Chefs take Israeli propaganda off the menu



Nora Barrows-Friedman-16 November 2018

One of New York’s best known chefs has withdrawn from Round Tables, an annual Israeli government-sponsored propaganda initiative.

Gabrielle Hamilton, the award-winning chef and owner of Prune restaurant in New York City dropped out of the Tel Aviv initiative this week. Hamilton, author of the memoir Blood, Bones and Butter, follows Ana Roš from the Slovenian restaurant Hiša Franko, who had earlier pulled out of the event.

The cancellations follow sustained calls for boycotting the events. Ninety international chefs and culinary figures had signed an appeal to respect the Palestinian-led campaign for boycotting Israel.

“[As] professionals committed to food sovereignty and food access for all, we know that none of us can lend our names or our cooking skills to an Israeli government-sponsored culinary event such as this one. Our values around good food must include everyone, including the Palestinian people,” the appeal states.

Slamming Israel’s theft of Palestinian food and culture, including its declaration of falafel as an “Israeli” dish, Israeli activists from the group Boycott from Within also urged participating chefs to drop out of the initiative.

“Israel is a settler-colonial state, perpetrating the erasure of the indigenous Palestinian people, both physically and by means of appropriation of their culture, including indigenous food,” the activists wrote.

Jennifer Bing@JBing215

“While Israel hosts international chefs in Tel Aviv for Round Tables, the Israeli military will be counting the calories allowed into Gaza only 40 miles away, keeping the entire population on a state-sanctioned starvation diet.” Open Letter to Chefs https://bdsmovement.net/news/open-letter-gabrielle-hamilton-round-tables …

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9:28 AM - Nov 1, 2018

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Open Letter To Gabrielle Hamilton & Other Chefs In Israel's Round Tables Festival

More than 85 chefs, food writers and food industry figures urge participating chefs in Israel's Round Tables culinary propaganda festival to withdraw.

bdsmovement.net

Boycott campaigners say that they have made the Round Tables initiative a toxic brand. That has been proven by the festival’s sharp decline in chefs willing to participate as well as a drastic uptick in the number of international chefs, food writers and culinary icons who have joined the campaign to support the call for boycotting Round Tables.

Hasbara

Israel uses such initiatives as part of its official propaganda – known by the Hebrew term hasbara – to distract from its human rights atrocities and rebrand itself as a world-class cultural attraction.

Yair Bekier, a founder of Round Tables, recently boasted that the initiative serves to strengthen “Israel’s status as a gastronomic capital on a global scale.”

But Israel’s gastro-diplomacy mask “is wearing thin as the state entrenches its extremely violent policies and racist laws,” stated the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

“The campaign has been pretty successful,” Danielle Ravitzki, an activist with Boycott from Within told The Electronic Intifada.

“The truth about Israel is getting more and more apparent, and more and more scholars, artists and chefs are realizing that Israel is attempting to use them in order to whitewash its crimes,” Ravitzki said.

Thirteen chefs were scheduled to cook at the 2016 Round Tables event, with one top chef pulling out and others expressing misgivings about taking part after being contacted by activists.

In 2017, 14 chefs were lined up to cook, but two – from Peru and Ireland – ditched the festival.

This year, only eight chefs agreed to participate, but at least two of them canceled.

There were earlier indications that Italian chef Isa Mazzocchi was no longer participating in the initiative. But on Thursday, the chef had posted a photo to her Facebook page with the menu for her planned Round Tables meal and the caption “Last service, 170 people – let’s go.”

Round Tables is sponsored by Israel’s foreign ministry as well as corporate underwriters American Express and Infiniti, and is partnered with Israeli companies that operate in settlements built on stolen Palestinian land.

“It is not too late for the remaining chefs to stand on the right side of history and cancel their participation in Round Tables,” PACBI stated last week.

View image on Twitter

PACBI

✔@PACBI

Top Chef Withdraws From Israel's Round Tables Culinary Propaganda Festival

It seems Israel has over-cooked its gastro-propaganda festival. We appeal to @JudyJooChef @Castro_maca @e_reygadas @Leoescocina to do the right thing.#ApartheidRoundTableshttps://buff.ly/2ASDanC 

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5:20 PM - Nov 7, 2018

A feminist facade

Bekier claimed that this year’s events intend to “bring women to the forefront” of the culinary stage by inviting only female chefs to participate.

But this attempt to brand the initiative as a celebration of women in the culinary field is merely a “feminist facade” to provide cover for Israel’s ongoing occupation and apartheid system, say members of the General Union of Palestinian Women, along with Palestinian workers and farmers organizations.

“Palestinian women bear the brunt of this system’s crimes and are doubly marginalized as a result,” their statement says.

“Regardless of your intentions, Israel’s far-right regime will use your participation to mask its crimes against our people,” the groups add.

“We sincerely hope that we can share our table with you after we are free from military occupation and apartheid.”

The Asymmetrical Table

Inspired by the Palestinian campaign against Round Tables, culinary activists in New York City last year brought lauded Oakland-based chef and activist Reem Assil to cook for an initiative they named The Asymmetrical Table.

It was a celebration of Palestinian food and culture intended to coincide with the Round Tables propaganda campaign.

For two nights, diners celebrated “the resiliency of Palestinian people, led by Palestinian women [and] badass chefs,” said Kimberly Chou, co-director of the Food Book Fair, in a new short film about the event.

Chou, Assil and food justice activist Ora Wise, who all appear in the film, signed the letter urging chefs to cancel their participation in this week’s Round Tables initiative.

The letter represents a display of solidarity and leadership of indigenous, black and brown chefs, farmers, food writers and other culinary organizers and workers “who have been not only fighting for food sovereignty and access for their own communities but demanding that the interconnectedness between food systems and struggles for justice globally be acknowledged and guide our work,” Wise told The Electronic Intifada on Thursday.

In the restaurant world, it is understood that locally-sourced “farm to table” cuisine is the ideal. But as Israel’s Round Tables festival claims to celebrate this cuisine, Wise noted, “Palestinian farmers, if they’ve managed to remain on their land and not had their crops damaged by settlers, cannot get their produce through checkpoints onto the tables of their communities who live in refugee camps unable to return to their own lands.”

And as Americans enjoy traditional Palestinian dishes and ingredients such as hummus, zaatar and labneh, “the land and culture they originated in are being destroyed,” Wise said.

The growing support for the Palestinian call to boycott Round Tables, she added, “is the result of our collective understanding that our values around good food and freedom must include Palestinians, a people surviving and resisting apartheid and the theft of their land.”

Full Text: Historic Judgment against Genocide in Cambodia

NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan Sentenced to Life Imprisonment in Case 002/02

Nov 16, 2018

( November 16, 2018, Phnom Penh, Sri Lanka Guardian) Today, the Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) convicted former senior Khmer Rouge leaders NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan of genocide,crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The crimes were committed at various locations throughout Cambodia during the Democratic Kampuchea period from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979.

The Trial Chamber announced a summary of its findings and the disposition in Case 002/02 at a public hearing held today, Friday 16 November 2018, sentencing the Accused, NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan to life imprisonment. The Chamber will deliver full written reasons for its judgement in due course.

Evidentiary hearings in the trial of Case 002/02 commenced with opening statements on 17 October 2014 and concluded on 11 January 2017. The trial, including closing statements, lasted for a total of 283 hearing days. During the trial, the Chamber heard the testimony of 185 individuals: 114 witnesses, 63 Civil Parties and 8 experts. The trial was subject to considerable public interest, with 82,780 persons attending the hearings.

The Chamber’s Main Findings

The Trial Chamber found that NUON Chea, Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and KHIEU Samphan, the Head of State of Democratic Kampuchea, participated in a joint criminal enterprise together with other senior leaders of the CPK, with the purpose of implementing a rapid socialist revolution, which involved the commission of crimes.

NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan were convicted of committing, through participation in a joint criminal enterprise: genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national, and racial group; various grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions; and the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; enslavement; deportation; imprisonment; torture; persecution on political, religious and racial grounds; and the other inhumane acts of attacks against human dignity and through conduct characterised as enforced disappearances, forced transfer, forced marriage and
rape within the context of forced marriage. Both Accused were also convicted of aiding and abetting the crime against humanity of murder at worksites, cooperatives and security centres for deaths resulting from living conditions at these crime sites, including lack of food, water and medical care as well as the imposition of hard labour.

NUON Chea alone was convicted for the crime of genocide by killing members of the Cham ethnic and religious group on the basis of his superior responsibility.

The crimes were committed at various crime sites throughout the country, including at the Tram Kak Cooperatives, Trapeang Thma Dam Worksite, 1st January Dam Worksite, Kampong Chhnang Airfield Construction Site, S-21, Kraing Ta Chan, Au Kanseng and Phnom Kraol Security Centres.

NUON Chea was found to have acted as POL Pot’s “right hand”, being involved in all major decisions of the CPK. He played a key role in designing, implementing and disseminating the CPK’s criminal polices and propaganda, for example as principal author of the regime’s propaganda magazine, Revolutionary Flag, and made a significant contribution to crimes committed by CPK cadres. NUON Chea was also found to have participated in purges and in
the running of S-21 Security Centre.

KHIEU Samphan was found to have encouraged, incited, and legitimised criminal policies and to have made a significant contribution to crimes committed by CPK cadres. He personally instructed cadres on implementing criminal policies, and was responsible for training CPK cadres. Furthermore, the Chamber found that KHIEU Samphan contributed to nationwide purges and approved the delegation of the “right to smash” within lower ranks of the CPK.
KHIEU Samphan was also responsible for widely-disseminated speeches in support of CPK policies, which the Chamber found contributed to the commission of crimes.

Crimes committed – CPK policies

The Chamber found that the CPK established cooperatives and worksites, forcing the population to work in inhumane conditions, without adequate food, clean water or adequate medical care. Tens of thousands of Cambodians were enslaved and large numbers of them died due to the imposition of these conditions. The Chamber further found that the CPK established security centres in order to identify, arrest, isolate and execute individuals considered to be enemies by the regime. The wives and children of so-called enemies were likewise executed.

The Trial Chamber also found NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan responsible for CPK policies targeting Vietnamese, Cham, Buddhists and former Khmer Republic officials and their families. The Chamber found that between 1975 and 1976, there was a nationwide policy to expel Vietnamese people living in Cambodia. Specific instances of Vietnamese civilians being killed on a massive scale were also established. Hundreds of Vietnamese civilians and soldiers
were killed at S-21 Security Centre after being tortured and subjected to inhumane conditions.

Buddhist symbols were destroyed, and monks were forcibly disrobed across various communes. Monks were labelled “worms” or “leeches”, and the use of pagodas for religious purposes was disallowed. Cham religious and cultural practices were banned throughout Cambodia. Mosques were dismantled and Korans were burnt. Cham people were forced to eat pork and prevented from worshiping and speaking their native language. In addition, the Chamber found that Cham civilians were arrested and killed on a massive scale at the Wat Au Trakuon and Trea Village Security Centres. Khmer Republic officials were also targeted for arrest and killed along with their families.

Finally, the Chamber found NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan responsible for a nationwide policy of identifying individuals to be forcibly married, often to strangers. After group weddings, couples were monitored by militiamen and compelled to have sexual intercourse with their new spouses. CPK cadres took the role of parents in the selection of suitable spouses, forced couples to marry, and to produce children for the purpose of increasing the country’s population.

***
The Trial Chamber found that 3,865 Civil Parties as well as a large number of additional victims suffered immeasurable harm as a consequence of the crimes of which NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan were convicted. The Chamber therefore endorsed the implementation of 13 reparation projects which recognise the harm suffered by Civil Parties and other victims. In the first trial concerning the Accused, Case 002/01, NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan were convicted by the Trial Camber on 7 August 2014 of crimes against humanity in relation to forced movements of the population and sentenced to life imprisonment for those crimes. The sentences of life imprisonment in Case 002/01 were affirmed on appeal. The Trial Chamber merged the life sentences imposed in Case 002/01 and Case 002/02 to form a single life sentence for each of the Accused. On 27 February 2017, the Trial Chamber terminated the proceedings concerning all facts set out in the Closing Order for Case 002 not included in Case 002/01 or Case 002/02.

Read Judgment here;

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Theresa May faces major crisis in Commons

Saturday, November 17, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron pays his respects by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during in a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe last Sunday to mark the centennial of the Armistice that ended World War I. US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vlad

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is plunged into a deep political crisis, facing a rejection of the Brexit negotiations with the European Union, and also a motion of No Confidence against her in the Conservative Party.

After a five hour Cabinet meeting at her residence 10, Downing Street on Wednesday (14) she came out a told the media that the Cabinet had approved the final agreement with the EU. She stressed that the negotiations with the EU that went on since the UK referendum on leaving the EU in 2016 was based on the British national interest.

However, on Thursday (15) as she faced the House of Commons to explain the draft agreement (which also has to be approved by the other 27 EU members), she faced a major challenge, with two key ministers of her government resigning.

These were the Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, followed quickly by Brexit-backing Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey. Two junior ministers and two ministerial aides also resigned.

Significantly, Dominic Raab is the second minister handling the Brexit negotiations to resign from May’s Cabinet. The first was David Davis, who served as Secretary of State for exiting the EU from July 2016 to July 2018. In July 2018, shortly after Theresa May said she had Cabinet approval for what was described as the Chequers Plan for leaving the EU, the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, also resigned from the Cabinet. Dominic Raab is the second Brexit Secretary to resign in four months, showing the increasing lack of support has within both the Government and the Conservative Party, which she heads and leads the government.

Prime Minister May is also faced with the disapproval of the Brexit Exit Plan by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland. Theresa May who does not have Conservative majority in the Commons is dependent on 10 MPs of the DUP for the government majority on key issues in the Commons. This is now clearly challenged.

In a damning verdict of the Draft Brexit proposal Dominic Raab has said May’s plan had ‘major and fatal flaws’, coming from the minister who was closely involved with the negotiations with the EU.
Among others who have moved out of Theresa May’s administration in the current crisis are junior Northern Ireland Minister Shailesh Vara, junior Brexit Minister Suella Braveman, and Parliamentary Private Secretaries Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Ranil Jayewardena.

The Opposition Labour Party is wholly against May’s Brexit proposals and Labour leader and Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn has said a “botched deal” that breaches the government's own red lines.

Meanwhile, in a bigger threat to Theresa May is the move to have a vote of No Confidence on her. Stave Baker, a fellow of the European Research Group and MP Rees-Mogg are talking of moving ahead with such a motion very soon. A letter to this effect has already been given to the chairman of the1922 Committee, which handles such issues, and it needs additional signatures, which are likely to come.

With the opposition to the Theresa May moves for Brexit increasing, there is a rising call for a second referendum on UK leaving the EU, which is opposed by Theresa May. The earlier referendum on the UK leaving the EU saw a vote of 51.9% to leave, which has put the UK on a course to leave the EU by end March 2019. Those calling for a second referendum say the voters were not given the full facts about the exit from the EU in the run up to the 2016 referendum. Theresa May was opposed to the UK leaving the EU, but decided to support it after she was chosen as Prime Minister following the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron, who introduced the referendum, but campaigned to remain in the EU, with certain conditions.

Meanwhile, the EU says much work still needs to be done on Brexit, despite agreeing a draft withdrawal document with the UK. “We still have a long road ahead of us on both sides,” chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier said. The EU has set out a series of meetings leading to one on November 25 where it plans to approve the Brexit agreement.

Trump - Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump were in a major verbal clash over Nationalism in the past week, raising new questions about the relations between the US and France and Europe. The clash took place when President Macron called for the forming of a ‘real European army’ to protect the continent ‘with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.’ He spoke while on a tour of World War 1 memorials, marking the century after the end of World War 1, when he also said: “We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army.”

This is a trend of Macron’s thinking for nearly one year, but has received urgency after President Trump announced last month that the U.S. would pull out of a Cold War era nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, and Trump has also displayed a tepid attitude in the past towards NATO's mutual defense commitments.

President Macron condemned nationalism on Sunday in a fiery speech widely interpreted as a rebuke against President Trump’s “America First” agenda. Speaking at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at a World War I commemoration ceremony attended by Trump, Macron suggested nationalism could lead to the same death and devastation seen during that war. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.

By saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values,” he said as Trump looked on. “I know there are old demons which are coming back to the surface. They are ready to wreak chaos and death,” he said. “History sometimes threatens to take its sinister course once again.”

Macron’s comments come just a few weeks after Trump declared himself a “nationalist” at a Texas campaign rally, sparking concerns that the label could embolden neo-Nazis and far-right nationalists—a fear that Trump later suggested was “racist.”

President Trump soon unleashed verbal attacks on President Macron, taking aim at his approval rating, his country’s employment rate, its trade policies on wine and his vision for the military.
In the first of several barbs Tuesday on Twitter, Trump again misrepresented what Macron had said during last week’s radio interview against nationalism, and reminded him of the U.S. military’s role in aiding France in World War I and II.

“Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia,” Trump wrote. “But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two — How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along.”

In the continuing Tweetstorm attacked Macron stating: “The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%. He was just trying to get onto another subject. By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people-and rightfully so!”

“MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!” Trump added, in a play on his campaign slogan.
In another Twitter attack, Trump complained of a trade disparity suggesting that it makes it harder for U.S. winemakers to sell their products in France.

“On Trade, France makes excellent wine, but so does the U.S.,” Trump wrote. “The problem is that France makes it very hard for the U.S. to sell its wines into France, and charges big Tariffs, whereas the U.S. makes it easy for French wines, and charges very small Tariffs. Not fair, must change!”

Following Trump’s attacks on Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to Macron’s defense, echoing his initial call for a “real European army.”

“We want to work on the vision of eventually creating a real European army,” Merkel said in a speech to the European Parliament. Her remarks implied that such a project would not be pursued imminently. But a European army, Merkel said, would “show the world that there will never again be war between the European countries.”

In a stab at Trump, Merkel said that the times when Europe could rely on others were “simply over.”
“Old allies cast doubts over tried and tested ties,” she said, in what was seen as a likely reference to the United States.

The disagreements and verbal clashes between Trump and Macon, and the intervention of Angela Merkel too, shows the growing differences between the US and Europe, following President Trump's foreign policy moves which are often critical of allies who have stood together since the end of World War II. This indicates the rise of new relations both within and outside Europe on foreign and defense policies, with some European countries, such as Italy and Hungary looking at closer ties with Russia.

CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination

Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had no knowledge of the operation. The CIA's latest findings contradict that assertion. (Joyce Lee, Jason Aldag, Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

By Shane Harris ,Greg Miller andJosh Dawsey-November 16 at 6:11 PM

The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.

[Read in Arabic: وكالة الاستخبارات المركزية تستنتج أنّ ولي العهد السعودي أمر باغتيال جمال خاشقجي]

The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking Mohammed to the operation and complicates the Trump administration’s efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally. A team of 15 Saudi agents flew to Istanbul on government aircraft in October and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate, where he had gone to pick up documents that he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.

In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. Khalid told Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, that he should go to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so.

It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence.

Fatimah Baeshen, a spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, said the ambassador and Khashoggi never discussed “anything related to going to Turkey.” She added that the claims in the CIA’s “purported assessment are false. We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”

Trump said he expects to be updated Nov. 17 with the CIA's conclusions about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (Reuters)

The CIA’s conclusion about Mohammed’s role was also based on the agency’s assessment of the prince as the country’s de facto ruler who oversees even minor affairs in the kingdom. “The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official familiar with the CIA’s conclusions.

[Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is ‘chief of the tribe’ in cowed House of Saud]

The CIA sees Mohammed as a “good technocrat,” the U.S. official said, but also as volatile and arrogant, someone who “goes from zero to 60, doesn’t seem to understand that there are some things you can’t do.”

CIA analysts believe he has a firm grip on power and is not in danger of losing his status as heir to the throne despite the Khashoggi scandal. “The general agreement is that he is likely to survive,” the official said, adding that Mohammed’s role as the future Saudi king is “taken for granted.”

A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment.

Turkish President Erdogan says Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Germany, France and Britain have all been given the recording of the dying moments of Jamal Khashoggi. (Reuters)

Over the past several weeks, the Saudis have offered multiple, contradictory explanations for what happened at the consulate. This week, the Saudi public prosecutor blamed the operation on a rogue band of operatives who were sent to Istanbul to return Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, in an operation that veered off course when the journalist “was forcibly restrained and injected with a large amount of a drug resulting in an overdose that led to his death,” according to a report by the prosecutor.

The prosecutor announced charges against 11 alleged participants and said he would seek the death penalty against five of them.

The assassination of Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Mohammed’s policies, has sparked a foreign policy crisis for the White House and raised questions about the administration’s reliance on Saudi Arabia as a key ally in the Middle East and bulwark against Iran.

President Trump has resisted pinning the blame for the killing on Mohammed, who enjoys a close relationship with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. Privately, aides said, Trump has been shown evidence of the prince’s involvement but remains skeptical that Mohammed ordered the killing.

The president has also asked CIA and State Department officials where Khashoggi’s body is and has grown frustrated that they have not been able to provide an answer. The CIA does not know the location of Khashoggi’s remains, according to the people familiar with the agency’s assessment.

Among the intelligence assembled by the CIA is an audio recording from a listening device that the Turks placed inside the Saudi Consulate, according to the people familiar with the matter. The Turks gave the CIA a copy of that audio, and the agency’s director, Gina Haspel, has listened to it.

The audio shows that Khashoggi was killed within moments of entering the consulate, according to officials in multiple countries who have listened to it or been briefed on its contents. Khashoggi died in the office of the Saudi consul general, who can be heard expressing his displeasure that Khashoggi’s body now needed to be disposed of and the facility cleaned of any evidence, according to people familiar with the audio recording.

[Woman says she married Khashoggi in ceremony kept secret from his fiancee and some in his family]

The CIA also examined a call placed from inside the consulate after the killing by an alleged member of the Saudi hit team, Maher Mutreb, a security official who has often been seen at the crown prince’s side and who was photographed entering and leaving the consulate on the day of the killing.

Mutreb called Saud al-Qahtani, then one of the top aides to Mohammed, and informed him that the operation had been completed, according to people familiar with the call.

This week, the Treasury Department sanctioned 17 individuals it said were involved in Khashoggi’s death, including Qahtani, Mutreb and the Saudi consul general in Turkey, Mohammad al-Otaibi.

The CIA’s assessment of Mohammed’s role in the assassination also tracks with information developed by foreign governments, according to officials in several European capitals who have concluded that the operation was too brazen to have taken place without Mohammed’s direction.

Turkish President Recep Tay­yip Erdogan has said his government has shared the audio with Germany, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia.

In addition to calls and audio recordings, CIA analysts also linked some members of the Saudi hit team directly to Mohammed himself. Some of the 15 members have served on his security team and traveled in the United States during visits by senior Saudi officials, including the crown prince, according to passport records reviewed by The Post.

The United States had also ­obtained intelligence before Khashoggi’s death that indicated he might be in danger. But it wasn’t until after he disappeared on Oct. 2 that U.S. intelligence agencies began searching archives of intercepted communications and discovered material indicating that the Saudi royal family had been seeking to lure Khashoggi back to Riyadh.

Two U.S. officials said there has been no indication that officials were aware of this intelligence in advance of Khashoggi’s disappearance or had missed any chance to warn him.

Khashoggi “was not a person of interest” before his disappearance, and the fact that he was residing in Virginia meant that he was regarded as a U.S. person and therefore shielded from U.S. intelligence gathering, one of the officials said.

Trump has told senior White House officials that he wants Mohammed to remain in power because Saudi Arabia helps to check Iran, which the administration considers its top security challenge in the Middle East. He has said that he does not want the controversy over Khashoggi’s death to impede oil production by the kingdom.

One lingering question is why Mohammed might have decided to kill Khashoggi, who was not agitating for the crown prince’s removal.

A theory the CIA has developed is that Mohammed believed Khashoggi was a dangerous Islamist who was too sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to people familiar with the assessment. Days after Khashoggi disappeared, Mohammed relayed that view in a phone call with Kushner and John Bolton, the national security adviser, who has long opposed the Brotherhood and seen it as a regional security threat.

Mohammed’s private condemnation of the slain journalist stood in contrast to his government’s public comments, which mourned Khashoggi’s killing as a “terrible mistake” and a “tragedy.”

U.S. officials are unclear on when or whether the Saudi government will follow through with its threatened executions of the individuals blamed for Khashoggi’s killing. “It could happen overnight or take 20 years,” the U.S. official said, adding that the treatment of subordinates could erode Mohammed’s standing going forward.

In killing those who followed his orders, “it’s hard to get the next set [of subordinates] to help,” the official said.

John Hudson and Missy Ryan in Washington, Souad Mekhennet in Frankfurt, and Loveday Morris and Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Nuclear arms control is going down a Trumpian hole

2018-11-17

Reacting to the radio interview by French President Emmanuel Macron to mark Armistice Day, in which he was reported as saying, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America… We need a true European army,” President Donald Trump blew a fuse. He tweeted: “President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the US, China and Russia. Very insulting.” 

In fact, Trump’s reaction was based on reading a false report of what Macron said. In that part of the interview, he was talking about cyber attacks. Nevertheless, Macron was indeed angrily critical of Trump: “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security.” 

The treaty is the so-called I.N.F., the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, an arms control agreement from 1987 that helped to end the Cold War. It was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. 

Trump has already refused an offer by President Vladimir Putin to cut another 1000 inter-continental missiles, the same sized cut that was made with President Barack Obama. He is pouring tens of billions of dollars into upgrading US nuclear forces

Trump’s move comes after President George W. Bush killed off the thirty-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. At the time of its formulation, the former US Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, when lobbying successfully for the treaty, argued that ballistic missile defence could provoke an arms race, and that it might provoke a surprise first-strike against the nation fielding the defence. The Russians regarded the Bush annulment as a step back to the fears and threats of the Cold War. 

Now with the prospect of a second annulment, Moscow is up in arms, more than ever convinced that Washington is out to get the nuclear upper hand. All the indications are that it is. Trump has already refused an offer by President Vladimir Putin to cut another 1000 inter-continental missiles, the same sized cut that was made with President Barack Obama. He is pouring tens of billions of dollars into upgrading US nuclear forces. 

This fits into the Trump philosophy of “America First.” He wants no constraints to be imposed on American foreign policy. This is why he quit the Paris climate accord and repudiated the international community’s nuclear deal with Iran (Since this was approved unanimously by the UN Security Council, the US is breaking international law.) Trump has even decided that the US will be leaving the 144-year-old Universal Postal Union (He says China gets too good a deal.) 

The I.N.F. treaty establishes a prohibition of missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Ending it is to inject an element of nuclear instability into European security. Russian nuclear weapons could then legitimately be targeted on Europe. 

The administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Trump have both argued that Russia has acted in flagrant violation of the treaty. Russia’s deployment of a new generation of 9M279 land-based cruise missiles is said to be a direct challenge to the I.N.F’s commitments. 

However, the intelligence behind the US claim has never been published. Russia has legitimately complained itself about the impact on the nuclear balance of new US missile defence systems. 

So far, European countries have lined up with the US. But now the tide is turning. Macron recently had a phone conversation with Trump arguing that the US’ remedy was counterproductive. He told Trump that he could lead a Nato-wide effort to hold Russia to the terms of the treaty, while discussing the pact’s extension to other nuclear powers that now have medium range systems of their own. 

In an editorial on October 24, the Financial Times argued, “There is a temptation to see the idea of nuclear confrontation among great powers as belonging to the bygone age of Dr. Strangelove. The world has moved on from mutually assured destruction. The reality, amplified by the demise of the I.N.F. treaty, is the threat of a new era of nuclear instability, this time unchecked by the agreements that stabilised the stand-off between the US and the Soviet Union….Now that the US has cut loose, why should China -- or for that matter, Iran and North Korea -- accept voluntary restraint?” 

During the time of President Bill Clinton, North  Korea agreed to eliminate missiles with a range over 500 kilometres. The deal wasn’t finalised. Today, it could be a base for constructing a new agreement. This would remove the Korean missile threat to Japan. 

If the US ceased its confrontation with Iran, it could negotiate an agreement to limit its 500-kilometre-range systems. This would take away the Iranian missile threat to Israel.  India, China and Pakistan could agree not to nuclearise missiles with ranges below 500kms. This would keep their short-range conventional missiles distinct from nuclear systems, reducing the destabilising ambiguity in such missiles. 

But Trump wants to blow up all these positive possibilities.