by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
November 17, 2013
Image by joegaza via Flickr
The violation of children’s rights by the Israeli and Bahraini regimes is more than mere coincidence. It is indicative of a much broader strategic alignment that has emerged between the Zionist regime and the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies.
The use of state terrorism against children by Israeli military and Bahrain regime forces is not some random, isolated aberration. The scale and systematic pattern of the violations strongly suggests that the regimes are collaborating closely in methods of counter-insurgency.
In recent months, hundreds of children, under the age of 18 and some as young as five years-old, have been arbitrarily arrested and detained without trial in both the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and in Bahrain.
In Bahrain, it is exclusively the majority Shia communities that are targeted by regime forces of the Saudi-backed Al Khalifa monarchy. Over the past four months, up to 100 children have been snatched from their homes without warrants, detained indefinitely, interrogated and even tortured, according to Bahraini human rights sources. Some of the children have been convicted of terrorism on the basis of forced confessions and given jail sentences of up to 15 years.
Meanwhile, a similar policy of persecuting children is extant in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Over the weekend, four children aged between five and nine years were cuffed and hauled off to unknown detention centers by Israeli soldiers. The arrests took place after Israeli military, firing stun grenades, attacked a peaceful protest, which had been attended by international observers.
This misconduct by Israeli and Bahraini state forces is a gross violation of international law. In legal terms, the unlawful detention of children in this way is tantamount to kidnapping by the state. The interrogation and mistreatment of the children in custody and their long-term incarceration further compounds the flagrant barbarity.
The conclusion is clear: this targeting of children has to have been formulated as a deliberate policy of state terrorism. No doubt the calculation of those engaged in the black arts of population control is that traumatizing young minds is an efficacious method of subjugating future generations.
But there are wider geopolitical implications from these particulars. Bear in mind that the Bahraini autocratic regime is fully supported by its Wahhabi patrons in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, at various times during the repression of the Bahraini pro-democracy uprising since February 2011, military forces from the other Persian Gulf Arab monarchies have been present in Bahrain and fully assisted in the crackdown against the Shia population.
So, while we are focusing primarily on state terrorism techniques of the Israeli and Bahraini forces here, the partnership with the Zionist regime applies to all the Persian Gulf Wahhabi monarchies for which Bahrain is a surrogate.
Terrorizing children as a way of attacking a target population is not the only area of common practice by the Israeli and Arab despotic regimes.
Destruction of mosques and other places of worship also connote a shared reading of counter-insurgency manuals. The irony of this is that Saudi Arabia refers to itself as “the Custodian of the Two Holy Sites of Islam.”
In Bahrain, over the past two years hundreds of Shia mosques and community prayer rooms, called “Mattams,” have been either bulldozed or extensively vandalized by state forces. Some of the mosques razed have included ancient sites dating back centuries.
In the occupied Palestinian lands, Israeli forces have also destroyed and desecrated mosques. The pseudo legal justification is tellingly similar to that articulated by the Bahraini regime. Both use Orwellian lexicon by claiming that the places of worship destroyed did not have official construction permits.
Another common method of repression is the indiscriminate use of toxic chemicals against civilians. In both Israeli-occupied Palestine and Bahrain, the chemicals are referred to euphemistically as “tear gas.”
But in enclosed spaces, the chemicals are lethal and have resulted in deaths, birth miscarriages and long-term illnesses. The purpose of this saturation use of toxic weapons is “collective punishment” of the civilian population – a crime against humanity – for that population’s audacity to have dissenting political views.
We could add more common forms of repression: the ghettoization of persecuted communities and forced deprivation. In Gaza and the West Bank, communities are cut off from farming, fishing and other forms of employment; power and sewage utilities are scuttled, and people are forced to live as exiles within their own native country.
In Bahrain, systematic deprivation against Shia communities also prevails. Construction and land reclamation projects for luxury property development that benefit the Khalifa regime have in turn destroyed traditional fishing and farming, resulting in whole communities being marginalized in poverty and squalor.
Ultimately, the objective is to dehumanize, demoralize and dispossess. And the way that such repression is applied systematically by both the Israeli and Bahraini regimes strongly indicates that there is strategic partnership between the Zionist despots in Tel Aviv and Manama, as well as Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that intelligence agencies of these regimes regularly hold clandestine meetings. Saudi Arabia’s spymaster, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, is known to liaise with Israel’s Mossad chief, Tamir Bardo, the most recent meeting between the two reportedly held in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba earlier this month.
Last month, Lebanon’s Al Manar news service quoted Israeli Channel Two about a Persian Gulf Arab-Israeli intelligence meeting held in Tel Aviv. Those attending included, “Saudi intelligence chief, Bandar bin Sultan, National Security Advisor and Deputy Chief of Executive Council in Abu Dhabi, Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in addition to Bahrain intelligence chief, General Adel bin Khalifa Al Fadhel, who is one of the [Persian] Gulf intelligence officers with the strongest ties to Mossad.”
Furthermore, Michael Oren, the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the US, made this stunning admission to the Jerusalem Post recently when the spoke of the close, growing ties between Israel and the Persian Gulf monarchies. Oren said, “In the last 64 years there has probably never been a greater confluence of interest between us and several [Persian] Gulf [Arab] states. With these [Persian] Gulf states, we have agreements on Syria, on Egypt, on the Palestinian issue. We certainly have agreements on Iran. This is one of those opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.”
Apart from identifying common techniques of repression and intelligence links between these regimes, another all-important indicator of strategic alliance is that they share the same Western sponsors – Washington and London – who afford crucial political cover for these regimes to continue their crimes against humanity.
For the West, the strategic importance of these regimes is that collectively they form a bulwark against movements for democracy.
The bottom line is that the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies have now clearly emerged as strategic partners with the Israeli regime. Despite superficial differences, all are lawless regimes that are guilty of crimes against humanity and crimes against Arab and Muslims in particular. They share criminal methodology and logistics.
This fact removes any pretense by Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf Arab clients that they are somehow the rightful leaders of the Arab and Muslim people. Far from it, these despots are colluding in historic betrayal. That betrayal is not a new development. What is “new” is the visibility of it.
Finian Cunningham, is a columnist at Press TV and a Writer on Dandelion Salad. He can be reached at cunninghamfinian@gmail.com.
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[DS added the videos.]
Israeli soldiers handcuff, detain 4 Palestinian kids
PressTV Videos on Nov 16, 2013
Israeli soldiers have detained four Palestinian kids in the West Bank.
The Palestinian children, aged five to nine, were arrested at a protest rally against the Israeli occupation in the village of K’far Qaddum. The demonstration was held by both Palestinians and international activists who said Israeli troops arrested the kids after throwing stun grenades at them. They also said the soldiers used plastic strips to tie their hands. Meanwhile in another incident, Israeli forces brutally beat up members of a family when they tried to prevent the troops from entering their house in the Arrub refugee camp near al-Khalil, also known as Hebron.
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Someday (Song for Palestine)
MyCatbirdSeat on Nov 13, 2013
SOMEDAY by Finian Cunningham, political analyst, singer-songwriter, originally from Belfast Ireland, featuring Tubby Corrway on lead guitar and Colin Merrill on drums.
This video and song pays tribute to the incredible resilience and steadfastness of the Palestinians in their struggle for justice and end to apartheid and occupation of their homeland.
“I don’t think there is much history can say about me. I just want to be remembered as part of that collective.” ~ Nelson Mandela on Nelson Mandela.
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
see
Ali Al Taweel’s Death Sentence and Torture
Finian Cunningham: An Angel Song for Peace and an End to Violence
Bahrain Regime Waging War On Its Own People by Finian Cunningham
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Too many invisible hands are obsessed with making perverse mischief, we are infested by a sinister plague of “vested” interests, claiming “entitlement” to vicarious “control” ~ it is nothing short of blatant cowardice, sheer impudence masquerading as courage, inflated by the false pretenses of historical determinism and the treacherous illusions of wealth, abetted by stolen privilege.
The stupidity of mankind is very great, but our much vaunted wisdom is actually specious and miniscule ~ vanishingly small, compared to our inherited prejudices, that are so pompously inculcated by an arrogant speciesism, grandiosely conferred by the “grace of God.” Actually, we are little more than deranged, ink-infested monkeys in suits and crowns, gibbering inane twaddle half digested from obscure scripts.
We are corrupted from birth by ideological doctrines of narcissistic superiority, our creative intent is suffocated by psychological pollutants; our minds riddled with cultural stereotypes.
What can be done? is it plausible to envisage a landscape of higher purpose, a new type of planetary identity defined by intelligent, “biophilic” relationships? or do we just keep killing (ourselves,) destroying the inherent beauty of sanctified existence and corrupting our youth? ~ merely by force of habit…
Eloquent, and rare commentary, having more meaning than most poetry, the intent of what the speaker, says can hardly be misunderstood.
By most.
A very gracious and luminous affirmation dw, thank you. I sense you are a natural writer by instinct, and that you have much to share and impart…
As a friend of mine put it…’Interesting how cleverly Israel always uses someone else to put their neck in the noose!’ And the Arabs backstabbing their own brethren.
Britain and America, officials, know these atrocities are happening, this central triangle, including Israel, is hard to understand their collaboration of cruelty and evil, do the general populations of these countries not get what is going on? is it possible the media has controlled the minds to such a extent that they do not actually know? if so, that so many are innocent are tortured, it is incredible the populations of the Western Allies, con have such a myopic view of what their ruling establishment is endorsing, shows the level of consciousness of the general public as pathetic.