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image: Members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front

All wars are unjustifiably justified by Big Lies, drowning out hard truths – perpetrators falsely pretending that military  aggression is about democracy building and/or humanitarian intervention.

They largely get away with it because major media stick to the official state-sponsored narrative, failing the test of what journalism is supposed to be all about.

The dirtiest open secrets about war in Syria are the following:

1. It’s Obama’s war (not civil as falsely claimed), now Trump’s, waged for regime change and isolating Iran – ahead of a similar campaign to replace its legitimate government with pro-Western puppet rule.

2. Washington, NATO, Israel, and their imperial allies actively aid ISIS and other terrorists in Syria and elsewhere, using them as imperial proxies – recruiting, funding, training, directing, and arming them, including with heavy weapons able to combat the armed forces of any nation earmarked for regime change.

Israeli military censorship prohibits publishing anything about IDF high crimes of war and against humanity, as well as daily persecution of Palestinians.

It bans or redacts countless thousands of articles, documents, and other material with vital information it wants suppressed.

Israeli military censorship has been around since establishment of the Jewish state. No press freedom exists the way it’s supposed to be.

Censorship authority has final say on what can and cannot be published on topics considered sensitive – a flagrant violation of speech and media freedoms just societies consider inviolable.

Project Censored founder Prof. Carl Jensen (1929 – 2015) defined censorship as follows:

“The suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method – including bias, omission, underreporting or self-censorship – that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in its society.”

Unlike the common practice of suppressing information in Western societies, longstanding Israeli military censorship is the law of the land – transformed into a voluntary agreement between military authorities and the media.

Israel’s censor is empowered to examine all printed material prior to publication or broadcast – applying its authority only to what relates to military and security issues.

Its censorship decisions are subject to judicial control. Israel’s Supreme Court has final say on this matter. A 1989 ruling limited censorship to material posing “tangible…clear and present danger” to the state.

Nonetheless, Israel’s military censor has broad latitude in deciding what’s fit for publication or broadcast and what’s prohibited – by claiming military or security necessity.

On September 4, the Jerusalem Post headlined: “IDF CONFIRMS: ISRAEL PROVIDED LIGHT-WEAPONS TO SYRIAN REBELS,” saying:

“The Israeli army has admitted, for the first time, that it provided large amounts of cash, weapons and ammunition to Syrian rebels (sic) in the Golan Heights.”

“Reports first surfaced of Israel providing arms and cash to rebel groups several years ago, with the regime of Bashar Assad claiming that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.”

“The army believes that the decision to provide weapons and cash to the rebel groups along the border with Israel’s Golan Heights was the right decision.”

“On Monday, the military announced that in the past year and half alone, (the IDF) carried out 202 strikes against (alleged) Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria.”

The Jerusalem Post said Israel’s military censor ordered the publication to remove its report, its managing editor David Brinn telling RT:

“We were told by the army’s military censor to remove that part of the story…for security reasons” – material relating to arming and otherwise aiding anti-government terrorists in Syria.

The report was removed hours after publication, preserved through Google cache  – a version of the article available online.

Cached version of the Jerusalem Post article

Here is the text of the removed Jerusalem Post article:

DF confirms: Israel provided light-weapons to Syrian rebels

Bashar Assad claimed that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

By Anna Ahronheim – September 4, 2018 – 18:00 The Israeli army has admitted, for the first time, that it provided large amounts of cash, weapons and ammunition to Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights.

While the IDF maintains that it was not intervening in Syria’s civil war, on Monday it confirmed that as part of Operation Good Neighbor Israel had been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with light weapons and ammunition in order to defend themselves from attacks and a substantial amount of cash to buy additional arms.

Through Operation Good Neighbor, which was launched in 2016, the Israeli military had provided over 1,524 tons of food, 250 tons of clothes, 947,520 liters of fuel, 21 generators, 24,900 palettes of medical equipment and medicine.

Reports first surfaced of Israel providing arms and cash to rebel groups several years ago, with the regime of Bashar Assad claiming that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

According to reports Israel had been arming at least seven different rebel groups in Syria’s Golan Heights, including the Fursan al-Joulan rebel group which had around 400 fighters and had been given an estimated $5,000 per month by Israel.

“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” the group’s spokesperson, Moatasem al-Golani, told the The Wall Street Journalin a January 2017 report. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance.”

The army believes that the decision to provide weapons and cash to the rebel groups along the border with Israel’s Golan Heights was the right decision.

Israel’s aim in providing the weapons and cash to rebel groups throughout Operation Good Neighbor which shut down once the Assad regime retook control of the Golan Heights in July, was to keep troops belonging to Hezbollah and Iran away from Israel’s Golan Heights.

The Syrian army, backed by Russian air power and Iranian backed Shiite militia fighters, have been recapturing large swathes of territory and is now believed to have control over 70% of the war-torn country.

While Syrian troops have once again been deployed to the border with Israel, in order to prevent an escalation between the two enemy countries, Russian military police have been deployed along the Golan Heights border along with UN Peacekeepers.

Israel has warned against Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and has stressed time and again that Syrian soil can not serve as a forward operating base by Iran and that the war-torn country cannot be a waystation for arms smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While Israel’s military had been carrying out operation against Iranian targets in Syria for several years, it’s extent only became public after an Israeli Air Force F-16 which was taking part in retaliatory strikes was downed by Syrian air defenses in February.

Last year Former Israel Air Force head Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amir Eshel stated that the IAF carried out 100 airstrikes in Syria over the past five years.

On Monday the military announced that in the past year and half alone, Israel has carried out 202 strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria.

September 2016. Netanyahu and wounded Al Qaeda rebel, at Hospital in Golan Heights (precise date unknown)

Israel is allied with Washington, NATO, the Saudis, and other regional regimes, waging war on Syria to replace its legitimate government with pro-Western puppet rule.

Russia’s intervention in September 2015 changed the dynamic on the ground, enabling Syrian forces to liberate most of the country from terrorists’ control.

What’s shaping up as the mother of all battles looms – liberating Idlib province from countless thousands of heavily armed US-supported terrorists, essential to eliminate, a vital step toward liberating the country entirely.

According to RT:

So al-Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11. The US then blew up Muslim countries to ‘seek and destroy’ al-Qaeda. Israel funds, feeds and arms al-Qaeda…

Get the picture now?*

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.