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In this mailing:
* Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians and the Virus of Normalization
* Joseph M. Humire: Combatting China, Cuba and Venezuela's COVID-19 Propaganda War in Latin America


** Palestinians and the Virus of Normalization ([link removed])
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • April 27, 2020 at 5:00 am
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* If Hamas is opposed to any form of cooperation with Israel, why does it continue to allow medical supplies to be transferred from Israel into the Gaza Strip on an almost weekly basis?... It was also revealed that the sister of senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk had been admitted to an Israeli hospital for two weeks for cancer treatments.
* Yet, Hamas is now saying that the Palestinian "peace activists" who talked to Israelis through an online videoconference will face legal measures for their "crime."
* If Hamas does not want any contact with Israel, it should close the Gaza Strip border with Israel and refuse to medical supplies or truckloads of goods and fuel. If Hamas does not want any contact with Israel, it should stop sending family members of its leaders to receive medical treatment in Israel. If Hamas does not want any form of contact with Israel, it should stop sending Palestinian doctors to receive training from Israelis.
* If and when the "peace activists" go on trial in the Gaza Strip, the international community and all those who describe themselves as pro-Palestinian advocates will have a golden opportunity to call out Hamas for its hypocrisy and lies. Failing to do so will directly facilitate the intimidation that Hamas and Palestinian extremists apply to anyone who seeks a better future for the Palestinians or peace with Israel.

If Hamas is opposed to any form of cooperation with Israel, why does it continue to allow medical supplies to be transferred from Israel into the Gaza Strip on an almost weekly basis? It was also revealed that the sister of senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk (pictured) had been admitted to an Israeli hospital for two weeks for cancer treatments. (Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)

Rami Aman, a Palestinian journalist and "peace activist," has been under detention by Hamas since April 9 on charges of holding a videoconference chat with Israelis to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Eyad al-Bozom, a spokesperson for the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior, said that Aman and other Palestinians who participated in the videoconference with the Israelis are suspected of "holding a normalization activity with the Israeli occupation via the internet." According to al-Bozom, "holding any contact with the Israeli occupation is a crime punishable by law and a betrayal of our people and their sacrifices."

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** Combatting China, Cuba and Venezuela's COVID-19 Propaganda War in Latin America ([link removed])
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by Joseph M. Humire • April 27, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* China and its Latin American allies are aggressively attempting to convince the world that the U.S. is secretly the original source of the virus and that China is the only country that can save us. This state propaganda is enforced through a digital army of upwards of two million state-backed internet trolls dubbed the "Wu Mao" or "50 cent" army, named after how much the PRC reportedly pays per pro-China post.
* China and Cuba have been complementing their propaganda with "medical diplomacy", which appears to serve as a gateway to enhance their strategic positioning in Latin America. Efforts include aggressive propaganda, such as the fake news that Cuba has the cure for the coronavirus. The message is then spread in Spanish through social media and messaging platforms. Meanwhile, Cuba has been sending medical missions, manned by physicians who are evidently victims of human trafficking, to Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil.
* The Cuban and Chinese medical diplomacy also stretched to Spain, where, on March 30, shortly after Spain's Health Minister Salvador Illa announced the purchase of $467 million in medical supplies from China, 39 Cuban doctors were dispatched to neighboring Andorra. The shipment from a Chinese manufacturer included "quick result" COVID-19 tests that were faulty and had to be sent back.
* Cuba has been touting its Alfa 2B drug as a potential cure to COVID-19 in state media platforms, which are parroted by China. This claim.... prompted a South African spokesman to warn that "there is still no cure for the killer virus."
* Cuban state media loves to boast that the export of Alfa 2B is in demand in more than 15 countries and has been used to cure 1,500 cases of the coronavirus in China. What it is actually exporting is the propaganda around the drug. Several fabricated "news" clippings have surfaced in recent weeks on Spanish social media saying that Cuba has a cure for COVID-19. This propaganda is being spread by Cuba's allies in the "Bolivarian network" led by Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.

The increasing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 might have originated in a Wuhan laboratory is sparking an intense global battle of credibility between Washington and Beijing. The People's Republic of China (PRC), however, has already been fighting this war through an aggressive disinformation campaign against the U.S. in various parts of the world, including in Latin America.

Not since two Chinese colonels warned in 1999 that the country was engaged in "Unrestricted Warfare" against America has the U.S. government been on alert to the threat posed by China's offensives worldwide.

In Latin America, this influence is shaped by China's economic engagement: China has extended the region upwards of $142 billion in Chinese policy bank loans since 2007. Almost half these loans went to Venezuela, now bankrupt, where the regime of Nicolás Maduro has joined China and others in accusing the U.S. of manipulating the virus as a biowarfare weapon.

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