attendees were military officials from Myanmar, South Sudan, and the Philippines—just a few countries Israel sells to that have been accused of wholesale violations of human rights.
Early the morning of June 4, various groups of Israeli human rights activists peacefully protested outside the Tel Aviv expo hall. Delegates from Amnesty International-Israel handed out flyers detailing truths regarding some of Israel’s most loyal customers. A banner in Hebrew read, “Israel, stop exporting weapons to human rights abusers,” while members of the feminist anti-occupation group Coalition of Women for Peace held posters reading, “Enter here for blood money” and “War starts here.”
Coalition of Women for Peace activist Daniela, who declined to give her last name due to safety concerns, told me that protesting the expo is critical because it’s getting bigger every year. As of this year, Israel is the world’s eighth largest exporter of weapons in the world—“and the first if you calculate it per capita,” she explains.
Megan Giovannetti
Israeli human rights activists hand out flyers to military officials from Myanmar.
Daniela says the lack of information and regulation allowed Israeli companies to “sell their weapons . . . to any country in the world,” regardless of their human rights records.
Chen Brill Egri, a campaigner for Amnesty International, said she came to demonstrate “because people come here from countries like Myanmar and South Sudan, which are under international embargoes, and other countries like the Philippines and Angola, which are other countries we should not trade arms with.”
Earlier this year, Amnesty published a report in Hebrew about private Israeli security companies continuously exporting weapons and cyber technologies to states that routinely violate human rights or commit crimes against humanity. The report named states including South Sudan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and UAE as “questionable.”
Furthermore, the report stated that “often these weapons reach their destination after a series of transactions, thereby skirting international monitoring and the rules of Israel itself.”
Brill Egri explained that there is no public disclosure of details about which countries buy weapons or for what amounts. Amnesty International, she says, is trying to amend existing legislation regarding the supervision of Israeli exports, “so it will include one section that says it is forbidden to give a license to countries that commit human rights violations under humanitarian law.”
Several activists I spoke with say the illegal occupation of Palestine is a factor driving arms sales. Daniela of the Coalition of Women for Peace said her group sees “a direct connection between the military industry in Israel and the occupation.” She notes that Israeli security companies market their products as “combat-proven” or “battle-proven,” “after they’ve been developed and used in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza strip.”
Guy Laron, professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem tells The Progressive there is “a synergistic link between [the Israeli Defense Forces] and the defense industries: The occupation allows Israel to be a laboratory.”
“After each occurrence of bloody clashes in Gaza, there is actually a wave of new orders of weapons from repressive regimes.”
In fact, he continues, “after each occurrence of bloody clashes in Gaza, there is actually a wave of new orders of weapons from repressive regimes.”
Sa’ar Korush, formerly CEO of the company that built the separation barrier surrounding parts of the Gaza Strip, told Bloomberg that, just two weeks after the Great March of Return began in Gaza last year, “Gaza has become the showroom for the company’s ‘smart fences,’ as customers appreciate that the products are battle-tested.”
The ability to test weapons and other security technologies on the occupied Palestinian people is what gives Israel its competitive edge, says Laron, especially within the last twenty years when “more and more countries became worried about ‘Islamic terror.’”
During the expo’s opening ceremony, retired Major General Danny Yatom, former director of the Mossad—Israel’s CIA equivalent—spoke emphatically. “Terror is all over the world,” he told the crowd of arms dealers and buyers, many clad in their military garb. “We need to create an offensive, a democratic offensive, to defend ourselves. Act as an iron fist against terror.”
Daniela disagrees. “They call it defense, they call it security. It’s not about that,” she says. “I think that the weapons industry is a very good example of what the occupation is built on and what are the motives behind it.”
As she put it, “The occupation is a business of its own. There are companies and there are people who make a lot of money out of this.”
Laron added that, since before the state of Israel’s inception, it has moved in the direction of a war-based economy. “It wanted to be an industrial economy,” Laron explains, but, “there was an understanding that Israel would be involved in conflicts from now on,” so it created its foundation based on defense industry.
Megan Giovannetti
A South Sudanese Civil Aviation Authority official tests communication technology at the expo from an Israel-based security company.
According to Laron, Israel grew exponentially in weapons production and in defense industry investment in the 1970s, selling arms to apartheid South Africa. At the time, “South Africa was by and large the largest importer of Israeli weapons.”
And in 2016, declassified U.K. documents indicated that Israel sold arms, including Skyhawk jets, to Argentina before, during, and after the 1982 Falklands war against British forces—despite, Laron adds, Argentina being notoriously anti-Semitic.
Israel then became a global player in the 1980s by pioneering the use of drone technology and targeted assassinations, Laron continued, no doubt using these now-popular tactics well before the United States.
Given these historical trade relationships, he said, it’s no wonder the current Israeli government “obviously has not qualms with cooperating with these regimes.” This just goes to show “how much Israel values weapons exports over human rights.”
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There’s Something Rotten in Virginia: Israel Is a Malignant Force in Local Politics
by Philip Giraldi
One of the more interesting aspects of the relentless march of the Israel Lobby in the United States is the extent to which it has expanded its reach down into the state and even local level. Previously, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the hundreds of other Jewish and Christian Zionist organization dedicated to promoting Israeli interests had concentrated on the federal government level and the media, believing correctly that those were the key players in benefiting Israel while also making sure that its public image was highly favorable. The media was the easy part as American Jews were already well placed in the industry and inclined to be helpful. It also turned out that many Congressmen and the political parties themselves had their hands out and were just waiting to be bought, so “Mission Accomplished” turned out to be a lot easier than had been anticipated.
But amidst all the success, the Israeli government and its diaspora supporters discovered that it was receiving a lot of unwelcome publicity from an essentially grassroots movement that went by the label “Boycott, Divest and Sanctions” or BDS. BDS was strong on American campuses and its appeal as a non-violent tool meant that it was growing, to include many young Jews disenchanted with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu version of the Jewish state.
Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels and is generally very successful, but it seemed a stretch to try to pass legislation banning a non-violent movement at a national level so it focused on the states, where legislators would presumably be less concerned over the Bill of Rights. It mobilized its diaspora resources to focus on elections at local and state government levels where Jewish constituents were active in interviewing candidates regarding their views on the Middle East. Candidates understood very well what was happening and also appreciated that their answers could determine what level of donations and the kind of press coverage they might receive in return.
Put together enough intimidated legislators in that fashion and you eventually will have a majority willing to pass legislation blocking or even criminalizing the BDS movement while also granting special benefits to Israel. As of this writing, there is anti-BDS legislation in 27 states, some of which denies state services or jobs to anyone who does not sign an agreement to not boycott Israel. Particularly draconian bills currently advancing in Florida equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, explicitly define Israel as a Jewish state and also enable anyone who says otherwise to be sued.
Another blatant propaganda program that is being used with congressmen, as well as state and local officials plus spouses, is the sponsorship of free “educational” trips to Israel. The trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and many of them are both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). There are also other trips sponsored by AIEF as well as by regional Jewish organizations that particularly focus on politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write about foreign policy.
Everyone is expected to return from the carefully choreographed trips singing the praises of the wonderful little democracy in the Middle East, and many of the travelers do exactly that. The pro-Israel sentiment is buttressed by the activity of the state and local diaspora Jewish groups, which tend to be very politically active and generous with their political contributions.
This coziness often borders on corruption and inevitably leads to abuses that do not serve the public interest, particularly as American citizens are quite openly promoting the interests of a foreign nation. An interesting example of how this works and the abuse that it can produce has recently surfaced in Virginia, where a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of Israel.
Grant Smith’s Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP) has done considerable digging into digging into the affairs of VIAB, which was ostensibly “created to foster closer economic integration between the United States and Israel while supporting the Israeli government’s policy agenda” with a charter defining its role as “advis[ing] the Governor on ways to improve economic and cultural links between the Commonwealth and the State of Israel, with a focus on the areas of commerce and trade, art and education, and general government.” Smith has observed that “VIAB is a pilot for how Israel can quietly obtain taxpayer funding and official status for networked entities that advance Israel from within key state governments.”
Documents released under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act indicate that not only does VIAB not create opportunities for Virginians, it also is active in working against the BDS movement. According to the documents, VIAB, which avoids any public disclosure of its activities, is currently also being scrutinized by the state Attorney General over its handling of government funds.
VIAB was founded in 2001 but it grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe’s administration (2014-2018). McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons’ “bag man,” received what were regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic Party. McAuliffe met regularly in off-the-record “no press allowed” sessions with Israel advocacy groups and spoke about “the Virginia Advisory Board and its successes.”
The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) reports that VIAB is “the only Israel business promotion entity in the United States embedded within a state government and funded entirely by the state’s taxpayers. In terms of the overall state budget, VIAB’s direct share is small ($209,068 for fiscal years 2017 and 2018). However, VIAB’s diversion of state, federal and private grants, as well as demands on state-funded entities like colleges and universities to collaborate in projects designed primarily to benefit Israel, run in the millions of dollars per year. VIAB’s main objective is to provide preferential and unconditional funding to oftentimes secretive Israeli business projects designed to entwine Israeli industries into Virginia industries and government. VIAB seeks to transcend warranted, growing and legitimate American grassroots concerns about human rights in Israel-Palestine by pressuring state lawmakers and the local business community into providing unconditional support and developing a long-term ‘stake’ in Israel.”
Per VCHR, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act found that VIAB, among other suspect practices, had “Provided reports of success that the office of the Governor found to be “inflated without merit.” VCHR concluded that “there should be no preferential and unconditional Commonwealth of Virginia support for Israeli business projects for four key concerns: moral, economic, good governance and state public opinion.” Moral was due to Israel’s “dismal human rights record,” economic because Virginia has a half-billion dollar trade deficit with Israel, good governance because VIAB’s board and leadership are drawn from the “Israel advocacy ecosystem,” and public opinion because opinion polls suggest that over one third of Virginians favor halting all funding for “Israeli business ventures.”
On a similar issue a shadowy group called the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS), which is actually a “partisan group with backing by state and local Israel advocacy organizations,” is seeking to change the information conveyed by the history and social studies textbooks used in K-12 classrooms across Virginia. ICS recommended changes include: “1. Emphasizing Arab culpability for crisis initiation leading to military action and failure of peace efforts—and never Israeli culpability, even when it is undisputed historic fact. 2. Replacing the commonly used words of “settlers” with “communities,” “occupation” with “control of,” “wall” with “security fence,” and “militant” with “terrorist.” 3. Referencing Israeli claims such as “Israel annexed East Jerusalem” and the Golan Heights as accepted facts without referencing lack of official recognition by the United Nations and most member nation states.”
The activity of the VIAB is little more than robbery of Virginia state resources being run by mostly local American Jews to benefit their co-religionists in Israel. What is significant is that the theft from the American taxpayer, having long occurred at the federal treasury level, now extends down to state and local jurisdictions. And the ICS is yet one more example of attempted Israeli brainwashing of the American public on behalf of the Jewish state to completely alter the narrative about what is going on in the Middle East. Will it ever end? Perhaps, but only when the American people finally wake up to what is being done to them and by whom.
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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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